Vocabulary

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Learning and knowing words that we read

Vocabulary is the collection of words that your reader knows and understands. Words are gained from conversation, hearing someone read, and self reading. We also talk about words in our classroom to learn new vocabulary words.

A strong vocabulary helps us understand what we are reading (comprehension). We cannot understand text if we do not know what the words mean. Developing a strong vocabulary helps your child progress and grow throughout this year and in future learning.

Here are a few things we do to develop a strong vocabulary:

We read books that have new or unusual words. We talk about the words and what they mean, sometimes before we read the book and sometimes while we are reading the book.

We use context to figure out unfamiliar words. We look at the other words in the sentence and at other sentences for clues about what the word means. If there are illustrations, we look at those for more clues to the meaning of new words.

We practice writing words so we will be familiar with these words and remember them when we are reading or writing.

We use new words in our writing. Using the words helps us make the meaning stronger in our minds.

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