Vocabulary is a significant predictor of overall reading comprehension and student performance, even as young as kindergarten. Vocabulary instruction often has taken a backseat to phonics/decoding or comprehension. But, it is an important component of literacy and should have its place in our classrooms. A lot of our students’ word knowledge and vocabulary is learned without our explicit instruction. They’re learned implicitly through incidental learning. They learn words from oral language, media, and reading and

Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and the meaning of those words. There is a strong connection between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. You have to understand the words you’re reading, in order to understand the text as a whole. The words we teach our students explicitly is based on the 3 tiers of vocabulary. But, a lot of our students’ word knowledge and vocabulary is learned without our explicit instruction; it’s learned implicitly. They