“In the years I’ve devoted to literacy, I have learnt what

I should have always have known – that nothing matters

more than words. Our vocabulary allows us to interpret the
world, to express ourselves with greater clarity, to show
confidence, insight and perceptiveness. Words lie at the
heart of our quest to narrow gaps between the advantaged
and disadvantaged, to address social mobility. That’s why
I am so pleased to welcome Alex Quigley’s powerfully illu-
minating book. It is a vital reminder that knowing about
vocabulary is the responsibility of every teacher. It is also
the entitlement of every child.”
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of
Association of School and College Leaders, UK

“Expertly weaving academic research with observations

from the classroom, Alex Quigley explains why word
­poverty matters – and sets out what can be done about
it. Word knowledge, he argues, is critical for success in
every subject and as such it is the responsibility of all
teachers to become word conscious. Don’t grab a diction-
ary. Read this excellent book instead and discover an
approach to vocabulary instruction that is rich, organised
and cumulative – and relevant for developing disciplinary
knowledge across the entire curriculum.”
Kate Nation, Director of ReadOxford and Professor of
Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

“This book offers a great overview of the research on learn-

ing vocabulary, and practical advice on how to apply this
research in the classroom.”
Daisy Christodoulou, Director of Education,
No More Marking, UK
This page intentionally left blank
 

Closing the Vocabulary Gap

As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more

challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, suc-
cess can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000
small solutions to help us bridge that gap?
In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, Alex Quigley explores the
increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the
vocabulary gap between our ‘word poor’ and ‘word rich’ students
could prove the vital difference between school failure and success.
This must-read book presents the case for teacher-led efforts
to develop students’ vocabulary and provides practical solutions
for teachers across the curriculum, incorporating easy-to-use
tools, resources and classroom activities. Grounded in the very
best available evidence into reading development and vocabu-
lary acquisition, Closing the Vocabulary Gap sets out to:

ll help teachers understand the vital role of vocabulary in

all learning;
ll share what every teacher needs to know about reading (but
was afraid to ask);
ll unveil the intriguing history of words and exactly how they
work;
ll reveal the elusive secrets to achieve spelling success; and
ll provide strategies for vocabulary development for all t­ eachers
of every subject and phase.


With engaging anecdotes from the author’s extensive personal

teaching experience woven throughout, as well as accessible
summaries of relevant research, Alex Quigley has written an
invaluable resource suitable for classroom teachers across all
phases, literacy leaders and senior leadership teams who wish to
close the vocabulary gap.

Alex Quigley is an English Teacher and Director of Hunting-

ton Research School, York, UK. He can be found on Twitter
@HuntingEnglish and blogs at www.theconfidentteacher.com.
 

Closing the Vocabulary Gap

Alex Quigley


First published 2018

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2018 Alex Quigley

The right of Alex Quigley to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or

registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Quigley, Alex, author.
Title: Closing the vocabulary gap / Alex Quigley.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017053102 (print) | LCCN 2018005169 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315113272 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138080607 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781138080683 (pbk) | ISBN 9781315113272 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Vocabulary–Study and teaching. | Educational equalization.
Classification: LCC LB1574.5 (ebook) | LCC LB1574.5 .Q54 2018 (print) |
DDC 372.44–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053102

ISBN: 978-1-138-08060-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-08068-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11327-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Celeste and Optima

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
 

Katy, Freya and Noah,

This book is written for you.
Every word shared between us is a privilege, always.

Mum and Dad,

Thank you for giving me wealth beyond money, love
beyond words.
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Acknowledgements xi

1 Closing the vocabulary gap:

problems and solutions 1

2 What every teacher needs to

know about reading 26

3 What is in a word? Know your roots 49

4 Wot d’ya mean by academic vocabulary? 74

5 Developing vocabulary and

‘disciplinary literacy’ 95

6 We need to talk about spelling 113

7 Practical strategies for closing

the vocabulary gap 136

8 Next steps 164

Appendix 1: A list of common Latin loan

words, or words with Latin roots, in the English
language 179

ix
Contents

Appendix 2: Latin roots related to the

human body, people and groups 182
Appendix 3: The 100 most commonly
used words in the English language
(from the 2.1 billion words in the
Oxford English Corpus) 184
Appendix 4: Avril Coxhead’s full 570-word
‘Academic Word List’ 185
Bibliography 189
Index 199

x
 Acknowledgements

There are many people I would like to thank for helping

inform this book. I would like to thank Katy Gilbert, my
unofficial editor, for tolerating my research and long writing
spells, as well as giving me feedback and endless support.
I would like to thank Phil Stock, Helen Day, Robbie
Coleman, Tom Martell and Geoff Barton, for giving me help-
ful feedback on the draft of this book, offering me expert
ideas and insight. I would also like to thank Dr Arlene
Holmes-Henderson for her expertise that helped shape
Chapter 3.
There are many colleagues at Huntington School who
directly or indirectly helped me with their insights into
vocabulary. In particular, it has been a privilege to watch
expert teachers (and students) at work, at Huntington and
beyond, to help inform my writing.
Thank you to the team at Routledge for their ongoing
support and skill in making this book a reality.

xi
 But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1819–1824
 1
Closing the vocabulary gap
Problems and solutions

The ways of words, of knowing and loving words, is a way to

the essence of things, and to the essence of knowing.
John Donne

How many words do you know?

It can prove a startling question. Though we use words
all day long when talking, and in reading and writing, we
seldom pay much heed to their importance or ask such
questions. We have all accumulated a vast store of vocabu-
lary that is so integral to who we are that we barely notice
it. Though we are indeed experts with words, we underes-
timate how many words we know.
If I said that the typical vocabulary of readers of this
book would be something around 50,000 to 60,000 words,1
would that surprise you?
We are surrounded by a vast wealth of words and they
profoundly affect our lives – words we use and receive,
hear and speak. From the cradle to the dinner table, the
classroom to the boardroom, our wealth of words can
determine our status in life. With well over a million words
stuffed into the English language, we cannot know them
all, but with a greater awareness of words – their rich and
complex meanings, uses and even abuses – we can help

1
Closing the vocabulary gap

our students develop something like the word-hoard of

50,000 words they need to thrive in school and beyond.2, 3, 4
Many a politician has been heard promising to ‘close the
gap’ of social inequality, but seldom can we credit them
for doing so. The gaps between the rich and poor in our
society are long lasting and deep rooted, with few policies
appearing to mitigate the damaging effects for those chil-
dren who live in poverty. The problem appears too mas-
sive and complex, so we voice our concerns and try to
make sure our democratic vote counts. In schools, though
we cannot bring an end to poverty, we cannot wait for
poverty to end either. Instead, we can shrink the complex
issues that beset the most vulnerable children in our care
and share something that would appear to be insignificant,
but what can prove comprehensible, manageable and ulti-
mately transformative for them. We can share with our
students a wealth of words.
There are then thousands of small solutions to the dam-
aging inequalities that we observe in our society and in
our classrooms, and they can be found in the English dic-
tionary. By closing the vocabulary gaps for children in our
classrooms with their peers, we can offer them the vital
academic tools for school success, alongside the capability
to communicate with confidence in the world beyond the
school gates.
We know that a great deal of our vocabulary is learned
incidentally and implicitly outside of those gates. This
largely subconscious, hidden growth is like a child’s physi-
cal development. If you are a parent or carer for a child,
you barely notice the daily growth, but over time, the
size differences are unmistakable. By paying attention to
vocabulary growth at the micro level, we can better under-
stand it. If we better understand it, we can go to work culti-
vating it and in so doing every child will be gifted a wealth
of words.

2
 Closing the vocabulary gap

By simply recognising the value of attending to vocabu-

lary development, we can make a start on closing the gaps
that exist in our classrooms. Recognition is a first step, but
to address the well documented ‘attainment gaps’ in our
schools and classrooms we need to attend to the vocab-
ulary gaps. It is no silver-bullet solution to improving all
educational outcomes for our children, but as E. D. Hirsch
Jr, notes, vocabulary size is a good proxy for school suc-
cess, and therefore it proves a good place for us to start:
Vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range
of educational attainments and abilities – not just skill
in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but also
general knowledge of science, history and the arts.
A wealth of words, by E. D. Hirsch Jr5

More than just words

Viewing vocabulary as a proxy for learning, or the read-
ing process, is often criticised as being reductive. The play
‘Hamlet’ is of course much more than the sum of its 30,557
words. And yet, it offers us a way to cut to the quick of the
complexity of a child reading a play, or indeed talking like
a scientist, or writing like a historian. It can make things
simpler for busy teachers, but not simplistic.
We know that too many students fail to access the read-
ing that is integral to the academic curriculum of school. In
the face of this failure, closing the vocabulary gap between
children’s personal word-hoard and the academic vocabu-
lary of school is a realistic, realisable goal. With new, bigger
and harder qualifications at every key stage, the demands of
academic vocabulary have only increased. From a child who
struggles with a textbook in science, to the students simply
giving up in an exam, experiencing a vocabulary knowledge
deficit in school can prove an insurmountable hurdle.

3
Closing the vocabulary gap

There is a huge amount of evidence to prove that the

vocabulary gap begins early, before children even attend
school. It then typically widens throughout their time
at school, too often hardening into failure at GCSE level
and beyond for word-poor children. Evidence shows
that, alongside socio-economic status, vocabulary is one
of the significant factors that proved relevant to children
achieving an A* to C grade in mathematics, English lan-
guage and English literature.6 Such achievement, and the
failures that are associated with a limited vocabulary, are
inextricably linked to a child’s home postcode, along with
the pay packet and level of academic qualification of their
parents.7
The evidence of the vocabulary gap proving a crucial
factor for school success is comprehensive, but we have
not yet properly addressed the issue in our schools. With
the new curriculum seeing many children in tears sitting
their SATs reading examination in primary school,8 as
well as students in secondary school grappling with more
demanding qualifications at GCSE, the issue of literacy
and children actually accessing the full breadth of the cur-
riculum is hitting home more than ever.
Are we missing the seemingly small, but potent solu-
tions to the issue of accessing an academic curriculum?
Back in the 1990s, researchers Hart and Risley9 studied
in detail the linguistic lives of 42 families in the United
States. After recording the communication between par-
ents and their children (aged between 7 months and 3
years) over a period of 30 months, they shone a light on
some shocking findings:
From birth to 48 months, parents in professional fami-
lies spoke 32 million more words to their children than
parents in welfare families, and this talk gap between
the ages of 0 and 3 year – not parent education, socio-
economic status, or race – explains the ­vocabulary and
4
 Closing the vocabulary gap

language gap at age 3 and the reading and math achieve-

ment gap aged 10.
The achievement gap in reading, edited by
Rosalind Horowitz and S. Jay Samuels, p. 15110
The vocabulary gap starts early and is more significant than
most people would ever consider. The gargantuan statistic
of a 30-million word gap should give us pause. Though this
does not mean that every family living in material poverty
sees children predestined to have an impoverished vocab-
ulary, it does reveal that we should attend to word gaps
wherever they may appear.
This relatively small Hart and Risley study has since
been replicated with larger groups of children, with voice-
recording technology like the ‘language environment anal-
ysis system (LENA)’, being utilised to collate a vast store
of 112,000 hours of recordings from more than 750 chil-
dren. The evidence reiterates the findings that university
educated parents talk more to their children than less edu-
cated parents and that such talk correlates with later lan-
guage ability. There are exceptions to such stories that we
should seek out, but the trends run deep in our society and
they become writ large in depressing statistics about social
mobility, or the lack thereof, in England.
The evidence on vocabulary gaps beginning early and
proving a crucial factor in later school success stacks up.
Evidence has shown that vocabulary size at 25 months
accounted for linguistic and cognitive skills at aged 8.11
Researchers have established the link between orally
tested vocabulary at the end of the first year at school in
the United States (between 5 and 7 years old) as a signifi-
cant predictor of reading comprehension 10 years later.12
The vital importance of talk and language development
in the early years is clear. Any politician who talks about
the importance of ‘social mobility’ should begin with early
years provision and language development.
5
Closing the vocabulary gap

For every teacher, parent and politician, the evidence

about the importance of vocabulary should prove essential
reading. Another research study, the ‘British Cohort Study’,
compared the vocabulary skills of thousands of 5-year-
olds across a range of social groups, following the group
from 1970 and then into their 30s. What were the findings?
Predictably, children with a restricted vocabulary at 5 years
old were more likely to be poor readers as adults, experi-
ence higher unemployment rates and even have more men-
tal health issues.13 It was also clear from this evidence that
children from disadvantaged backgrounds could recognise
and name fewer pictures than their more advantaged peers.
Consider that fact for a moment: these ‘word poor’ chil-
dren are left unable to describe their world. For our chil-
dren then, the limits of their vocabulary really do prove the
limits of their world. The evidence is stark and sobering.
Though teachers’ influences are limited to the classroom,
we can still help children better develop a vast store of
words and unlock the vital academic vocabulary of school.
For every child to leave school with a word-hoard of
something like 50,000 words should be our aim. With all
of their rich complexity and depth, words make us who we
are, and they help us become who we could be. We should
want every child under our care to be able to recognise
every picture they see, to write their lives, read about their
lived reality and to speak into life their very hopes and
dreams.

The vocabulary gap and the academic curriculum

School children in England face the significant challenges
of a new curriculum. The matter of a bigger, harder cur-
riculum is of course multi-faceted, with many time-poor
teachers feeling disillusioned and without the requisite
training to face the issue of helping every child succeed.

6
 Closing the vocabulary gap

By defining the problem of the academic challenge more

precisely, we can make a start of finding specific solutions.
In 2016, the educational news was awash with anguished
tales of students crying in exams, with the offending item
proved to be a Key Stage 2 SATs reading examination.14 It
highlighted the challenges our students face. One text alone,
see Figure 1.1, included the vocabulary items: ‘unearthed’,
‘drought’, ‘freshwater oasis’, ‘parched’, ‘receding’, ‘suffoca-
tion’ and ‘extinct’ in a single paragraph of what proves a
typically academic text.
This is the reading challenge faced by 10- and 11-year-olds.
Putting aside the rights and wrongs of such assessments
and their uses, there is no teacher, parent or politician,
who would disregard the value and importance of reading.
Now, consider the following question that directly con-
veys the central importance of vocabulary knowledge to
confidently read academic texts:
What is the % of words known in a text to ensure read-
ing comprehension?
50% 55% 60% 65% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95%
Take a look back at the 2016 SATs reading extract. Consider
for a moment how many words you would expect 10-year-
old children, or even many 15/16-year-olds, to confidently
know and understand. We know such comprehension of
academic texts is the daily work of our students in every
classroom. Reading with understanding is indeed vital to
success for children in school.
The answer to the percentage of words known in a text
to ensure comprehension is a massive 95%. If that per-
centage surprises you, consider that Dan Willingham, the
renowned cognitive scientist, in his book, The reading
mind, cites evidence that the percentage is even higher in
many texts for older students: “Still, studies have ­measured
readers’ tolerance of unfamiliar vocabulary, and have

7
Closing the vocabulary gap

Figure 1.1 ‘The Dead Dodo’ – 2016 SATs reading test

estimated that readers need to know about 98% of the

words for comfortable comprehension”.15
If your first answer for the word knowledge required for
comprehension was nearer 75%, then consider the follow-
ing example of a definition that could be encountered by a
secondary school student with approximately 75% of the
words blacked out to obstruct comprehension:

___________ is marking a _______ on a measuring __________. This

involves _____________ the relationship between _____________ of a
measuring __________ and _________or __________ _______, which
must be ____________. For example, placing a ______________ in
melting ice to see whether it reads zero, to check it has been
_________ correctly.

Can you identify what process is being described? If not,

how about trying just two words being omitted, thereby
making approximately 95% of the words known. Can
you identify the missing words and complete the defini-
tion now?

8
 Closing the vocabulary gap

__________is marking a scale on a measuring instrument. This

involves establishing the relationship between indications of a
measuring instrument and standard or reference values, which
must be applied. For example, placing a thermometer in
melting ice to see whether it reads zero, to check it has been
_______ correctly.

Now, if you have some scientific knowledge woven

together inextricably with your knowledge of academic
vocabulary, you will likely make a good job of finding the
answer. This example is particularly helpful in revealing
that it is the most pertinent words in academic texts that
are typically unknown to them. The answer to the example
is ‘calibration’:
Calibration is marking a scale on a measuring instru-
ment. This involves establishing the relationship
between indications of a measuring instrument and
standard or reference values, which must be applied.
For example, placing a thermometer in melting ice to see
whether it reads zero, to check it has been calibrated
correctly.
I have chosen this definition of ‘calibration’ with intent.
It is indeed a specific scientific term related to measure-
ment, but it is also used more broadly to define how we
can more carefully assess and adjust something to get
it working just right. I have the hope that upon reading
this book that teachers in classrooms will be able to bet-
ter calibrate their vocabulary use with students, whilst,
crucially, helping students to calibrate their own word
knowledge too.
In every classroom explanation, we use vocabulary that
will be too difficult, or misunderstood by our children,

9
Closing the vocabulary gap

and so we will need to provide clear, helpful examples.

Often, we will do this instinctively, but at other times, we
will do it with intent to stretch and grow the knowledge
of the children we teach. A good deal of the reading in our
classrooms will include vocabulary that is unfamiliar and
difficult. Every teacher then needs to be acutely aware of
the challenge of academic reading and the teaching tools
required to make it accessible.
Being faced with a challenging text is not some rare
occurrence, but a daily act in schools. Texts that children
encounter in school have an average length of around
85,000 words,16 including many textbooks. If we take a
page 300 words in length, then 95% reading comprehen-
sion will leave something like 15 words on the page unclear
or unknown. Consider that for a moment. When was the
last time you read something but didn’t understand such a
large number of words? We need to be mindful of how our
novice readers in school are grappling with the challenge
of academic language. A 10-year-old child who is a good
reader will encounter something like 1 million words a year
(tantamount to between 10 and 12 short novels). Crucially,
approximately 20,000 of those words prove unfamiliar17 to
that child. Given this fact, we quickly recognise how essen-
tial it is for our students to have a wealth of words if they
are to access the school curriculum.
In subjects like English, children bring a wealth of knowl-
edge around fiction genres and likely patterns of language
and sentence structures that they have heard and read
since early childhood to help fill in the gaps when their
vocabulary knowledge falls below 95%. However, when
the same children are faced with non-fiction texts, perhaps
a history source, or a science worksheet, they are too often
left without years of genre and background knowledge
required to understand the text. It is no surprise then that

10
 Closing the vocabulary gap

many children make good progress with reading up until

about year 5, but then many disadvantaged children can
struggle18 as they face reading more challenging texts. Dan
Willingham offers the notion that many disadvantaged
children simply do not have the opportunities to develop
the background knowledge required to comprehend com-
plex texts. It becomes even harder when young children
understand narrative stories in history, science and so on,
but then the language switches to something more formal
and difficult in non-fiction texts.
For many of our students, they have the lived experience
of many more words proving unfamiliar as they travail the
challenges of the school day. Struggling daily with reading
difficult texts and not understanding words is the harsh
reality for many children in our classrooms.
We know that one in five children in England have
English as an additional language (EAL students). Though
some EAL students can gain a precious linguistic dexter-
ity from being in possession of more than one language,
we know that a significant proportion of EAL students
experience debilitating vocabulary gaps. It can prove to
be simply a practice gap. Children who are learning more
than one language, speaking their mother tongue at home,
then lack the necessary practice to hone and grow their
English vocabulary.
The idioms we can take for granted in English – such as
‘the best of both worlds’, or ‘to kill two birds with one stone’ –
can prove inscrutable to many EAL children. Consequently,
EAL children can exhibit errors in basic phrases and idioms
that are part of the fabric of our vocabulary knowledge.
Take the sentence I have just written: consider how the
metaphor of ‘fabric’ is a hurdle for many children. Many
of these language barriers and vocabulary gaps can prove
invisible even to expert teachers. It leaves some children

11
Closing the vocabulary gap

struggling with the inscrutable language of the classroom,

and as a result, school can feel like an alien place.
Despite the known vocabulary gaps described here,
explicit teaching of vocabulary is too seldom enacted in
our schools. It is likely the result of a lack of training and
a related lack of understanding of the importance vocabu-
lary plays in developing reading (this can be true of teachers
in every phase of school teaching). Indeed, we know from
robust evidence that children with reading difficulties who
were exposed to explicit vocabulary teaching benefitted
three times as much as those who were not. Not only that,
all children benefitted from such vocabulary instruction.19
We should then ask:

ll How do we explicitly teach vocabulary?

ll What training is required for teachers to do so effec-
tively and with confidence?
ll How can we more sensitively check for vocabulary gaps
in our daily practice in the classroom?

These questions are most pressing as we experience a seis-

mic curriculum shift. The new GCSEs in England have been
widely recognised as bigger and harder, with the govern-
ment heralding the “new, more demanding content”.20 The
reality in classrooms is a struggle to help students access
these qualifications if they do not possess a wealth of back-
ground knowledge and the requisite breadth and depth of
academic vocabulary knowledge. We need to ensure that
we help our children meet this “demanding content” with
the academic tools necessary. Not only that, if we help our
students better develop vocabulary, we enrich them with
a wealth of words that will serve them well, long after the
machinations of yet another curriculum shift has passed
into the history books.
So, what exactly is ‘harder’ about the new curriculum?

12
 Closing the vocabulary gap

New linear qualifications predominantly based on ter-

minal examinations clearly present an increased mem-
ory retention demand. Alongside this, the sheer breadth
of concepts and topics demands more knowledge and
understanding from our students. In Geography GCSE, for
example, A-Level concepts have been dropped down into
the GCSE curriculum, like the A-Level Mathematics statis-
tical measure, ‘Spearman’s Rank’ being introduced much
earlier. Such changes appear to have occurred with scant
regard for how such conceptually difficult ideas will be
best communicated to younger children. At every year of
secondary school, children are routinely reading texts that
are considerably beyond their chronological age.

Remember the ‘dead dodo’ text!

Teachers are faced with difficult changes given the lat-
est curriculum changes. We are relatively unsupported
to teach any differently, so we can underscaffold – that
is to say, simply getting kids to read harder reading texts
earlier, in the hope that mere exposure will convey more
mature learning. Conversely, teachers can overscaffold,
so in English literature, complex literary texts are distilled
into gobbets of memorisable passages and quotations. Or
in science, the complexity of scientific terms and labels
for processes are mediated by bite size PowerPoints and
simplified language, with the hope that such simplification
will lead to increased understanding over time.
What if the problem isn’t simply fitting everything into
the curriculum? If we do not ensure our children better
understand the very medium of curriculum knowledge
and understanding – academic vocabulary – we are stuck
in the starting blocks. We are forced to return and reteach
language and concepts children did not understand in the
first place.

13
Closing the vocabulary gap

Take the subject of History at GCSE. It is decidedly a big-

ger and harder qualification than before. Put simply, the
history curriculum has shifted from not much more than
100 years of recent history, with topics such as the world
wars – with all of their related cultural knowledge still com-
mon to us today – to a 1000-year epoch of British history.
When faced with a topic such as the Norman Conquest,
students encounter unfamiliar vocabulary – such as ‘fiefs’,
‘duchy’, ‘oaths’ and ‘relics’. These words require significant
background knowledge that is cloaked in religious and
social knowledge that is often far removed from their typi-
cal background knowledge and their personal word-hoard.
When you add other such challenging historical topics
into the History GCSE mix, such as ‘Medicine from 1250’,
there is an increased demand in broad background knowl-
edge and a complex web of academic words. Words like
‘plague’, ‘pandemic’ and ‘miasma theory’ are then pitched
alongside the vocabulary that describes historical con-
cepts, like ‘causation’, ‘continuity’, ‘change’ and ‘time’. For
time, consider just some of the related vocabulary that is
needed for understanding: ‘ancient’, ‘mediaeval’, ‘middle
ages’, ‘modern’, ‘period’, ‘reign’, ‘Anno Domini’, ‘chronol-
ogy’, ‘transitional’, ‘epoch’, ‘post-industrial’ and ‘calendar’.
A history teacher then needs to be a skilful teacher of
vocabulary alongside supporting children to sift sources
for bias and seeking out narratives of continuity and
change throughout history.
Where do we start then with the increased challenge of
knowledge and understanding of 100 years expanding to
1000 years of history? We know that the degree of com-
plex vocabulary is the biggest factor in determining text
difficulty. With a bigger, harder curriculum, in any subject,
we begin with the words. When we start with the simplest
building blocks of knowledge, we help every student close
the vocabulary gap so that they possess the necessary

14
 Closing the vocabulary gap

50,000 words to tackle any epoch of history, any concept

in geography and even obscure texts about extinct birds.
Ultimately, every teacher proves a teacher of reading, as
it is the primary medium for gaining academic knowledge.
For different subjects, reading takes on different purposes
and approaches, but broad and deep vocabulary knowledge
is always an essential prerequisite for successful reading.
Therefore, strategies such as pre-teaching vocabulary, dis-
cussing the meaning of words, grouping words, compar-
ing words, finding precise definitions and more, should all
prove integral to our classroom practice in our talk, writ-
ing and reading.

Solutions for closing the vocabulary gap

I would ask the question of every teacher reading this
book: how do you teach new, unfamiliar vocabulary to
children?
For the vast majority of teachers, planned and explicit
vocabulary teaching is a rare activity. This integral aspect
of communicating with children and teaching academic
vocabulary is too often left implicit and invariably some-
thing that is ‘caught, not taught’. Vocabulary teaching can
be incidental, disorganised and limited, when it needs to
be organised, cumulative and rich. If we better adapt our
practice to help children to develop their vocabulary, then
they’ll be better prepared for school success.
As a start, we need then to define our notion of vocabu-
lary more precisely. We all possess two types of vocabu-
lary. First is our receptive vocabulary – that is to say,
the words we hear and read. Then there is our expres-
sive vocabulary – the words we say and write. These are
not exactly matched. For example, our reading vocabu-
lary is typically much more complex than the vocabu-
lary we speak. We may understand words as we listen

15
Closing the vocabulary gap

and read, but not know them well enough to use them in
our writing.
We know that talk is a well-established solution for
­developing children’s vocabulary. The daily lives of the
‘word rich’ is characterised by lots of talk around the din-
ner table, alongside debate and discussion in the class-
room. The opposite is of course true, with many children
disadvantaged by a lack of talk. Catherine Snow, from
Harvard University, has shared evidence showing that
a lack of “talk around dinner” inhibited later reading.21
Surprisingly though, a small number of words predomi-
nate in our daily talk. Around 2000 words make up 80%
of our spoken language.22,23 This is important. If we sim-
ply encourage talk in the classroom, without a structured
approach to using academic language in our talk, it will not
develop our children’s language. If we know what words
are in daily use, we can help our students emblazon their
speech with the academic vocabulary that sets them apart
for success beyond the school gates.
Of course, the diversity of vocabulary used by a speaker
relates to how far we judge a speaker’s competence
and confidence. Put simply, using an array of academic
vocabulary in our talk, drawing upon a vast word-hoard
of 50,000 words, helps give not only a confident voice to
our students, it also gives others confidence in their voice.
That being said, focusing on oracy alone will prove insuf-
ficient in developing the vocabulary of our children. We
know that even picture books read to children contain
many more unique words than typical speech between
children in school.24 Conversations are bound to here and
now contexts, using a relatively small number of simple
words, whereas reading books opens up experience with
language that is considerably more sophisticated, with
sentence structures and vocabulary proving much more
complex.

16
 Closing the vocabulary gap

Without ignoring the tremendous – indeed, essential –

value of oracy, we should be clear: the future success of
all of our students rests predominantly on their ability
to become proficient and fluent readers. Their capacity
to learn, and enjoy learning, is bound inexorably to their
reading skill. If they can read it, they can say it. If they can
say it with confidence, it provides them a key to success
for their future beyond school. Rich, structured talk is a
solution to closing the vocabulary gap in our classroom.
If this is twinned with high quality reading instruction,
then we are well on the way to help children thrive with
any curriculum.

Just get them reading more!

We know just how much reading matters. Most of our
vocabulary development is learned incidentally through
wider reading, and then incrementally in repeated expo-
sures to those very same words. As we know, a good
reader at 10 years old is encountering a million words a
year. Encouraging more reading is what Americans call
a ‘no-brainer’.
A compelling argument is made that the best solu-
tion to help develop the vocabulary of children is not
to focus on explicit instruction in the classroom, but to
simply encourage students to read masses and masses
of books for pleasure. It is hard to argue against this
proposition and so I won’t, but I will say it is not the
end of the story.
What we face here is what researcher James Coady
termed the ‘beginner’s paradox’. That is to say, the inci-
dental word learning that happens when reading is
important, but without enough knowledge of words,
you cannot learn new, related words. We see it every day
in the classroom. I have had students in my class begin

17
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