Pathways

Why is vocabulary development important for comprehension?

The relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension is two-way: they support each other. One reason for this strong relationship is that rich knowledge of word meanings enables readers and listeners to make inferences and thematic links within a text. Put simply, the greater a person’s knowledge of words and their meaning, the easier they will find it to understand even complex texts.

While being familiar with a large number of words is important, the depth of a person’s vocabulary is also important – how well they can use their knowledge of the word and its related words in order to understand what they are reading.

The range of language used in written text means that reading is a good way of expanding vocabulary knowledge, because written text contains rarer, less familiar words than conversation does. All children, even those who can decode fluently, benefit from being read aloud to as it provides access to these less familiar words, as well as providing a model for fluent reading and pronunciation.