Vocabulary and $100

When I was teaching at Realms of Inquiry a number of years ago I met a man who told my middle school students that every new vocabulary word they learn is worth an added $100 to their annual earnings when they start to work. Of course, there is no way he could know for sure about the $100 but nevertheless, it did stress the fact that knowledge, including vocabulary, is power. Therefore, we not only want to grow the vocabulary of our Esperanza scholars but we also want to encourage our Esperanza staff to set the example by learning and loving words.

Research studies show that reading is one of the best ways to learn vocabulary--and remember them--even more effective than just learning words from a list. Comic books can even expose students to new words. Yet, I still enjoy learning words from the vocabulary section in the Readers' Digest. I also enjoy my daily word from wordsmith.org that not only gives the definition of the word but also the background of the word which more often than not quite fascinating.

Learning another language is also a magnificent way to learn new words in one's first language. This became apparent to me as I learned Spanish. There are words in Spanish that are used in every day conversation among Latinos that only more educated monolingual English speakers use in equivalent English. Also, because Spanish is Latin based and so is academic language such as science terms knowing Spanish helps learn academic vocabulary.

Even if a new word does not mean an added $100 to one's annual income, a person is still richer in knowledge for every new word added to one's knowledge bank.