Building Blocks of Education: Understanding Vocabulary Building
Finding ways to enhance learning for students, specifically with building vocabulary, begins by knowing which tools to use. This not only supports their basic inner dictionary, but also provides them with support tools for communication, reading and comprehension at various levels. This is one of the most important skills that students acquire in their learning, leading them to more opportunity and advancement in education, career and everyday communication.
When you look at vocabulary building opportunities, you want to make sure you are able to understand what learning options are available, as well as what levels of learning they offer. Most have found that students should be able to understand what a word means at one level, and should be able to apply it in different situations as a deeper level of comprehension. Most have found that for the correct types of vocabulary to be used, is also the need to use context for the right application. This makes sure students apply the words being used correctly. With this, is the ability to expand vocabulary use for children.
Not only is there a need for basics with vocabulary building, by learning through context and with different levels, but there is also a need to understand more about what is required for using the correct terms through communication and conversation. It is known that everyone has a different level of knowledge and expansion when applying vocabulary. It is also known that this expansiveness is dependent upon reading levels and comprehension the individual has. Many have also found that the vocabulary comprehension indicates an overall level of intelligence, as well as capabilities with communication in this field1.
Because the level of communication, reading comprehension and overall capabilities of an individual are dependent on vocabulary, it is essential to use the right tools for building what is needed. With this, is the need to have basic abilities to understand vocabulary, build comprehension levels with reading and to show a direct relationship between application of words and memory that students have over specific words. The more this is done, the more levels of vocabulary for conversation expand, not only with basic use, but also with complete comprehension and the ability to apply words into new fields of understanding2.
Because there is a need to have various levels from memory to comprehension and everyday use of vocabulary, there is also the need to use the correct tools to build on these skills. Allowing children and adults to build their levels of understanding and finding different ways to assist them in not only basic memorization, but also in applying the context of words, is one that enhances reading levels as well as communication levels. Through this vocabulary building, is the ability to invite new opportunities for understanding among individuals while opening doors for better comprehension.
1 McKeown, Margaret, Mary Curtis. (1987). “The Nature of Vocabulary Inquisition.” Lawrence Erlbaum: New York.
2 Gathercole, S.E., A.D. Baddley. (1993). Phonological Working Memory: A Critical Building Block for Reading and Development and Vocabulary Acquisition. European Journal of Psychology of Education (8), (3).
