Research School Network: Four powerful ways to think about vocabulary Knowing these four things can shape how we teach vocabulary effectively

Words are important. They are the building blocks of reading, writing, speaking, listening – and thinking. All teachers know the importance of developing pupils’ vocabulary and do it every lesson through many activities.

Having these four ways to think about vocabulary can help you teach it even more effectively.

Breadth and depth

Pupils must learn the meaning of many words; it’s also vital that pupils learn relationships between words and subtleties of meaning. These two ideas are known as vocabulary breadth and depth, respectively.

A key lesson from the best available evidence is that depth may be more important than breadth. Therefore, we should think about how we support pupils to develop rich, networked vocabulary knowledge.

Receptive and expressive

Receptive vocabulary is how well pupils make sense of words that they encounter through reading and listening. A rich receptive vocabulary helps pupils to make meaning. However, pupils may not use many words that they understand in their own speech and writing.

Receptive word knowledge tends to come before expressive use. Being aware of these different aspects of vocabulary can help us ensure that we develop both.

Explicit and implicit teaching

Some words – like photosynthesis – we teach pupils explicitly; other words pupils just pick up from exposure to them. The evidence is clear that explicit vocabulary teaching and a rich language environment are critical for developing pupils’ vocabulary.

Explicit teaching of vocabulary can be beneficial. Yet, the finite curriculum time means teachers have to prioritise which words to teach carefully.

Tiers of vocabulary

One way to decide how to prioritise words for explicit teaching is the tiers of vocabulary model. This splits words into three tiers.

• Tier one words, like book, child and clock, are used so often in spoken language that pupils tend to learn them without focused teaching.
• Tier two words, like conveys, reinforces, and proficiency, are rarely used in spoken language but can be used in multiple subject areas. Pupils may benefit from explicit teaching of these words.
• Tier three words, like photosynthesis, hypotenuse and monarch, are subject-specific words that occur infrequently in day-to-day interactions. Again, pupils are likely to benefit from being taught these words systematically and explicitly.

in addition to teaching specific words explicitly, we can also teach pupils strategies to make sense of words. One option focuses on morphology – the smallest unit of meaning in words, like prefixes, suffixes and root words. This approach can also support pupils to make connections between words with related meanings – this improves pupils’ depth of vocabulary.

These four ways to think about vocabulary can help us ask better questions about how we tackle the difficult task of improving pupils’ vocabulary.