Direct Vs. Indirect Vocabulary Instruction

Vacca &Vacca (2008) capture the importance of vocabulary knowledge to literacy when they say, “there is a strong connection between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. If students are not familiar with most words they meet in print, they will undoubtedly have trouble understanding what they read.” (p. 142).

Bromley (2007) endorse this when she argues:

Vocabulary is a principle contributor to comprehension, fluency and achievement. Vocabulary development is both an outcome of comprehension and a precursor to it, with word meanings making up as much as 70-80% of comprehension (Davis, 1972; Nagy & Scott, 2000; pressley,2002). Fluent readers recognise and understand many words, and they read more quickly and easily than those with smaller vocabularies (Allington, 2006; Samuels, 2002.). Students with large vocabularies understand text better and score higher on achievement tests than those with small vocabularies (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). (p.528)

Vacca & Vacca (2008) advocate indirect instruction , filtering the vocabulary building lesson into the core lesson (p.143), while Bromley(2005) seems to consider learning vocabulary in a more in-depth manner when he advocates separate, direct instruction of vocabulary that “...engages students in the meanings of new words and their letter, sound and spelling patterns” (p. 534), rather than just studying context.

Indeed, Vacca and Vacca (2009) advocates a non-direct approach to teaching vocabulary as best. This of course will facilitate independent learning.

However, should we expect our students who are already frustrated because they struggle with reading, to take the initiative to study vocabulary on their own? I believe that effective teachers should incorporate both methods advocated by these authors, that is, a combination of direct and indirect vocabulary instruction.

Please share your thoughts.

REFERENCES:

Bromley, K. (2007). Nine things every teacher should know about words and vocabulary
instruction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50 (7), 528-536.

Vacca, R. T., & Vacca, J. L. (2008). Content area reading: Literacy and learning
across the curriculum. New York: Pearson.