{"id":16507,"date":"2025-06-17T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/?p=16507"},"modified":"2025-06-16T09:51:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:51:28","slug":"reading-and-vocabulary-why-your-kids-can-never-have-too-much-of-either","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/2025\/reading-and-vocabulary-why-your-kids-can-never-have-too-much-of-either\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading and vocabulary: Why your kids can never have too much of either"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My daughter, who is in middle school, has dreams of being a veterinarian. One night, while looking for a program to watch, she found Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet<\/em> on Disney+. It\u2019s a series about a veterinarian who helps all kinds of animals\u2014from pets to farm animals to rescued wildlife\u2014in the Yukon and Alaska. In each episode, viewers follow the vet as she treats different animals, describing procedures using both simple language and medical terms.<\/p>\n

After a few episodes, my daughter began to pick out some of the medical terms and ask me what they meant. \u201cWhat is a hematoma, Mom?\u201d I know about many things, but medicine is not one of them. \u201cLet\u2019s look that one up!\u201d I suggested, and we did a quick search online. (A hematoma is a collection of clotted blood in the body, for those who are wondering.) Then, the other day, she told me her class was reading The Red Pony<\/em> by John Steinbeck. She and her peers were asked to debate whether the pony had been well taken care of, and my daughter used some of what she learned from Dr. Oakley to win her arguments.<\/p>\n

My daughter\u2019s experience is an example of how the vocabulary children learn helps them interact with and understand text. In this article, I\u2019ll explain what it means to \u201cknow\u201d vocabulary, how it helps us read and understand what we are reading, and how families can help their children build their vocabulary.<\/p>\n

What is vocabulary and why is it important for reading?<\/h2>\n

If you ask someone if they know a particular word, they might respond by telling you what it means. But most people don\u2019t realize that to \u201cknow\u201d a word means so much more than just knowing its definition.<\/p>\n

Vocabulary is all<\/em> the knowledge a person has about a word, which includes knowing what it means, when it is used, how to say it, and how to use it in a sentence. This knowledge also includes all the other ideas and terms connected with the word. For example, if you know the word \u201cdog,\u201d you probably also know that dogs can have a variety of relationships with people, such as being family pets, guiding the visually impaired, and working for the police and military. You might be able to picture different breeds of dogs, and you probably understand that certain words, such as \u201ccollar,\u201d \u201cleash,\u201d and \u201cfetch,\u201d are associated with dogs. All that information helps you understand the word \u201cdog\u201d and know how to use and interpret the meaning of the word in text.<\/p>\n

Having a large bank of vocabulary knowledge is one of the most important elements that can help a child make sense of text. The more vocabulary a child knows about what they are reading, the more they are able to comprehend, or make sense of, the text.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a graphic that shows how vocabulary helps support reading comprehension. The top piece of\u00a0the triangle is\u00a0reading comprehension,\u00a0or\u00a0how we make sense\u00a0of\u00a0what we read.\u00a0This\u00a0is\u00a0the key goal of reading.\u00a0The\u00a0two\u00a0skills\u00a0needed\u00a0to\u00a0reach this goal\u00a0make up the\u00a0bottom two pieces\u00a0of the triangle: language comprehension and decoding, which includes phonemic awareness and phonics.<\/p>\n

The Simple View of Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Vocabulary knowledge is part of language comprehension, but it also contributes directly to word recognition, which helps with fluency, shown in the center of the pyramid. Fluency, or the ability to read with an appropriate rate, accuracy, and expression, affects how well a person reads and understands what they read.<\/p>\n

The power of knowing many words<\/h2>\n

Let me give you an example of how a rich, deep knowledge of vocabulary helps reading comprehension. Let\u2019s take the word \u201cclose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Depending on what the sentence is about (the context) and where \u201cclose\u201d is positioned in the sentence (what part of speech it is), \u201cclose\u201d could be an adjective and mean \u201cnearby\u201d (\u201cThe store is close to my house\u201d) or it could be a verb and mean \u201cto shut\u201d (\u201cPlease close the door\u201d).<\/p>\n

Because you know that word, you understand that even though the spelling is the same, the meanings are different, the role it plays in the sentence is different (one is an adjective and the other a verb), and the way you say it is also different. There are so many examples in English of words like this, but your vocabulary knowledge helped you sort it all out.<\/p>\n

How kids learn vocabulary<\/h2>\n

Once kids start school, they will learn vocabulary in the classroom, but that is only one way to build vocabulary. Research by the National Institute for Literacy<\/a> has found that children learn most of their vocabulary outside<\/em> the classroom by reading on their own, listening to books read to them, having conversations with others, or watching something, as my daughter did. New information, experiences, and thinking all combine to build knowledge about words, and this happens throughout a person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

The more children learn about the world, in the classroom or out, the more prepared they will be to understand what they are reading because of the knowledge they have. Research out of Harvard<\/a> has also shown that the vocabulary development of young children impacts their ability to read and do well in school in later years.<\/p>\n

5 tips for home<\/h2>\n

Families can provide a lot of information to their children, such as word meanings or other details about a word, that can help them build their vocabulary. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n

1. Read to and with your children, as often as you can<\/em><\/h2>\n

Simply reading to children, taking turns reading with them, and having them read to you will help build vocabulary. You can do this with children of any age.<\/p>\n

The more variety in what you and your child read, the better. Read about different topics, read fiction and nonfiction, read magazines, chapter books, or graphic novels. Each offers different vocabulary, language usage, and information that can help provide meaning later on.<\/p>\n

Read a book from the Llama Llama<\/em> series<\/a> by Anna Dewdney to your kindergartener or Because of Winn-Dixie<\/em><\/a> by Kate DiCamillo to your third-grader, for example. Is your middle-schooler reading a Steinbeck novel? Take turns reading parts! Even 15 minutes of reading together is 15 minutes more than they would have gotten without your support.<\/p>\n

2. Get curious about language<\/em><\/h2>\n

Turn your reading time into a word party! Talk to your child about interesting or unknown words you stumble across during your reading. Are there words that sound interesting, funny, or particularly beautiful? Are there words they struggled with or couldn\u2019t define? This will give them the opportunity to ask questions and understand how each word fits into the story.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be afraid if you don\u2019t know every word you read together. You are setting a great example if your child sees that you are also learning new words.<\/p>\n

3. Look for clues to define new words<\/em><\/h2>\n

When your child doesn\u2019t know a word, try different strategies to encourage them to determine its meaning:<\/p>\n