Tanya Christ and X. Christine Wang
Supporting
Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Learning
Using a Decision-Making Model to
Select Appropriate Words and Methods
Young children
© Ellen B. Senisi
learn new vocabulary
with great agility and
speed, but their learning is dependent on
the range of words
they are exposed to.
Teachers can naturally
facilitate children’s
vocabulary learning using a variety of
strategies, including
making conversation
and posing thoughtful
questions. But there is
also an important role
for direct instruction,
which is what we focus
on in this article.
Ms. Allen is an
experienced Head Start teacher who
welcomed us into her classroom to
observe and mentor her as she facilitated children’s vocabulary learning.
As part of a research project, we
spent 12 weeks helping her implement
effective vocabulary practices in her
classroom. When we first sat down to
discuss how we could work on this
goal together, she told us that she
especially wanted to learn how to better select words and teaching meth-
Tanya Christ, PhD, is an assistant professor of reading and language arts at Oakland
University in Rochester, Michigan. Her research focuses on early childhood vocabulary
acquisition, issues of educational access, and teacher education. christ@oakland.edu
X. Christine Wang, PhD, is an associate professor of early childhood education at State
University of New York at Buffalo. Her research focuses on technology-supported collaborative learning, early science inquiry, and vocabulary development, as well as early
childhood education in international contexts. wangxc@buffalo.edu
®
74
2, 3
ods for helping children
in her class directly learn
vocabulary. To support
Ms. Allen and other teachers, we developed a simple
three-step model to inform
the selection of appropriate vocabulary words from
curriculum materials and
activities. Such words
might come up during
shared book readings or
be words children need to
understand a classroom
science project. The model
also addresses how teachers can plan ways to teach
those words during classroom activities (Christ &
Wang 2010a) (see “The
Vocabulary Decision-Making Model”).
At the heart of good instruction
is thoughtful and informed teacher
decision making (NAEYC 2009). These
steps are research-based and were
field-tested in Ms. Allen’s classroom,
as well as university practicum experiences spanning three years:
1. Identify all the words that most
children in the class are unlikely to
know;
2. Select a small set of vocabulary
words to focus on; and
3. Determine what methods will best
support children’s acquisition of
the selected vocabulary.
Young Children • March 2012
Step 2.
the text and illustrations); and camouflage, canopy, and understory (which
did not occur in the text, but were
depicted in the illustrations). Because
it would be inappropriate (and ineffective) for Ms. Allen to teach all twelve
of these potentially new words to children during a single reading of the storybook, she needed to winnow her list.
Select a small set of vocabulary
words to focus on.
To narrow the list of words identified in step 1, Ms. Allen first considered how many words would be
appropriate to teach the children
during the storybook reading: “I try
The Vocabulary Decision-Making Model
Step 1.
Identify all difficult and potentially unknown words in a text.

Step 2.
Select words for instruction.

Select a small set of words that are:
a. necessary for comprehension,
b. usable in children’s lives,
c. able to be taught multiple times
across the curriculum, and
d. related to other vocabulary being
taught.

In the following sections, we explain
and illustrate each step in the model
using examples from a shared reading
lesson. Teachers can apply the decisionmaking model to plan ways to support
vocabulary learning during other classroom activities as well. For example,
teachers can identify curriculumbased vocabulary that will occur during a social studies project, and then
use the model to select specific words
and teaching methods. Similarly,
teachers can consider new vocabulary
to use during morning meetings (for
example, new words to follow up on a
nature walk), and then use the model
to decide which of these words to
teach and how to do so.
To illustrate the steps succinctly, we
will present the decision-making steps
using an activity that occurs in most
early childhood classrooms—reading
a story aloud. The planning strategies
presented below come from an interview with Ms. Allen near the end of our
time working with her. In the excerpts
that follow, she discusses her use of
the model to select several words and
methods to support children’s word
learning. She applied the model to
reading aloud the book Where the Forest Meets the Sea, by Jeannie Baker.
Read all other
words without
teaching their
meaning.

Step 1.
Identify all the words that most
children in the class are unlikely
to know.
Select methods for
teaching words.

The word represents
a new concept.


No meaning
clues in text.

Young Children • March 2012

When Ms. Allen first read the book
Where the Forest Meets the Sea, before
bringing it to her classroom, she identified all the words in the text for which
the children were unlikely to know
meanings: reef, cockatoos, squawking,
creek, creepers, bank, ancient, hollow,
aboriginal, and twisted. She also identified two words that she thought a
few of the younger children might not
know: pretend and toward. Then she
noted words that the children already
knew from previous instruction, which
could be reviewed while reading this
book: vines (which occurred in both
Step 3.
Directly teach the
word’s meaning.
The word represents
a familiar concept.

Meaning clues
in text.

Teach a wordlearning strategy.
75
Using the same guiding questions may lead different
teachers to select different words to focus on, due to
differences in the children’s experiences, interests,
and needs.
a. Is this word important for story
comprehension? Decide whether
understanding this word is important to comprehension—if it is,
76
then teach the children the word
meaning (Sternberg 1987). A good
test for this is deciding whether
a listener would have difficulty
understanding the story if the word
were excluded from the text.
b. Will children use this word independently? Consider whether children will be able to use this word in
their everyday interactions (Beck,
McKeown, & Kucan 2002). For
example, ask yourself, Can children
use this word in conversations with
friends, on the playground, during
classroom activities, or at home?
c. Can this word be discussed multiple times across multiple contexts
in the classroom? When children
have opportunities to reuse and
review a word during numerous
other activities, they are more
likely to retain its meaning (Beck,
McKeown, & Kucan 2002; Wang &
Christ 2010).
d. Is this word related to other
words the children are learning?
When children learn words that
are related to one another, they are
likely to organize new word meanings in their minds (Hyerle 2004).
For example, if children are learning about the animals that live in
the rain forest, the word predator
provides one way to categorize the
animals; when children learn predator, a next step is to teach related
words, such as herbivore, carnivore,
and omnivore. Then all of these
words can be used to discuss more
complex concepts, such as food
chains and food webs.
Ms. Allen explained her word selections with respect to the four questions:
© Julia Luckenbill
to pick only a few vocabulary words,
because 4- and 5-year-olds have a
hard time sitting still for that long and
really staying focused on the activity.”
Currently, there is no research to
indicate the exact number of new
words that specific age groups can
learn at once. However, our experience suggests that learning two or
three words at a time is appropriate
for most preschoolers, whereas kindergartners may handle three to five
new words at a time. The number of
words children can learn at one time
varies from classroom to classroom
and year to year, depending on the
skills and knowledge of the children
in any given group. The only way to
determine the exact number of words
that most of the children in the classroom can learn is through trial and
error: Focus on two words at first,
and if the children learn these easily,
add another word the next time. Or,
if it seems more appropriate for the
group, begin with three words, and if
they have difficulty with three words,
try two the next time. All good teaching emerges from reflection on what
is working and flexible adaptation of
methods in the classroom.
Ms. Allen asked herself four questions about each of the 12 words
on her list, to guide her selection of
which words to teach during the first
reading of Where the Forest Meets the
Sea. (Note that she read the book
several times to the class and focused
on helping the children learn different
words each time.)
There are three really strong
words that I will use because I can
keep talking about them throughout the entire story—with vocabulary, the more they hear it, the
more they’ll remember it and think
about it. And that’ll be the words
creek, creepers, and twisted. I feel
that those words help explain the
story better together. I probably
would do creepers because it is an
action word, and they can actually have a movement associated
with it. Children could potentially
use the word creepers. They can
creep in the gym, they can creep
outside—same with twisted—next
time their shoelaces get all tangled
up, I can use the word twisted. So
the more exposure children have
to the words from the book, and
the more they can use those words
outside of the book, the stronger
their understanding of the vocabulary will become.
Keep in mind that using the same
guiding questions may lead different
teachers to select different words to
focus on, due to differences in the
children’s experiences, interests, and
Young Children • March 2012
Use story context clues to promote vocabulary learning. Children
need to learn how to actively, purposefully learn vocabulary (Blachowicz, Beyersdorfer, & Fisher 2006).
Teaching them to use context clues
to figure out word meanings can help
increase their vocabulary learning
(Sternberg 1987). The more supportive
the clues are, the better the opportunity to model how to use clues to figure out word meanings and/or to guide
children in learning how to figure out
word meanings on their own. After
lots of modeling and guided practice,
teachers can prompt children to try to
use the strategy independently.
The storybook illustration included
clues to the meaning of the word creek,
so Ms. Allen decided to guide the children through the process of figuring
out the word meaning as follows:
needs. This is why teacher decision
making is critical—no curriculum
guide can tell you which words the
children will need to know or will be
able to use in other contexts; only
you can make these decisions based
on your knowledge of the children in
your class.
(Ms. Allen reads a sentence from
the book.) “I followed a creek into
the rainforest.” I would definitely
talk about creek, and use this
(an illustration of the boy wading knee-high in the creek toward
the rainforest) as a picture clue.
I would say, “All right, they followed the creek. I wonder what
the creek is?” And I would have
them look at the picture. Then
once the children understood that
it was a body of water, I would
say, “Why do you think it is not
called ‘the river’?” Or, “Why do you
think it is not called ‘the lake’?”
Asking them about those words
would help them realize that it’s
a smaller body of water, that it
isn’t an ocean. So comparing and
contrasting what they know bodies
of water look like might help them
realize that a creek is smaller. And
hopefully they would see that in
the picture, the boy is standing
in it—it’s not deep, and they can
probably walk in it.
When Ms. Allen addressed this word
while reading the story to the class,
Basir explained that he figured out
where the creek was in the illustration because he knew it was water
and “saw the fishies in it.” After reading the story, Ms. Allen extended the
children’s understanding of the meaning of creek by using the picture clues
and asking questions such as, “Which
do you think is larger—an ocean or a
creek?” Since the children had studied oceans previously, they deduced
that the creek was smaller based on
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Step 3.
Determine what methods will best
support children’s acquisition of
the selected vocabulary.
Once Ms. Allen decided on an initial
set of words to teach, she thought
about the most meaningful way to
convey their meanings to the children
in her class. First, she considered
whether the children already were
familiar with related concepts; then,
whether there were context clues
available to help them figure out the
word meanings independently; and
last, whether directly teaching any of
the words would be useful.
Young Children • March 2012
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Approaches to Supporting Children’s Word Learning*
Approach
Description
Objective
References
Pointing and
labeling
Teacher uses labeling or pointing to
direct a child’s attention to an illustration of the word, usually while
saying the word, or the teacher asks
children to point to a word that they
have been exposed to previously
To help a child connect
the word with its related
concept visually or to help
solidify a child’s previous
connection between the
word and the image
Senechal 1997
Eliciting
questions
Teacher asks a comprehension
question that elicits a child’s use of
the word
To elicit use of the word and
to create a memory of the
word’s sound
Walsh & Blewitt 2006
Non-eliciting
questions
Teacher asks a comprehension question that requires a child to provide
information related to the word’s
meaning, but not the word itself
To get a child to notice and
provide information related
to the concept the word
represents
Justice 2002; Walsh & Blewitt 2006
Brief definitions
Teacher gives brief, child-friendly
explanation of the word’s meaning
To maintain comprehension
Coyne et al. 2004; Biemiller & Boote
2006
Extended
approaches
Teacher provides opportunities for
a child to more deeply process the
word’s meaning by having a child
respond using the target word correctly in a meaningful context
To elicit use of the word in
meaningful contexts
Beck, McKeown, & Kucan 2002; Coyne,
McCoach, & Kapp 2007;
Juel et al. 2003; Silverman 2007
*For a review of the research on vocabulary practices for pre-K and kindergarten, see Christ & Wang 2010b and Christ & Wang 2011.
the illustration. Ms. Allen asked the
children what clues helped them
figure out that the creek was smaller.
Daren suggested, “There are fish.”
Ms. Allen countered, “There are fish
in the ocean, too.” Another teacher
prompted, “How do you know that
it’s not deep like an ocean?” Daren
replied, “Because the boy’s standing
in it!” With careful prompting, the children were able to use clues in the text
to learn more about a creek.
across varying contexts (Vygotsky
1962; Christ 2007), it’s best to take
several approaches to teaching a
particular word, depending upon
what children already know about the
word’s meaning.
When a new word is first introduced, a teacher might provide a brief
definition while reading the story,
to help children maintain story comprehension. For example, Ms. Allen
planned to explain the word twisted
while reading the story. She would
show the children the illustration of
the twisted roots and explain that
twisted means all stuck together and
around one another.
Later, after reading the story, the
teacher can provide multiple examples of the word in context (Beck,
McKeown, & Kucan 2002). Ms. Allen
planned to share examples of twisted
with the children in her class: when
your shoelaces get twisted together
and are hard to untie, or when strands
of spaghetti get wound around one
another on your plate and make it hard
Directly teach words that repreto get a small bite because the noodles
sent new concepts. When a
are all twisted together.
word is not clear from context
Once children have some
clues, or represents a new
familiarity with the word,
When a word is not clear from
concept, plan to teach chilteachers might ask them to
context clues, or represents a new
dren the word through a direct
point to a representation of
approach (Kibby 1995). Since
the word in an illustration in
concept, plan to teach children the
children learn word meanings
the book they are reading,
word through a direct approach.
incrementally, over time and
or ask brief questions that
through multiple exposures
elicit the use of the word or
78
Young Children • March 2012
Selection of an appropriate method
learning. Her methods for supporting
information about the word’s meanfor teaching vocabulary depends on
the children’s word learning helped
ing during the story (Senechal 1997;
children’s (1) lack of or prior exposure
them gain new understanding of the
Walsh & Blewitt 2006). For example,
to the word, (2) lack of or partial underfocus words. After using the decisionsince the children had already learned
standing of the word’s meaning, and
making model to guide vocabulary
the word vine from a previous story,
(3) background knowledge. Deciding
teaching over eight weeks, the chilMs. Allen asked Moses to point to the
which method to use is also based on
dren in Ms. Allen’s class scored signifivine in the illustration while she read
(4) how many or what kinds of other
cantly higher on a curriculum-based
Where the Forest Meets the Sea. Moses
opportunities to revisit this word’s
assessment of vocabulary knowledge
confidently pointed to a leaf on the
meaning are likely to arise in future
than similar children in a control class.
vine, so Ms. Allen clarified, “That’s the
classroom activities. Teachers’ deci As in any strategic thinking approach,
leaf—here’s the vine” (while running
sion making is critical for successful
this step-by-step planning is only necher finger along the vine in the illustravocabulary instruction, because only
essary until a teacher has internalized
tion). Then she showed another illusa teacher who knows the children well
the decision-making process. Over
tration of a vine on the back cover of
will provide appropriate challenges to
time, this process will become more
the book. To check children’s compreadvance their development (NAEYC
automatic and efficient. Ms. Allen
hension, she asked all the children to
2009).
summarized for us her experience
point to the vine they had planted in
The table “Approaches to Supusing the model: “When you first came
their classroom. Most of the children
porting Children’s Word Learning”
in, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what
pointed to the terrarium that housed
includes the descriptions of several
am I doing?’ Then I read about the
the vine in response to her request.
methods for supporting children’s
model; I saw how it worked. Now I feel
As is evident in this example, children
vocabulary learning. It details what
confident about being able to use this
typically need multiple opportunikinds of learning objectives might be
model in my classroom. I really feel
ties to encounter a word to learn its
met through each method, and prothat it is workable for any teacher.”
meaning.
vides references for further study.
Teachers’ decision making and
Since it takes longer to provide
interactions with children impact
extended responses and discussions
what children learn (NAEYC 2009). We
about word meanings that help chilknow that when teachers use planned
dren deeply process the meanings,
Planning for success
and purposeful methods to teach
they should occur after reading, so
While reading Where the Forest Meets
children vocabulary, the children
as not to impair the flow of the story
the Sea, Ms. Allen effectively used the
learn more words (Biemiller & Boote
and thus children’s story comprehenmodel to guide her decision making
2006; Beck & McKeown 2007). Plansion (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan 2002).
for supporting children’s vocabulary
ning for vocabulary learning in early
For example, after reading the story
Ms. Allen asked
the children what
they might find in a
creek. John recalled
“fishies.” Gina, who
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When teachers use
planned and purposeful methods to teach
children vocabulary,
the children learn
more words.
childhood is critical, because children
who have not developed a vast repertoire of words by the time they reach
the upper elementary grades may
experience reading and academic difficulty (Biemiller 2003; Chall & Jacobs
2003). Early intervention is especially
important for children from families
with low incomes (Hart & Risley
1995), children experiencing speech
and language difficulties (Nathan et
al. 2004), and dual language learners
(Shatz & Wilkinson 2010), who may
come to school knowing or being able
to articulate far fewer words than
other children (Hart & Risley 1995),
and for whom the vocabulary knowledge gap typically widens as they get
older (Biemiller & Slonim 2001). Given
the importance of understanding
word meanings to children’s reading
success, we hope that our model will
support more teachers as they make
decisions about implementing effective vocabulary teaching strategies in
early childhood classrooms.
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Copyright © 2012 by the National Association for the
Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints
online at www.naeyc.org/yc/permissions.
Young Children • March 2012