Lane on vocabulary

Holly Lane of the University of Florida provided participants at the Division for Learning Disabilities conference with explicit and systematic instructional practices that they can use to enhance children’s vocabularies. Speaking at the conference held in Charleston (SC; US), Holly explained that many children’s reading comprehension is constrained by, among othes, two factors: fluency and vocabulary. Of these two, research shows that the effects of fluency eventually top out; once one becomes a fluent reader, then the gains from increasing fluency are limited (a ceiling effect). However, gains in comprehension from increases in vocabulary can continue, because one’s vocabulary can continue to grow. In this picture, Holly is responding to a question from a participant. We hope to have more about Holly’s presentation available via TeachingLD.org