More on Vocabulary

I couldn't stop thinking about the Sparks article on vocabulary.  I know that vocabulary is a key indicator of reading comprehension and intelligence, and a predictor for academic success.  I keep wondering why we don't have better instructional practices in this area.

I looked at my old copy of Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering and Pollack. The book also cites the incredible gaps among the lower, middle and upper classes when it comes to vocabulary.  They cite the work of Stahl and Fairbanks(1986) and Nagy.

Since a vocabulary teaching program typically teaches 10 to 12 words a week or about 400 words a year, ...vocabulary instruction is not adequate to cope with the volume of new words that children need to learn and do learn without instruction. 

Nagy and Herman (1987) offer an alternative to direct instruction.  They propose that students spend 25 minutes a day reading.

If students were to spend 25 minutes a day reading at a rate of 200 words per minute for 200 days out of the year, they would read a million words of text annually.  According to our estimates, with this amount of reading, children will encounter betweeen 15,000 and 30,000 unfamiliar words.  If one in 20 of these words is learned, the yearly gain in vocabulary will be between 750 and 1500 words. (p.20)

I was so pleased to read this.  Nagy sounds like the voice of reason.  Administrators and teachers are reaching for out of the box solutions for Common Core instruction and gap closing measures.  Students have to be given time to read.  This is not as easy as it seems.  It takes practice and perseverance to teach an eight year old how to maintain concentration and read.  But this is a skill like all skills and it can be taught---it should be taught---it must be taught.  Sustained silent reading both in and out of school must be practiced on a daily basis.  Then--perhaps---we will see some gains in voacabulary.