Ahad Althumayri
ED 633
Written Article Summary 4
Wallace, C. (2007). Vocabulary: the key to teaching English language learners to read. Reading
Improvement, 44(4), 189-193.
Vocabulary development is promoting the reading skills of the English language learners.
The students’ performance level of reading is based on vocabulary development even if the
students are orally familiar with the vocabulary. In order to improve the ELLs’ reading skills,
teachers should consider the needed of vocabulary development, vocabulary breadth and depth,
and vocabulary strategies. This topic is addressed in the article Vocabulary: The Key to Teaching
English Language Learners to Read (Christopher Wallace, 2007).
Even though the basic foundation promoting reading effectively is vocabulary
development, extensive reading is fostering ELLs to acquire vocabulary. Actually, extensive
reading is helpful to improve the English language proficiency as well. ELLs need 3,000 to 5,000
words minimum in order to be able to read extensively (Wallace, 2007, p. 189). Although
students acquire 5,000 to 7,000 words when they are learning to read in their first language, they
did not achieve this number when they are starting to learn reading in the second language.
Vocabulary breadth and depth are another important aspect of vocabulary development
which helps ELLs fostering their extensive reading. Vocabulary breadth means the number of the
words in a list which ELL should learn. Vocabulary depth means learning the words in details
with all the possible characteristics. ELLs do not know vocabulary meanings as well as the
“English Only peers”, so the vocabulary depth and breadth positively affect their reading
performance.
Teachers should know the best strategies which provide the best instruction to improve
the vocabulary of ELLs. The first powerful strategy is cognate knowledge which is benefiting
students whose first language share with English cognate and orally proficient students. Another
important strategy is that ELLs should learn as much as they could of words that “English Only
peers” know in order to improve their comprehension skills. Also, it is important to reinforce the
ELLs’ second language by read-aloud activities or teacher-directed language development
activities.
In order to foster the ELLs’ reading skills, teachers should focus in vocabulary
development. Focusing on the vocabulary development will improve both spoken and written
language as well. Teachers should focus on all the aspects that could help them to promote their
second language. The need for vocabulary development, vocabulary breadth and depth, and
vocabulary strategies are all important for teachers to consider achieving the best result.