ABSTRACT
Hearing a child’s first words represents one of the most anticipated developmental milestones for parents. From the moment of first words, the rapid pace at which children understand and use vocabulary in the second year of life—also known as a “vocabulary spurt”—is common knowledge in the field of language acquisition. Perhaps because this phenomenon typically unfolds in early childhood, understanding the meanings of words and the ability to use those words productively may appear to be a rather straightforward, even simple, task. Yet, amassing vocabulary knowledge represents a remarkably complex and dynamic developmental feat that begins in early childhood, unquestionably requiring many opportunities to hear and use language.
This chapter attends to factors at home, but especially in school, that are known to influence vocabulary knowledge and development among children. Additionally, it attends to gaps between science and practice in our knowledge base in this domain. Given that vocabulary learning is a developmental process, research conducted from toddlerhood to adolescence is considered. The increasing economic, racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity in our U.S. child population requires that we take stock of what we currently know and do not yet know about vocabulary development, vocabulary assessment, and vocabulary instruction. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that all students, independent of the life circumstances into which they are born and the instructional settings which they attend, are provided with the opportunity to develop their vocabulary knowledge.
We begin the chapter by exploring the importance of vocabulary, then elaborate on vocabulary as a concept. From there, we synthesize research on language environments, the language acquisition process, and disparities in learning opportunity for children that are culturally, linguistically, and/or socioeconomically diverse. Finally, we end by identifying promising approaches to building vocabulary and making recommendations for future directions in vocabulary research.
