Do You Know Why Most Vocabulary Programs Fail?
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Most vocabulary programs fail to help students learn new words faster and there are two main reasons.
1. Everyone is lumped onto the same level of difficulty with no regard for their skill level.
2. They don't take the student through the material enough times to embed the information in their long term memory.
Research shows that children entering the first grade have large differences in their oral (pre-reading) vocabulary. In one study the top five percent of first graders had a working vocabulary of 7000 words. Children in the bottom 28 percent had an average vocabulary of 1500 words. These differences were not, on average, due to IQ (children in the bottom 28 percent learned new words just as quickly as those in the top five percent, once they started school) but to environment- how many hours did each child spend being read to or in conversation with adults?
For the most part schools are not aware of the vocabulary level of the incoming students. Since a pre-readers vocabulary can only be measured orally schools are not equipped to measure it. The problem is that if nothing is done to improve the vocabulary of a student that is behind they will continue to get farther and farther behind. Each year the material they will work with is going to be more difficult adding to their frustration and often time low self esteem. What is the solution? We must find out the vocabulary level and build a customized training path based on that information. The results will come very quickly as they improve their vocabulary. The challenge today is that current training methods are using a one size fits all approach. Most of the time students are being presented with word list where they already know a large part of it or even more frustrating is when they are presented with material that is way beyond their level. In the first scenario they won't be challenged and in the second scenario it will be so hard they will quit in frustration. Either way they aren't going to improve their vocabulary enough to matter.
At this point it's fair to ask what a well designed vocabulary program would look like. One of the most important elements is making sure the student gets enough repeat exposures in different formats to commit the new word to their long term memory. We're not talking about them necessarily using the words in their everyday conversation as much as we're talking about them being able to recognize them when they see or hear them. In the end the student must know the meaning of the word, the proper spelling plus the proper pronunciation. Then when they run across one of these words while reading they will immediately know its meaning and be able to read at full speed.
The last thing that must be considered is that the learning process must be something that the student enjoys. The simple fact is that if they don't like the process they will never use the program enough to make a difference. Improving their vocabulary is the best way to help them catch and ultimatley pass there peers.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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