The Importance of Vocabulary for Reading Comprehension

You’re right! Reading’s not just about phonics.

There are 5 keys to reading identified in the scientific evidence for effective teaching of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension (See here and here). Of the 5 keys, phonics gets the most attention, and rightfully so. Phonics is the area in which students are most deficient upon entry to school and therefore special attention to phonics instruction needs to be made. Yet phonics is only 1 of 5 keys to reading and a focus on phonics alone will not ensure reading success. One worth a heavy focus is vocabulary. Vocabulary is a very important piece of the puzzle yet gains very little attention.

The importance of vocabulary is well established. The link between vocabulary and the goal of reading comprehension is profound. The rationale for a focus on vocabulary is obvious: if you do not know the meaning of a decoded word then you will not be able to make sense of what you read. Biemiller (2005) has this to say on its importance:

“Teaching vocabulary will not guarantee success in reading, just as learning to read words will not guarantee success in reading. Lacking either adequate word identification skills or adequate vocabulary will ensure failure.” 

This claim is backed by a very interesting study made by Spencer, Quinn and Wagner (2014) who endeavored to find out if there is any such thing as a specific reading comprehension disability. They found that when decoding and vocabulary were both sufficiently developed, only 1% of students presented with comprehension difficulties. The focus on phonics is well justified, but if you want them to read well, you better focus on vocabulary too.

Vocabulary Schedule