Vocabulary learning occurs in a multitude of ways. Children learn the meanings of most words incidentally, through everyday experiences with oral and written language. This indirect or incidental learning occurs in three ways: by engaging in conversations with other people—especially adults, by listening to others read to them, and by reading extensively on their own. While research points out the need for some vocabulary words to be directly taught in order to understand specific text, it also supports teachers learning ways to help children improve incidentally learning of vocabulary. (Oakhill, Cain, 2015) Elementary students should learn around 2,000–3,000 new words per year to keep up with expected vocabulary growth. Therefore, training to improve word knowledge cannot strictly be through direct instruction. The sheer number of words students need to acquire yearly in order to comprehend more rigorous text would never be met.
