When it comes to learning and having fun, every speech pathologist will tell you about the power of books! Books are a super-tool for your child’s language and social skills, helping their development in a number of ways. For example, books can help your children:
- Learn that sounds are represented by letters
- Develop their imaginations and creativity
- Understand emotions or learn valuable lessons from a wonderful framework (think Aesop’s Fables of yester-year)
- Develop their understanding (comprehension) of concepts and rationales (you can read about this in my last blog!)
- Encounter different worlds, cultures, animals, and times
Research tells us over and over again that book reading benefits our children immensely. We know that early exposure to enjoyable book reading and storytelling can positively impact literacy development throughout our children’s learning journeys, both in what they say and what they write. An important part of this is due to the vocabulary, or words, used in books.
Why is the Vocabulary in Books so Important?
Here is a fun tidbit that blows my mind every time I think about it. Research suggests that humans use the same three to 5 000 words in everyday conversation. Sound like a lot? Not when you consider there’s nearly 200 000 words in the English language. Books are like our gateway to this massive amount of words, and the more we understand their meanings and nuances, the more likely we are to speak or write them.
The Three Tiers of Vocabulary:
Let me get technical for a second. There are three ‘tiers’ (or levels) of vocabulary that your speech pathologist or teacher might refer to. They are:
Tier 1: These are the most basic of words that rarely require an explanation to define or understand. They’re mostly our common naming or doing words, like dog, cat, table, sad, jump, run, want, and looked. We predominantly use these words in our spoken conversation.
Tier 2: These guys are the commonly used (or high-frequency) words hidden inside our books or in the conversations of adults. This tier is where it’s at, and often when your speech pathologist or teacher recommends ‘vocabulary instruction’ or intervention they’re talking about these words. You’ll find these words every time you open a book. Some examples include: reluctant, industrious, malicious, typical, and plunge.
Tier 3: This tier is full of words that belong to conversations and writing about a particular context, job or topic. These words are jargon, or words that we learn in order to understand specific subjects like the weather, historical events, or our jobs. We only learn these words when the need arises. Examples of Tier 3 words include cumulonimbus, metamorphosis, photosynthesis, phonology, arbitration, or conveyance.
Why Should we Focus on Tier 2 Words?
Studies show that as readers, we don’t often learn what these words mean on purpose. Rather, we read them in the context they were written in, and infer (or work out) their meaning. This usually works out well! For example, if you read the sentences: ‘He was reluctant to jump into the pool. He took a deep breath to gather his confidence, then plunged into the cold water’, you could probably guess that ‘reluctant’ meant that he didn’t want to, and ‘plunged’ meant something to do with jumping in.
But this isn’t a foolproof way to learn the meaning of words like reluctant or plunge. If I read the sentence, ‘He smiled at me maliciously’, I might accidentally think that malicious was something positive (rather than something down with harmful intent) because he did it with a smile. By focusing on explicitly learning Tier 2 vocabulary, we learn the meaning of more words, which helps us understand the things that we are reading.
The other important reason to focus on Tier 2 words is that by understanding the meanings of the words we read, we increase the likelihood that we will use those words in our own writing and verbal conversations. The effect? Our sentences and our language becomes more explicit and clear; more descriptive and wonderful. Instead of, ‘I felt very excited’, I can say, ‘I felt ecstatic’. Instead of, ‘this is hard’, I can express, ‘this is a bit complicated’. By teaching Tier 2 vocabulary to our children, we equip them with the ability to express their thoughts and feelings more accurately and effectively.
So How Do we Teach it?
There are many ways to learn Tier 2 Vocabulary, but I like to start with a simple step: Have your child write down the words they’re not familiar with. Then, have a look at the list. Find the words that:
- Express common concepts that are often talked about but in a more sophisticated way. For example, hindered is a more sophisticated way to say ‘something got in the way’.
- Can be used across a lot of contexts. For example, reluctant can be used to describe how we feel about chores, homework, getting up in the morning, or going to work on a Monday.
- Can have more than one meaning. For example, revelation means to tell someone an unknown fact. But it also means to disclose something relating to human experience.
- Have strong emotional or visual links to our daily life. If we can imagine and feel the word, and bring it to our own lived experience, then it’s a lot easier to understand, remember, and use the word! For example, almost everyone can come up with something they really ‘despise’.
- Can genuinely be used appropriately in conversation or writing. This is because learning these words requires practice, and we want to have the ability to insert them into conversation or writing again and again.
Generally, your speech pathologist will encourage you to pick 1-3 of these words per week, and to help your child learn their definition, what their synonyms (words that mean the same) and antonyms (words that mean the opposite) are; what it looks like, and how it can be used in a sentence. They might also encourage your child to consider the word in relation to their own life experiences and preferences by asking questions such as ‘Do you think you would feel more reluctant to change a dirty nappy, or to get out of bed when it’s very, very cold’?
Tier 2 Vocabulary is integral to our children’s ability to understand what they are reading, and express themselves more clearly and authentically. It is fundamental to their academic success and a worthwhile goal to incorporate into their speech pathology sessions. If you’re concerned about your child’s understanding of written words, or their use of vocabulary when speaking, contact your speech pathologist. We’re here to help!
PS: how many Tier 2 words did you notice in this blog post?
Source: Beck, Isabel L. McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002). Choosing Words to Teach. In Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (15-30). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
