Introduction:

The ability to read and understand what one is reading is one of the most important key factors to overall academic success. Being able to understand what one is reading is known as reading comprehension. For students to truely know what what vocabulary is they have to be able to do two things:  understand the meanings of the words they are reading and understand the meanings of words they are exposed to outside of school. “Students’ vocabularies play important roles in their lives and future possibilities” (Beck & McKeown, 2007, p. 251). Beginning in kindergarten students are learning letters names, letter sounds, how to segment sounds, which then leads to how to read and being assessed over the information that they read. Even though they do not know how to read at the beginning of Kindergarten they still have to be able to understand the words that are being read to them. There are many different components that go into reading comprehension. According to Effective Vocabulary Instruction, reading instruction includes “phonemic awareness, phonics and word study, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension” (Sedita, 2005, p. 1). Vocabulary instruction is typically known as introducing the vocabulary word and then expecting the students to memorize the definitions. Vocabulary instruction is so much more than this typical way and new or more effective strategies have been implemented to show growth in understanding of new words. Vocabulary instruction is a concept that can be taught in math, science, writing, history, or government because it helps students be able to understand the text they are reading (Klinger, Vaughn, Boardman, 2015). If students do not understand the words that they are reading it is very hard for them to learn any of the content.