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Why does Vocabulary Matter

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A good vocabulary is an important building block for helping language learners to communicate effectively, but it’s also essential to school performance more widely. Research consistently finds that the extent of a child’s vocabulary knowledge relates strongly to their overall academic success - a child’s vocabulary when they are five years old can tell us how well they may do at school at 11. Vocabulary and spoken language in general, is a key foundation for literacy. If children who have just started learning to read know the words they are reading, they can more easily and quickly sound out, read, and understand them, as well as comprehend what they’re reading: a solid vocabulary is the bridge between phonics and reading comprehension. Vocabulary Vocabulary in Context Teaching lists of words out of context can be a starting point for observation, and for conversations about language acquisition. But the emphasis for me should be on the use of vocabulary within the

Newspaper English

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An excellent way for the  English Language  learner to increase his or her English proficiency is to read an English-language newspaper on a regular basis. Most people who read a newspaper do so selectively and skim through the pages looking for the most interesting-looking articles to read first. They usually make their choice on the basis of the headlines of the articles. And this is where the difficulty for the non-native speaker of English arises, since newspaper headlines are often extremely difficult to understand. There are two main reasons for this. The first reason is that newspaper headlines have to be brief and consequently use short words that are rarely used in everyday speech or indeed in the rest of the article itself. These short words have been called thinnernyms, and include probe for investigation, blast for explosion, and axe for abolish, etc. Newspaper English And the second reason why newspaper headlines are difficult to understand is that headline writer