Article: Hiebert, E. H., Pugh, A., & Kearns, D. M. (2024). The presence and progression of rare vocabulary in texts across elementary grades and between genres. Education Sciences, 14(12), 1314.
Full text of arcticle: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14121314
As with most languages, a small percentage of all words in English accounts for most of the words in texts. In a collection of 20 billion words, about 83% appeared only once per 10 million words, and about 11% appeared no more than once per million words. It is these rare words that often provide the greatest challenges for readers.
In “The Presence and Progression of Rare Vocabulary in Texts Across Elementary Grades and Between Genres,” the authors examined a set of rare words from narrative and expository texts aimed at Grades 1, 3, and 5. The purpose of the study was to determine the proportions of rare words that occurred across grade levels and genres, as well as to examine the features of rare words that occurred in these elementary texts.
Findings
Rare words increased in prevalence with higher grade levels, and there were higher percentages of rare words in narrative texts than in expository texts.
Rare words appeared under numerous categories, including inflections, derivations, contractions, abbreviations, exclamations, proper nouns, words from other languages, and more. Among the rare words, 23% were from a category, such as proper nouns, that is not typically included in vocabulary instruction.
The age of acquisition—the average age at which a word enters the oral vocabulary—was unsurprisingly higher for rare words that for more frequent words across all grade levels and both genres. Rare words were also longer on average than more frequent words. Finally, among the words with a root (excluding proper nouns, abbreviations, and so on), the root of around one in five rare words was a high- or medium- frequency word.
Applications
Teachers should teach students how to analyze the parts of words, focusing initially on the endings of inflections and on compound words; as students progress through elementary school, more complex forms, such as derivations, should be added to vocabulary instruction.
To exploit connections to more frequent words, rare vocabulary should be taught in sets of words with the same root, rather than individually.
Teachers should expand their vocabulary instruction to words that are not typically taught, but which may be challenging for readers, such as proper nouns—especially those that refer to famous people, places, and things—and foreign words.
While expository texts have higher occurrences of technical vocabulary, the higher total prevalence of rare words in narrative texts can be accounted for by authors’ use of rare synonyms and expressive language. Instruction for words from both genres can center around related concepts—for example, synonyms for see (gaze, stare, glare) or different forms of water (liquid, mist, deluge).