Designing Vocabulary Instruction for Preschool Emergent Bilingual Children - Promising Practices

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Miles

The article addresses the growing need for instructional support for emergent bilingual children in U.S. state-funded preschool settings, highlighting limited training for preschool educators despite rising proportions of English language learners. It explains how vocabulary knowledge in first and second languages predicts later reading comprehension and argues for intentional academic vocabulary teaching. Using evidence from vocabulary intervention research, it provides practical guidelines on selecting books and target words, planning lesson formats, and embedding strategies that leverage linguistic strengths in partnership with families.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Planning and Implementing Vocabulary Instruction

Selecting Books and Target Words

What Books to Select?

Planning Choices and Instructional Supports

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Promising Practices | | | | | | | | | | | | | Designing Vocabulary Instruction for Preschool Emergent Bilingual Children
Na Young Kong | | | | | Introduction
In the United States, the number of dual language learners has rapidly increased, requiring essential instructional support, especially for young children. Of the 3-and 4-year-old children enrolled in state-funded preschool programs, 23% are dual language learners (National Institute for Early Education Research [NIEER], 2018) . Furthermore, children attending public schools in lower grades represent a higher percentage of English language learners compared with students in upper grades.
Approximately 15% of kindergarteners were identified as English language learners, in contrast to 5.5% of students in Grade 12 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022) . Despite the increasing linguistic diversity in the population and the urgent need for early support, preschool teachers are provided with little training for working with dual language learners (NIEER, 2018) .
One of the early literacy skills, vocabulary knowledge in the first and second languages, is a strong predictor of later reading comprehension (Grimm et al., 2018; Lee, 2011) . Young children expand their vocabulary rapidly and contextually
Na Young Kong is an assistant professor
in the Department of Educational Specialties at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona.
© 2024 by Caddo Gap Press | | by engaging in conversations with adults and peers in daily life. However, they are not likely to learn academic words simply through exposure (Greenwood et al., 2016) .
Without the intentional teaching of academic vocabulary, academic words are not incorporated into the repertoire of emergent bilingual children (EBC). A recent systematic review of vocabulary interventions reported that selecting target words and books and identifying effective teaching strategies for young EBC resulted in a cumulative increase in knowledge (Kong & Hurless, 2023) .
Guided by the converging evidence, this article presents practical guidelines to inform early childhood educatorshow to design effective vocabulary instruction for EBC. Throughout this article, the author embraces and uses the term emergent bilingual children to recognize and value children’s diverse cultures and potential competence in speaking more than one language.
Planning and Implementing Vocabulary Instruction
Intentional teaching engages early childhood educators in designing instructional practices deliberately and purposefully to promote children’s conceptual knowledge (Lewis et al., 2019) . To intentionally teach new vocabulary words, teachers create a plan that includes what books they will read, what words they will introduce, and what | strategies they will embed into the story.
The following section provides guidelines for selecting books and target words, presents available options for lesson formats, describes research-based strategies effective for all EBC, and adopts an approach to utilizing EBCs’linguistic strengths in partnership with families.
Selecting Books and Target Words
What Books to Select? The criteria used to select books are as follows: They should be age-appropriate, have clear pictures or illustrations representing words, be culturally responsive, and be unknown to children. Specifically, a book is age-appropriate in length, for example, when teachers and children can engage in a 20-minute interactive discussion about a book that is embedded with an interesting or predictable plot and a sufficient number of words to teach (Collins, 2010; Crevecoeur et al., 2014; Pollard-Durodola et al., 2018) . Such storybooks may contain animal characters, a central theme or idea that facilitates rich discussion around the story, and a sequential structure forchildren to follow and predict easily.
An illustration is one of the support

FAQs

Why is vocabulary instruction especially important for preschool emergent bilingual children?

Vocabulary knowledge in children’s first and second languages strongly predicts later reading comprehension, and academic words are not typically learned through exposure alone. Intentional teaching is needed to incorporate academic vocabulary into emergent bilingual children’s word repertoires.

What criteria should educators use to select books for vocabulary lessons?

Books should be age-appropriate, include clear illustrations representing target words, be culturally responsive, and be unknown to children. They should support interactive discussion and include sufficient words to teach.

How can illustrations and nonlinguistic supports improve vocabulary learning?

Illustrations embedded in storybooks enhance comprehension by connecting pictures to narration and reinforcing conceptual knowledge. Verbal explanations paired with nonlinguistic support such as visual aids and multimedia are effective for children learning English as a second language.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Miles