Do You Know Why Most Vocabulary Programs Fail?

Do You Know Why Most Vocabulary Programs Fail?
What are the two main reasons almost all vocabulary programs fail to increase the rate at which students learn new words?

by Tom Donahue

What are the two main reasons almost all vocabulary programs fail to increase the rate at which students learn new words?

1. They start everyone at the same place (no-word difficulty list and no placement test)

2. They don’t take the student through the material enough times to embed the information in their long term memory.

Research has show that there is an enormous difference in the vocabulary of first graders in the top 5% of their class and the ones in the bottom third. In fact the difference is often times as much as a 4500 word difference in the total number of words they know. The good news is that this has nothing to do with the student’s IQ since both groups acquired new words at the same rate when they were taught based on their skill level. The research shows that the 4500 word difference is a function of what the student is exposed to at home through reading or being spoken to.

As a general rule of thumb schools have no idea what the vocabulary level of first grader is. This is mostly due to the fact that it can only be measured orally and they simply don’t have the resources to do measure it. When a student is behind in their vocabulary and nothing is done to improve it the will continue to be behind and the problem gets worse and with each new grade as the material gets more and more difficult. What can be done? We must determine what the vocabulary level of the student is and then get them started on a learning path tailored to their existing level of vocabulary. This will rapidly boost their learning of new words. The problem is that traditional vocabulary programs take a cookie cutter approach and try to put everyone through the same path. More often than not the students are presented with a word list that has a bunch of words they already know. Or worse yet sometime they are given a list of words that are way beyond their current level. On one hand they will not be challenged and on the other the will give up. In either case they won’t learn enough words to improve their vocabulary.

What does an intelligent vocabulary learning path (a “perfect practice” path) look like? It must give students enough multi-mode repetitions to put a new word’s primary meaning, spelling, and pronunciation into their passive (”I recognize but don’t necessarily use that word”) vocabulary. It must make the word-recognition automatic so that when a new word is encountered in reading is absorbed immediately, without bringing the whole show to a stop!

The last thing that must be considered is that the learning process must be something that the student enjoys. The simple fact is that if they don’t like the process they will never use the program enough to make a difference. Improving their vocabulary is the best way to help them catch and ultimatley pass there peers.

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