Such knowledge influences the complexities and nuances of children’s thinking, how they communicate in the oral and written languages, and how well they will understand printed texts.
Knowledge of vocabulary meanings affects children’s abilities to understand and use words appropriately during the language acts of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Sinatra, Zygouris-Coe, and Dasinger (2011) note that: Learning vocabulary is a continual process of language and literacy development, which begins in the early years of life, and continues through schooling and beyond.
This includes helping with decoding (phonemic awareness and phonics), comprehension, and also fluency. Ideas for explicit introductions to conceptsĬhildren need to have a rich vocabulary that continually grows through language and literacy experiences, in order to comprehend and construct increasingly complex texts, and engage in oral language for a variety of social purposes.įocussing on vocabulary is useful for developing knowledge and skills in multiple aspects of language and literacy.Links to the Victorian Curriculum - English as an Additional Language (EAL).uses, which may be multiple, depending on context.syntax, that is, the way in which words are arranged to form phrases or sentences.meaning, which can vary according to context.Oral vocabulary is closely related to their reading vocabulary, which is the words that children can recognise and use in their reading or writing. Oral vocabulary refers to words that children can understand or use while speaking and listening. Vocabulary is an important focus of literacy teaching and refers to the knowledge or words, including their structure (morphology), use (grammar), meanings (semantics), and links to other words (word/semantic relationships).