According to Gail E. Tompkins in her text, Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach, students' vocabularies grow quickly. They learn approximately 3,000 words a year, which averages to 7-10 words a day! Tompkins finds that, "by the time students graduate from high school, their vocabularies can reach 25,000 to 50,000 words or more" (2009).
So, how do students learn these words?
Studies show that reading is the primary factor in vocabulary growth, but a child's surroundings are also crucial to word development and understanding. They learn through interactions with family and friends, through daily activities, and through other hobbies. Though some may view this as unfortunate, television and other media has a major impact on a child's word acquisition, but the programs should have educational content of some sort and should be limited to short spans of time each day. According to a formula by Janet Allen from her book Words, words, words, new language is acquired in four levels (1999):
unknown word - students don't recognize the word
initial recognition - students have seen or heard the word or can pronounce it, but they don't know the meaning
partial word knowledge - students know one meaning of the word and can use it in a sentence.
full word knowledge - students know more than one meaning of the word and can use it it in several ways (Tompkins 2009)
Webquests are an excellent and modern way in which students can acquire new vocabulary. Check out the link below for an example.
According to Gail E. Tompkins in her text, Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach, students' vocabularies grow quickly. They learn approximately 3,000 words a year, which averages to 7-10 words a day! Tompkins finds that, "by the time students graduate from high school, their vocabularies can reach 25,000 to 50,000 words or more" (2009).
So, how do students learn these words?
Studies show that reading is the primary factor in vocabulary growth, but a child's surroundings are also crucial to word development and understanding. They learn through interactions with family and friends, through daily activities, and through other hobbies. Though some may view this as unfortunate, television and other media has a major impact on a child's word acquisition, but the programs should have educational content of some sort and should be limited to short spans of time each day.According to a formula by Janet Allen from her book Words, words, words, new language is acquired in four levels (1999):
Webquests are an excellent and modern way in which students can acquire new vocabulary. Check out the link below for an example.
http://www.pekin.net/pekin108/contribute/ataylor/Vocabulary.htm