Most Vocabulary Programs Fail To Work. Here's Why.

Most vocabulary programs fail to help students learn new words faster and there are two main reasons.

1. They make the student start at a point that probably isn't right for them.

2. Students get only a fraction of the repetitions necessary to put new words into long-term memory.

There are huge differences in the spoken vocabulary (pre-reading) of kids entering the first grade. Research has shown that first graders in the top 5% have a productive vocabulary of 7000 words while the students in the bottom third of the class only knew about 1500 words. The interesting thing is that this isn't attributed to IQ because the student's that only knew 1500 words were able to learn new words just a quickly as the student's with the larger vocabularies. Instead it is attributed to their environment - specifically how much time did they spend talking to their parents or other adults and how much were they read to or did they read themselves.

For the most part schools are not aware of the vocabulary level of the incoming students. Since a pre-readers vocabulary can only be measured orally schools are not equipped to measure it. The problem is that if nothing is done to improve the vocabulary of a student that is behind they will continue to get farther and farther behind. Each year the material they will work with is going to be more difficult adding to their frustration and often time low self esteem. What is the solution? We must find out the vocabulary level and build a customized training path based on that information. The results will come very quickly as they improve their vocabulary. The challenge today is that current training methods are using a one size fits all approach. Most of the time students are being presented with word list where they already know a large part of it or even more frustrating is when they are presented with material that is way beyond their level. In the first scenario they won't be challenged and in the second scenario it will be so hard they will quit in frustration. Either way they aren't going to improve their vocabulary enough to matter.

At this point it's fair to ask what a well designed vocabulary program would look like. One of the most important elements is making sure the student gets enough repeat exposures in different formats to commit the new word to their long term memory. We're not talking about them necessarily using the words in their everyday conversation as much as we're talking about them being able to recognize them when they see or hear them. In the end the student must know the meaning of the word, the proper spelling plus the proper pronunciation. Then when they run across one of these words while reading they will immediately know its meaning and be able to read at full speed.

Of course none of this will work if the student doesn't like the process. As everyone knows they aren't going to do something they don't like for very long if at all. Which means if they enjoy the process they are much more likely to spend more time doing it which in turn will help them grow their vocabulary even more. The fact is improving a student's vocabulary is the surest thing we can do to help them catch up to, and even pass by, their fellow students.

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