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Early childhood programs have long been known to be beneficial to children from low-income backgrounds, but recent studies have cast doubt on their ability to substantially increase the rate of children's academic achievement. This Review examines research on the role of language in later reading, describes home and classroom factors that foster early language growth, and reviews research on preschool interventions. It argues that one reason interventions are not having as great an impact as desired is because they fail to substantially change the capacity of teachers to support children's language and associated conceptual knowledge.

Indirect effects of preschool classroom indexes of teacher talk were tested on fourth-grade outcomes for 57 students from low-income families in a longitudinal study of classroom and home influences on reading. Detailed observations and audiotaped teacher and child language data were coded to measure content and quantity of verbal interactions in preschool classrooms. Preschool teachers' use of sophisticated vocabulary during free play predicted fourth-grade reading comprehension and word recognition (mean age = 9; 7), with effects mediated by kindergarten child language measures (mean age = 5; 6). In large group preschool settings, teachers' attention-getting utterances were directly related to later comprehension. Preschool teachers' correcting utterances and analytic talk about books, and early support in the home for literacy predicted fourth-grade vocabulary, as mediated by kindergarten receptive vocabulary.

Although the National Early Literacy Panel report provides an important distillation of research, the manner in which the data are reported underrepresents the importance of language. Unlike other predictors with moderate associations with later reading, language exerts prevasive and indirect influences that are not described by the effect sizes used in the meta-analysis. Also, unlike code-related skills that develop rapidly during the years studied, language develops over an extended time span. Because it is relatively difficult to devise interventions that dramatically alter children's language abilities, the authors of this response are concerned that schools will target the more malleable code-based skills. They warn against such a move.

This study described the commenting practices of Head Start teachers, and the relationship of comments to the expressive and receptive vocabulary growth of children with below-the-mean language ability across one year of preschool. Participants included 52 Head Start teachers, and 489 children (247 early intervention candidates and 242 Head Start typical). Descriptive analyses reveal that teachers used informative comments that gave or explained information more frequently than comments that responded to children's utterances, and that these comments contained more conceptually focused content than vocabulary or skills content. Responsive and conceptually focused comments were significantly related to the children's receptive vocabulary growth, and were moderated by children's initial language ability indicating the presence of the Matthew Effect. These findings underscore the importance of integrating instructional comments into book reading sessions, and the need to differentiate instruction based on children's initial vocabulary sizes. Practical implications are discussed.

High-quality lexical representations are important for reading comprehension; however, prior research has focused primarily on the verbal aspects of these lexical representations. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of considering nonverbal representational elements of lexical knowledge and for more systematic attention to how nonverbal supports, such as gestures, pictures, and sounds, contribute to the acquisition of word knowledge. Drawing from various theoretical perspectives, the authors argue that the semantic content and the attention-directing attributes of nonverbal supports are critical in assisting primary-grade students in building high-quality multimodal lexical representations. The authors examined the use of nonverbal supports in vocabulary studies for young learners and present implications about the role of nonverbal supports in students’ vocabulary acquisition. Results suggest that nonverbal scaffolds can help refine and deepen students’ knowledge of words for a variety of word types, including abstract words.

In this study, the authors examined the impact of a vocabulary intervention designed to support vocabulary depth, or the building of semantic networks, in preschool children (n = 30). The authors further investigated the effect of specific instructional strategies on growth in vocabulary depth. The intervention employed shared book reading and guided play methods to teach words in conceptually linked categories, such as taxonomic and thematic groups. Using a within-subjects design, analyses indicated that the intervention had significant positive effects on children’s depth of vocabulary knowledge. Children showed significantly greater growth in vocabulary depth for words taught in taxonomies as compared with words taught in themes. Three types of semantic information were learned more deeply for taxonomy words as compared with theme words: information about category membership, perceptual features, and object function. Results suggest that fostering deep vocabulary knowledge involves not only teaching single word entities but also introducing systems of conceptually related words to build semantic networks.

The present study examines the perceptual, linguistic, and social cues that were associated with preschoolers’ (4;11) growth in word-learning during shared book-reading and guided play activities. Small groups of three preschoolers (n = 30) and one adult were video-recorded during an intervention study in which new vocabulary words were explicitly taught. Adult use of taught words was coded for perceptual and linguistic cues and type of social interaction. Hearing taught words used in the book text and learning information about words’ meanings during play was positively associated with growth in word-learning. Adult use of words in responsive, or child-initiated, interactions was positively associated with word-learning growth in both book-reading and play, while adult-initiated use of words was negatively associated with word-learning growth in both settings.

Well-developed lexical representations are important for reading comprehension, but there have been no prior attempts to track growth in the depth of knowledge of particular words. This article examines increases in depth of vocabulary knowledge in 4-5-year-old preschool students (n = 240) who participated in a vocabulary intervention that taught words through book reading and book-related play. At pretest and posttest, students defined words verbally and by using gesture. Responses were coded for type of semantic information given. There were significant increases in depth of knowledge for all word types. Concrete nouns were learned significantly better than all other word types, and verbs were learned significantly better than abstract nouns and adjectives. Analysis of semantic content provided nuanced information about word learning across word types. Synonyms and contextual information were learned well for all word types, whereas functional information was learned best for concrete nouns. These results suggest that ease of word learning may not be influenced solely by perceptual accessibility of words but also by the kind of instructional information that can be provided for different word types.

Early vocabulary knowledge is vital for later reading comprehension and academic success. Studies have found that augmenting explicit teaching of word meanings with nonverbal visual aids, particularly pictures and gestures, assists young learners in building rich lexical representations. Research has focused on the effects of visual supports in fostering word knowledge but has not considered the effectiveness of using sound-based supports. Working from a semiotics perspective, the authors used a music instructional strategy known as a sound story to examine the impact of using sound effects to teach words to first-grade students. Words were taught with explicit instruction in combination with sound effects or no sound effects during music class. All sound effects were created and performed using musical instruments in the classroom. Students’ receptive and productive definitional word knowledge were assessed. The productive measure was used as a measure of depth of word knowledge. The authors found that students had deeper knowledge of words that were taught with an associated sound effect compared with words taught with no sound effect. Analysis of the types of information students provided about words showed that students gave more contextual information and gestural responses for words that were taught with sound compared with words taught with no sound. These results provide evidence that vocabulary learning can be fostered during specialist music classes using methods familiar to music educators.

In this study we sought to identify profiles of talk during Head Start preschool mealtime conversations involving teachers and students. Videos of 44 Head Start classrooms’ lunch interactions were analyzed for the ratio of teacher–child talk and amount of academic vocabulary, and then coded for instances of academic/food, social/personal, and management talk to highlight the degree of hybridity of talk within this unique setting. Cluster analysis revealed four distinct patterns of teacher–child mealtime interactions in 44 Head Start preschool classrooms: classroom discourse, home discourse, hybrid-low, and hybrid-high. Multilevel models further demonstrated a relationship among these clusters of teacher–child interactions and children's end-of-year expressive vocabulary scores controlling for ratio of teacher–child talk and pre-test scores. Children in classrooms displaying a hybrid style of mealtime discourse made the greatest gains on measures of expressive vocabulary in contrast to their peers in classrooms displaying other discourse styles.