The oral language productive vocabulary profile of children starting school: A resource for teachers

Abstract

The oral language proficiency of students in early education is crucial as teachers draw on this as a resource when developing literacy. There is a need to better understand what this oral language resource consists of at school entry, particularly the diversity amongst children so as to address inequalities. This article reports a study on a key component of oral language, namely productive vocabulary. It profiles the oral language vocabulary in approximately 3.6 million words produced by a large sample of almost 800 children under the age of five. The results are reported in a productive vocabulary resource, structured as a list of 2767 vocabulary targets. This profile represents highly productive vocabulary presumably known by most children as well as more advanced vocabulary not part of every child’s oral language. The article demonstrates the pedagogical implications of this research in the context of the National Literacy Learning Progressions of the Australian National Curriculum.