Dear Rhonda,

I think it is hard to define how many new words should be taught to children in grade 2. Some can learn more quickly than others, and this makes the whole thing intricate. I don't think teachers should always comply with pre-determined schemes or procedures... In a learning process things happen naturally as well. We should only be able to monitor the improvements of a class on a daily/weekly/monthly basis in order to progress with our plans and programmes. Hope this helps a bit?

Thanks Antonio...But I also see the point of giving teachers a recommendation so they work towards trying to address the needs of those with significant deficits.  I think of the landmark Hart and Risley work and the differences in children coming from working class vs. professional homes, etc.  I feel teachers in the early years need a target to work towards...

An L1 English child usually masters around 3000 word families when she starts school, for an L2 child, let's make a discount, say 2000 word families, but even when we reduce the number to 2000, that is still a formidable task for an L2 learner, and for teachers as well. 

It depends. It is very difficult to define a precise number of items that the students should be learned in a specific time. You can do a research study on that, for example, learn 10 items in 10 mins, learn 15 items in 10 mins, learn 20 items in 10 mins, and consider the effect of spaced repetition, make comparison and do analysis. 

I think 3-5 words are OK. More than 5 new items might perplex learners, especially if they're learning English as a second or foreign language. Our current primary English textbooks are highly criticised by many Egyptian in-service teachers (as my preliminary research results show in one of my current studies) mainly for extra cognitive load. This involves requiring primary-stage pupils to learn more than 10 new words in each lesson! Therefore, I anticipate that pre-school children should learn much less (3-5 words) so as to build up their linguistic knowledge smoothly and in a relaxed fashion. Hope this helps. Mahmoud

Dear Rhonda,

I agree with colleagues who said that it depends on lots of factors. Some children in Serbia go to private language schools in those early ages and they know more English words than those who don't go to such schools. Anyway, I have some research experience that children (who don't have private English classes) in kindergarten have the capacity to learn 5 words at the most on daily basis.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Ivana

Rhonda;

Hi. Although I think that it is imperative to meet children where they are at as far as instruction is concerned (be it any type of instruction), I do understand your approach to wanting to have a definite guide in order to help children incur good literacy skills. Of course you could consider directly instructing in relation to common core; but I suspect you are looking for  guide beyond that of common core.  

Personally; I am one who does not think that there is a limit on what children should be explicitly taught in regard to new word enrichments. I am a firm believer in applying and subjecting children to a VERY rich learning environment. I think that if we limit children to a ' set standard' of learning, that we are doing them a disservice and actually cheating them out of a rewarding educational experience.

I would venture to guess that providing children with words around the classroom that are perhaps well above their reading ability would actually encourage and/or stimulate a child to want to learn more words. Words that are identifying in nature such as: 'paleontologist', 'laminator,' 'dictionary', 'archeologist', 'acupuncture', & 'germicides' are words that can be instilled into the classroom in one form or another and are well above that of k-2nd grade reading level. Even adding one new "advanced" word a week is better than not at all.

I did attach an article excerpted from:  “Insights on Learning Disabilities” 2(1) 33-45, (2005) that I thought may be an adept resource for you to take into consideration when deciding how to better enable your students to become excellent readers.

Thanks so much for the article Pastor Debbie Jean Lancaster.  Our province (New Brunswick) in eastern Canada is developing oral language standards for teachers.  I was not very specific in my initial request for information.  They are focusing heavily on vocabulary and what should be expected at each grade level and how much a child should learn.  I recall attending a session where figures were given as to how many new words a child learns in a day or week.  I am also familiar with "Meaningful Differences" work of B. Hart and T Risely...I work with many in the working class who arrive at school with significant deficits in vocabulary due to impoverished homes...

While I agree that it is hard to attach a figure, I also think it can be helpful to know what an average child is capable of learning and for the child that arrives with a significant gap, a ton of work is needed or their oral language deficit will lead to problem in reading and writing...so just looking for any research or recommendations.

Look at Biemiller's Words Worth Teaching.

Dear colleagues,

In line with the previous discussion, I am interested to research of how many English (as L2) words do preschool children, age 6, know before going to the first grade of Primary school? Preschool teachers in Serbia say that only those children who go to private language schools know some words but they are not sure how many and on average and which words (nouns, numbers...). What is your opinion or experience? Can anyone recommend a research article on this topic?

Thank you in advance,

Ivana