Well, it doesn’t help that much, actually.
I know this probably goes against everything you’ve heard before but numerous studies indicate that reading alone is not the best way to learn new vocabulary.
Of course, reading does lots of other great things for your child. It reinforces existing vocabulary, develops grammar, spelling and punctuation and it’s great for demonstrating how to develop a story and describe a scene. But as far as introducing new vocabulary? Some studies have found that “almost no word learning” came from reading a story (NRTAC).
There are a few reasons why:
When children guess a definition based on an example sentence/story, they aren’t always 100% accurate. Sometimes, kids make perfectly reasonable guesses but they’re still completely wrong.
Just reading a story may not give your child enough context to understand the meaning of a word, which is why additional discussion is often needed.
Children generally need to read a new word at least 3 times before they have a chance of remembering it. Many stories will include challenging words, but they won’t always repeat those words several times. Without this repetition, children are likely to forget the new words they’ve read.
In order to understand a story, children need to understand about 98% of the words in the text. That means your child needs to do an awful lot of reading just to learn a few words; even then, they may not understand the new vocabulary (see point 1!).
Multiple studies (including Coyne, McCoach and Kapp, 2007 and Leung, 2008) have found that discussion and interactive activities help children to remember new words best.
Interact with your child by encouraging them to use the new vocabulary in a sentence, discuss its etymology (any prefixes, suffixes and root words) and to discuss similar words, synonyms and antonyms. This will help understanding and memory enormously.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Start exploring etymology with our Greek and Latin root word list.
Don’t learn vocabulary in the same way every time (Kamil, 2004). Vary the vocabulary activities that your child undertakes so that they’re not completing questions on autopilot.
For Wordier students, varying activities means working through physical resources, like our illustrated flashcards, discussing these words with an adult, and then using the accompanying online resources for practice.
FREE RESOURCE: Test out our multimedia approach with our free 7-Day Vocab Challenge. It contains videos, worksheets and online games. Click here to start.
Memory champions often recommend using visual aids in order to remember new and challenging information. This approach can be applied to vocabulary, too.
A study by Silverman and Hines (2009) supported this, stating that a multimedia approach was particularly helpful for those learning English as a second language. Using pictures and videos at home can help your child to pick up vocabulary more quickly and to remember it.
Just because your child isn’t reading a book doesn’t mean they can learn just a word and its definition. Explore example sentences for all new words. Wordhippo (https://www.wordhippo.com) and Wordsmyth (https://www.wordsmyth.net) have lots of example sentences available.
AI text generators, like ChatGPT, can also be used to generate tonnes of example sentences customised to your child’s age. Simply use a prompt like “Write 5 sentences using the word “PROMPT” suitable for 10-year-olds.”
In studies where children did learn new words from reading, they typically needed to read a story several times in order to do so (Carey, 1978).
Whilst your child is unlikely to read the same book repeatedly, it’s quite easy to convince them to listen to an audiobook repeatedly. Another advantage of audiobooks is that your child will hear the word said with expression, which will help him/her to glean the word’s meaning.
For access to hundreds (if not thousands) of free audiobooks and e-books, download the Libby app, which links to your library card.
When your child has already learnt a new word, seeing it in a text will help to add context to the definition and will reinforce learning. (Cain, 2007)
With that in mind, keep reading fun by letting your child choose their own books or audiobooks, knowing that those texts will reinforce any other vocabulary learning that they’ve undertaken.
