Making Vocabulary Instruction Meaningful Through Context and Experience

Emily Letchworth
Dr. Madeline W. Good, Faculty Mentor

Vocabulary instruction is a critical component of literacy development, shaping students’ written and verbal communication as well as their reading comprehension. Educator interviews reveal uncertainty about how to effectively support vocabulary development (Anderson, 2024). Traditional definition-only approaches often fail to promote deep understanding of new words due to lack of activation of outside knowledge. Research, however, demonstrates that learners acquire and retain vocabulary better when they can logically organize new information and connect it to prior knowledge (Rahman & Mehnaz, 2024). Given the influence that vocabulary has on broader academic success, these discontinuities can no longer be overlooked. This review synthesizes research from education, psychology, and linguistics, evaluates the effectiveness of current instructional methods, and examines research findings that show contextual and experiential approaches can strengthen vocabulary comprehension and use among elementary students. By incorporating mixed-methods research from multiple disciplinary lenses, one can better understand how best to support vocabulary instruction.

Keywords: vocabulary instruction, interdisciplinary research, education, psychology, language development, instruction effectiveness, learning

Topic(s):Education
Linguistics
Interdisciplinary Studies Capstone

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA