Research School Network: What Influences Vocabulary? How much does early vocabulary instruction influence children’s outcomes and what role do schools play?

Language skills are an integral prerequisite of the learning journey. This is never more relevant than in schools where it is no secret that examination based subjects heavily rely on the pupil’s language. The Institute of Education explores the influences behind vocabulary; the research study can be found here.

The Study
The findings in this briefing are based on data collected through the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK-wide birth cohort study, managed by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. When they were 14, participants were asked a wide range of questions about their lives, and also completed a multiple choice word assessment. Nearly 11,000 participants did this assessment. They were given 20 different words in English and five possible synonyms for each, and asked them to match each word to its correct synonym. An example question is shown below. The participant’s mother, and their mother’s spouse or partner, were asked to complete a similar assessment, so that the researchers could see how much of a bearing parents’ knowledge of vocabulary had on their children’s. The researchers used the results of these assessments, alongside other data about the teenagers, collected since they were born, to identify the strongest influences on children’s language development.

Key Findings
Children whose parents were educated to at least undergraduate degree level had, on average, a higher level of vocabulary.

Children who grew up in a home rich in books knew 42% more words than those from a home with very few books.

Children who read for pleasure most days knew 26% more words than those who never read at all.

Children who read often for pleasure and those from homes where there were lots of books available to them got better vocabulary scores.

Overall, the variation in the vocabulary scores of children was much smaller than for their parents. There were substantial differences in how many words parents understood, according to level of education and ethnic group, but among their children, who were all born in the UK, there was much less variation.

Key Message From the Research
Parental vocabulary does have an impact on their child’s vocabulary, but ​‘family background is not destiny’. Schools can put strategies in place that ensure this is not a barrier. Fran Haynes has delved further into the effective strategies that primary schools can use to ensure this barrier is overcome and it can be found here.