The title of this article is Teaching and Developing Vocabulary: Key to Long –Term Reading Success. It was written by John J. Pikulski and Shane Templeton. It was published in Houghton Mıfftın. It was retrieved from http://www.eduplace.com/state/author/pik_temp.pdf .
This article’s main purpose is to give information about the importance of vocabulary. According to the writer of this article, young children learn to communicate through listening and speaking. In order to make the transition to communicating through reading and writing, they need a large meaning vocabulary and effective decoding skills.
In this article, the writer explains what vocabulary means, why teaching vocabulary to children is so important and how we can improve our students’ vocabulary skills. Firstly vocabulary is the sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular person or group. We need to teach vocabulary to children in order to facilitate the comprehension of a text that students will be assigned to read. We also teach vocabulary to students, because they cannot communicate without vocabulary knowledge. They cannot understand what they read or hear. According to a research ( Scorborough, 2001) children with weak vocabulary skills are likely to encounter difficulty in lerning to read. In order to improve our students’ vocabulary skills, we should first improve their reading skills.
The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud the children (Anderson et. Al. 1985). It increases our students’ vocabulary skills. Instructional reading aloud will be more beneficial. Research suggests that wide reading plays a critical role in developing knowledge. Teachers play an important role in facilitating this process.
Teachers should teach to students the strategies for learning words independently.teachers should teach students vocabulary directly, when it is necessary. They need to encourage students to use dictionaries and other reference books. Stutents who are interested in learning will lern better, so every teacher should attempt to develop interest for learning. They should develop and sustain students’ interest in and curiosity about words.
Before I read this article, I did not think teaching vocabulary to students is so important. I do not have much idea about how to teach and what to teach to students. After I read this article, I had some idea about teaching vocabulary. Firstly I learned I need to create a keen awareness of and a deep interest in language and words in order to be successful.I realized that reading is too important in teaching vocabulary. I learned the strategies for deriving word meaning. I believe that these will be helpful for me, while teching vocabulary to children.