Adding a New Word to Your Vocabulary
Whether a child is speaking, reading or writing, there is the need to clearly understand what is being said or communicated. The only way to make sure this is done effectively is through an expansion of vocabulary word recognition. This gives the capacity to automatically expand the child’s knowledge of what is being said and also assists with clear expression through English and grammar.
When a child does not have an expansive vocabulary, or when they are just learning basic vocabulary, it causes them to be limited in communication levels. It has been noted children have the need to understand not only what is being said, but to also recognize specific words and to be able to define these through memory recall. If children don’t understand a word, especially that is speech related, then it can cause difficulties in understanding the meaning of what is being said through speech[1].
When building vocabulary children not only need to be able to have basic recognition, but need to grow into a confident level for the application of the words. It has been found that basic understanding, especially when relating to speech, is not significant enough. Instead, there have to be different measures of confidence that provide children with better results from the words they are learning.
The confidence levels children and adults acquire when moving into an understanding of a vocabulary word, both in speech and writing, requires more than defining the words. For instance, if one is reading a text, and doesn’t understand a word or its context, the understanding and confidence level can’t be attained. This will be attempted with possible meanings or trying to tie the word into the rest of the sentence. While this provides a basic understanding, it can often lead to misinterpretations and misconceptions of the word.
The solution to this is to focus specifically on building the new vocabulary word at a different level. This means there is a need to separate out words, define them, memorize them and use them in context, such as through speech, reading and writing. The more this is done and practiced, the more it becomes defined consistently and becomes a regular part of the practice for children and adults. The result is higher confidence in words used, as well as a complete understanding of what they mean[2].
With this specific idea, is the ability to take any vocabulary word and expand its meaning through continuous recognition and by applying it in different uses, such as speech, reading and writing. Doing this allows individuals to completely build their level of knowledge, as well as confidence in the words used, with an end result of having higher levels of comprehension of reading materials and communication.
[1] Wilpon, J.G., LR Rabiner, C-H Lee, ER Goldman. (1990). “Automatic Recognition of Keywords in Unconstrained Speech Using Hidden Markov Models.” Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (38), (11).
[2] Parry, Kate. (1991). “Building a Vocabulary Through Academic Reading.” TESOL Quarterly (25), (4), 629 – 653.
