RICA Competency 10: Vocabulary, Academic Language and Background Knowledge

Introduction

This competency discusses how certain factors affect reading development. These factors include vocabulary, academic language and background knowledge. A vocabulary is a set of words and each person has five different vocabularies: listening, speaking, writing, sight and meaning vocabularies. Academic language is the language use in textbooks and on tests. Background knowledge refers to what you know about a specific topic.


Examples

Some important issues related to the development of these factors are listed below: “The more words you know, the more concepts you learn; and, the more concepts you learn, the more you words you know. In addition, as a child’s level of vocabulary increase, so does his or her level of background knowledge.” (RICA pg. 77) This cycle is seen constantly in the classroom and while it is impossible to directly teach the thousands of word every child should know, a teacher can decide on what words to teach by focusing on the frequency, utility and level of knowledge to help students along in their reading development. In order for children to become successful readers, they must use expand their vocabulary, use of academic language and personal background knowledge in their primary grades. “Words need to be taught directly and well enough to enhance comprehension. Students must have quick access to word meaning when they are reading.” (Learning to Read pg. 303) The main goal in reading is always comprehension and in order to achieve that comprehension, students must understand the words that they are reading. It becomes the teacher’s job to enable her students towards better reading and that means providing them with ample access to words and their meanings; through repetition, through direct instruction and background knowledge.   Differentiation IF the student is struggling with reading comprehension THEN they may have an inadequate vocabulary. IF the student is having difficulty in a specific subject THEN they may not have a solid grasp on the academic language required for that subject. (pg. 76)

IF a student does not have enough background knowledge on a specific subject THEN they might not understand the topic fully and lose out on some comprehension. (pg. 76)


Assessments

Students will work on a semantic map to show their understanding of specific vocabulary words.