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DEVELOPING VOCABULARY THROUGH PURPOSEFUL, STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS Barbara A 321 DEVELOPING VOCABULARY THROUGH PURPOSEFUL, STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS Barbara A. Wasik ■ Charlene Iannone-Campbell Talking with children and purposefully integrating new words in daily conversations can help build children’s vocabulary. Suggestions for incorporating vocabulary from read-alouds throughout daily activities are presented. ocabulary development plays a critical role classrooms can increase children’s use of language, in young children’s learning to read and, we suggest that to develop children’s vocabulary, as a result, their overall success in school teachers need to engage children in purposeful, (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002; Whitehurst strategic conversations that focus on the explicit &V Lonigan, 1998). However, vocabulary remains development of vocabulary words and help children one of the most difficult skills to teach (Dickinson, Freiberg, & Barnes, 2011; Neuman & Dwyer, 2009). Research suggests that providing opportunities for Barbara A. Wasik is a professor and PNC chair in Early Childhood children to talk and use language in meaningful Education at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; e-mail [email protected]. contexts can promote vocabulary development in Charlene Iannone-Campbell is the director of early learning for Baltimore preschoolers (Dickinson, Golinkoff, & Hirsch- City Schools, Maryland, USA; e-mail [email protected]. Pasek, 2010). Although promoting conversations in The Reading Teacher Vol. 66 Issue 2 pp. 321–332 DOI:10.1002/TRTR.01095 © 2012 International Reading Association R T ttrtr_1095.inddrtr_1095.indd 321321 111/22/20121/22/2012 33:15:13:15:13 PMPM 322 DEVELOPING VOCABULARY THROUGH PURPOSEFUL, STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS construct the meaning of words through multiple activities and experiences. Purposeful, strategic conversations are very different from the majority of conversations that adults have with children. As we discuss in this article, although all opportunities for conversations with children have value, purposeful, strategic conversations can be designed to explicitly develop children’s understanding and use of vocabulary to develop young children’s word knowledge. This article begins with a brief review of the research on the important role that vocabulary development plays in young children’s learning and a discussion of the nature of vocabulary instruction in preschool programs. need to acquire to be successful in Lopez, Gallimore, Garnier, & Reese, Then, a description of the distinction learning to read and in school. In most 2007). between conversations versus cases, young children acquire well- The problem still remains that purposeful, strategic conversations developed vocabulary from experiences many children do not have access to will be presented, along with specific with linguistically competent adults linguistically rich experiences that examples to clarify the differences. who scaffold children’s language promote vocabulary development. Finally, opportunities to implement using rich and varied language. This is especially true for our most purposeful, strategic conversations Specifically, research has also shown vulnerable children living in poverty. during specific classroom activities such that the preschool years are a critical Hart and Risely’s (1995) seminal work as book reading are discussed. time for oral language and vocabulary underscored that many households in development. poverty expose children to a limited The Importance A recent meta-analysis found a number of vocabulary words and of Vocabulary Development high correlation between preschool conversations that allow them to use the Vocabulary development is one of the language skills and reading competence language that they hear. They found that most important skills young children at the end of first and second grade middle-class families engaged in about (National Early Literacy Panel [NELP], five times as many conversations with 2009). Other studies have shown that their children and used more extensive language in the preschool years predicts vocabulary in these conversations reading in the later elementary grades compared with experiences in high- (e.g., fourth grade) and middle school poverty homes. Pause and Ponder (Dickinson & Porche, 2011; National As a result, the middle-class children Institute of Child Health and Human were adding to their vocabularies at a ■ Who is doing the talking in your Development Early Child Care Research higher rate than children from high- classroom? Network, 2005; Storch & Whitehurst, poverty homes. Studies of nationally ■ How do you keep vocabulary from read- 2002; Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & representative data sets such as Family alouds as part of your daily conversations Carta, 1994). Moreover, early vocabulary and Children Experiences Study and and activities? and later reading fluency are both the Early Childhood Longitudinal centrally implicated in children’s math Study–Kindergarten also show that ■ How much wait time do you give children and science performance (Hindman, children in poverty enter preschool to respond? Skibbe, Miller, & Zimmerman, 2010; and kindergarten with language and R T The Reading Teacher Vol. 66 Issue 2 Dec 2012 / Jan 2013 ttrtr_1095.inddrtr_1095.indd 322322 111/22/20121/22/2012 33:15:14:15:14 PMPM 323 DEVELOPING VOCABULARY THROUGH PURPOSEFUL, STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS vocabulary skills nearly a full standard Similarly, deviation below the national average, observations of placing them at a high risk for academic kindergarten difficulty or even failure (Administration and first-grade for Children and Families, 2011; Lee & classrooms Burkam, 2002). during literacy The hope that preschool experiences instruction will compensate for the lack of rich found that home language experiences is not although 60 unrealistic; however, current practices minutes was do not appear to be designed to foster spent engaging exposure to rich vocabulary. In a recent children in review of preschool curricula, Neuman activities and Dwyer (2009) concluded that that promote vocabulary instruction was virtually decoding nonexistent and that “strategies that skills, only 5 minutes of instructional conversations that can promote introduce young children to new time per day was devoted to engaging vocabulary development. words and entice them to engage children in activities that develop The fact that low-income children in meaningful contexts through oral language skills (Cunningham, tend to have limited exposure to semantically related activities are much Zibulsky, Stanovich, & Stanovich, vocabulary-enhancing activities at needed” (p. 384). 2009). In addition, most of the teacher home or in educational settings has Similarly, descriptive classroom talk was teacher-directed, particularly led a number of researchers to develop studies show that teachers do much of a managerial nature (e.g., “Clean various kinds of home-based or center- of the talking in preschool classrooms up” or “Keep your hands to yourself”), based interventions. Unfortunately, with little opportunities for children and offered few open-ended questions meta-analyses of the results of such to engage in meaningful dialogue. that model and promote language interventions suggest that it has not been Dickinson and colleagues (Dickinson development (Dickinson & Porche, easy to increase the size of low-income et al., 2011; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; 2011; Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Gest, children’s vocabulary. Dickinson, Watson, & Farran, 2008) Holland-Coviello, Welsh, Eicher-Catt, For example, the Preschool observed early childhood classrooms & Gill, 2006). Curriculum Evaluation Research (PCER) to determine the amount of teacher Research has also shown that evaluation examined 11 curricula that and child talk. Their findings indicate early childhood teachers spend an focused on language development that teachers produced, on average, average of only five minutes per day and found that only one of these 80% of all of the talking across various explicitly developing oral language and programs yielded significant gains for activities, including book reading. vocabulary skills (Beck & McKeown, language and reading readiness skills Of the limited amount of talk that 2007; Biemiller, 2001; Cunningham in randomized controlled trials (PCER, children produced, less than 2% et al., 2009; Juel, Biancarosa, Coker, 2008). Similarly, reviews of other large- constituted children expressing their & Deffes, 2003). This leaves little scale interventions funded by programs ideas. opportunity to engage children in such as Early Reading First, Head Start, and NELP concluded that most of these interventions also have not had much success in improving children’s vocabulary (Jackson et al., 2007; NELP, “Teachers produced, on average, 80% of 2009; Zill & Resnick, 2006). These null effects likely reflect the all of the talking across various activities, fact that (as noted earlier) vocabulary learning is not generally automatic, but including book reading.” rather requires more than increasing the www.reading.org R T ttrtr_1095.inddrtr_1095.indd 323323 111/22/20121/22/2012 33:15:20:15:20 PMPM 324 DEVELOPING VOCABULARY THROUGH PURPOSEFUL, STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS provide meaningful feedback on their remarks that scaffolds linguistic and cognitive development (Hirsh-Pasek & Burchinal, 2006; Landry et al., 2009). For example, in a longitudinal study examining teacher–child conversations, high-quality conversations during free play and book reading were linked to gains in children’s language production
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