Developing the Lexical Acquistion of a Language

The benefits English language learners (ELLs) receive from Guided Reading are the same as all other students. However, when a modified approach is used ELLs benefit the most. Language learning opportunities gained by ELLs are those that native speakers acquire implicitly. Language and literacy learning opportunities including detailed vocabulary instruction, variables concerning second language (L2) text structure, such as semantics, syntax, and morphology are enhanced and enriched by modification. Some researchers have determined that ELLs are not generally ready for English reading instruction until they are intermediate stage of English language acquisition, while others advocate that reading and a second language are best acquired simultaneously (Avalos, Plasencia, Chavez, & Rascon, 2007, 319). In working with ELLs at

Reading can provide many benefits to the reader. One of those benefits is the expansion of the reader’s vocabulary. The more a reader reads, the broader the reader’s vocabulary.

As children learn new vocabulary words while learning to read, they understand and make connection with the sounding of the letters already acquired, to the word they see in print. Even though children learn the vocabulary meanings, usually through indirect experiences,

All students need direct instruction of vocabulary, but it is especially imperative for ELLs. They need much more exposure to new vocabulary than their native-English-speaking classmates. ELLs need to learn cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words to enhance their ability to make sense of new lexicon. Beginning ELLs and more advanced ELL students should actively engage in holistic activities to practice new vocabulary because learning words out of context is difficult for these students. If they memorize the meanings of the words on a list, they will not be able to use the words in their own writing or verbal production until they really understand the meanings. When vocabulary instruction includes explicit, implicit, and strategy instruction, students are repeatedly exposed to the target vocabulary in a variety of contexts which increases their individual vocabulary development and the other resources that help in doing so is the Semantic Mapping primary focus on visual relationships, which is helpful to students from all backgrounds.

“A Read Aloud Curriculum integrates intentional direct comprehension and explicit vocabulary instruction into read alouds while maintaining the integrity of an authentic read aloud experience that would be highly engaging for students (Fien, et al., 2011).” The Read Aloud program is structures as to “(a) set a purpose for reading, (b) building vocabulary knowledge, (c) making text-to-text and text-to-life connections, and (d) having students retell stories or information on a regular basis (Fien, et al., 2011).” The problem is that Read Alouds by themselves do not help close the gap between children who enter school with strong vocabularies and children who enter school with weak vocabularies, accordingly the gap between students with strong and weak vocabularies only grows as the children progress through school. Another setback for students with weak vocabularies is that there is a direct link between word knowledge and comprehension, consequently the children with weak vocabularies will struggle with comprehension. Small-group instruction shows promise in improving student’s vocabularies thus improving their comprehension. By spending more time with the text and receiving instruction in a group of 2-5 students, those with weak vocabularies have shown improvement in their word knowledge and

Building vocabulary is an important task in the early grades. There has long been debate on how one should go about teaching vocabulary such as, it is better to teach a limited number of words fully and more intense or expose children to many words to enhance “incidental learning”. Research has proven that incorporating both into instruction is most effective. Read-aloud and teachers increase use of vocabulary have also been proven to help vocabulary and word knowledge. There are three tiers of words that children are presented in their life. Tier one words are those that they are most familiar with such as park, tier 2 are the increasingly hard words such as fortunate and finally the tier 3 words are words that students have rarely been exposed

A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced

In addition to the vocabulary in their readings, students have been expected to learn twenty-five new vocabulary words per week. The focus is not on rote memorization of definitions; students must know synonyms, antonyms, and especially how to use vocabulary words in the context of the entire sentence. They study how to choose the right word for their purpose (diction) and analyze the subtleties of language.

The National Reading Panel of the national Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD, 2000) identified vocabulary instruction as an integral skill that the learners need to improve. In fact, there is strong evidence to support providing vocabulary instruction not only to improve learners reading comprehension and writing quality, but also their listening vocabulary and their speaking vocabulary (Joshi, 2006; Kame’enui & Baumann, 2012). Vocabulary knowledge, including both oral and written vocabulary, is critically important for a child’s success in school (Kamil, 2008).

For many of the students in my class, vocabulary instruction is of chief importance to their reading comprehension and their understanding of larger concepts discussed in class. The standard I am choosing to discuss is one I implement weekly, if not daily, in my lessons because without the skills and strategies to learn new words and understand the various meanings of words and phrases, students will struggle to succeed

Vocabulary plays a crucial part in a child learning to read. A student that has limited vocabulary often prevents them from comprehending the text that he or she reads. Students that do not read well often times read less because they find that reading is tough and frustrating. Since these low level readers do not read enough their vocabulary does not improve. Unfortunately, as the student continues through school the gap between good readers and poor readers widens tremendously.

One of the identified critical instructional components for helping students learn to read is vocabulary. Since the National Reading Panel (2000) and the National Early Literacy Panel (2009) reported that strong early oral vocabulary knowledge is a predictor for later successful reading outcomes, an increased research and teaching focus in this area has arisen.

When it comes to teaching, there are always different methods and strategies one can use. Many times students need to see and participate in multiple different methods of how to do something before they can start excelling in the task. In order to be a proficient reader a student must have a steady reading rate, good vocal inflection, articulate the words well, and learn from what they read (Text Response #5).

Although vocabulary is the sub-skill of a language, it plays a very important role in language learning and teaching. In fact, vocabulary is central to language and is of paramount importance to language learners. On the other hand, words are the building blocks of a language that are used to label objects, actions, and ideas. In other words, people cannot convey the intended meaning without knowing vocabulary. It is widely accepted that vocabulary is a very important part in English language learning because no one can communicate in any meaningful way without vocabulary. As McCarthy (1990) stated, the single, biggest component of any language course is vocabulary. Nation (1990) also affirms that vocabulary can be considered as the most important element in language learning because Learners think that many of their

Vocabulary plays a significant role in English as second language learning process. For the majority of English as Second Language(ESL) learners, the ultimate goal of learning the language is to understand (read and listen) and communicate (write and speak) with little difficulty and the lack of sufficient vocabulary may be the constraint of such goal (Folse, 2004). As the bedrock of English and as well as language, vocabulary also facilitates the development of other language skills: lexical richness leads to the progress in the use of language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing skills (Nation, 1994). Reversely, The improvement in such skills may enhance learners vocabulary size as the exposure to more learning materials improves the capacity to acquire new vocabulary. (The importance of learning vocabulary/ why vocabulary?)