All of today's readings focused on children's vocabulary, how to promote their vocabulary and research on the gap of developmental vocabulary based on the child's early social upbringing. It is an undisputed fact that vocabulary is essential and critical to reading and writing comprehension. Unfortunately, many low income students come to Kindergarten under prepared, lacking a rich at home vocabulary. The vocabulary gap is a sad reality. However, the good news is that extensive immersion with reading, writing, and conversation at school can help make up for early deficits. There are four types of vocabulary: oral, print, receptive, and productive. Receptive vocabulary refers to words we understand when we listen or read, productive vocabulary includes words that are used during speaking and writing. The former plays a larger role in the vocabulary development of children learning to read. Teachers can broaden their students' vocabulary by expanding on already known words and consciously referring to the same idea with a more complex word. Overtime and through repetition of the new words, students will become familiar with the word and begin to use it in conversation. The readings also pointed out that we need to be careful not to use to easy of a vocabulary for children. There are also three tiers of vocabulary words: 1. basic words that most children already know, 2. words that are key to comprehension and frequently used by "mature language users," 3. content specific vocabulary. The tier three words should, for the most part, be taught within the context of the specific domain. Tier 2 words should be the main focus of expanding vocabulary.

These readings provided me with thoughtful insight on how important a rich vocabulary is for students and also fun ways to expand on student vocabulary through routine conversation. I find it sad that children who come from a lower social economic status are generally much further behind on vocabulary development than those from a higher social economic status, yet particularly important for me to focus on because I am interning in the urban multicultural program and most of my students will come from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, it is inspiring to see the dramatic improvement in vocabulary the two teachers in the Lane&Allen article made teaching in a similar situation. I think the conversation process of introducing new vocabulary in substitution of routine words would produce a great response from most children. It is always helpful to understand a word in context rather than simply writing down the definition. For the younger students, I liked how Ms. Barker used their class roles to expand on student vocabulary and knowledge. Ms. Riva's approach, I thought, was good for the older students. I remember always being curious of a word's meaning if I heard an adult use it with me or as a description of me. Having the students look up the meaning also promoted their independence and made them more familiar with the new word. I love word walls and think it would be fun to have a word wall for more complex words that my students learn throughout the year. There are so many opportunities to expand on what children already know. These readings offered good suggestions for ways to improve vocabulary by making it real life for the students.