Shoot for the SSTaRS: A Strategy for Teaching Vocabulary to Promote Emergent Literacy

By Elaine Weitzman, Executive Director, The Hanen Centre &

Janice Greenberg, Program Director - Learning Language and Loving It™

Children learn new words every day. How many words they learn and how well they understand and use these words will have a significant impact on the kind of readers they eventually become. Reading involves understanding printed words, and having a large vocabulary makes it easier to gain meaning from what is being read. Vocabulary is also a tool for thinking and learning about the world. The more words children know, the more information they have. The more information they have, the better their understanding of the world and the easier it is for them to learn new words.

Children with rich vocabularies have an enormous educational advantage. Many studies show that vocabulary is the best predictor of reading comprehension at the end of grades 2 and 3, and that vocabulary growth is directly linked to overall school achievement. Not all children have the same opportunities to learn new words. As a result, children’s vocabularies can differ enormously in size by the end of their preschool years. Building children’s vocabulary in early childhood settings must therefore be a priority if children are to have the foundation they need to succeed at school.

When children first use new words, they usually have a limited idea of what they really mean. Helping children develop a deeper understanding of words is an important part of building their vocabulary. The adults in a child’s life play a significant role in helping children build a deeper understanding of words. They do this by giving children many opportunities to hear words in meaningful everyday conversations. In addition, they give children feedback on their use of words, leading to wonderful discussions about what the words mean.

A new guidebook from The Hanen Centre, ABC and Beyond™: Building Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Settings, outlines a powerful strategy for teaching vocabulary - Shoot for the SSTaRS. This flexible, practical strategy can be naturally infused into shared book reading and other daily activities and routines in early childhood environments and at home.



Shoot for the SSTaRS is an acronym that represents:































The strategy is applicable to children who speak in sentences and already have a basic vocabulary. Early childhood teachers or parents can choose which words they want to help children learn, based on the following continuum:

Step 1 words — familiar everyday words like cat, table, funny, baby, dirty, eat and play. Children who are native language speakers rarely need explanations for these words since they are heard and used so often.

Step 2 words — more sophisticated words that are typically found in books and heard less frequently in conversations, especially in disadvantaged homes.

By sophisticated words we mean more precise words than the everyday words referred to in Step 1.

The goal is to:

A) replace familiar words (Step 1) with less commonly used words (Step 2) – for example, dash for run or exhausted for tired;

or

B) introduce words that represent new concepts and build world knowledge, such as carnivore, technology and medication.



Once a new word is selected, then do the following:

Stress the new word:

Highlight the new word while introducing it. For example, “Look, that poor dog is exhausted. Do you know what exhausted means?

Show the children what the word means:

Use facial expressions (e.g., to dramatize being exhausted)

(e.g., to dramatize being exhausted) Use dramatic gestures , pantomime or play-acting when possible (e.g., pretend you are exhausted and slump into a chair, assuming an exhausted posture)

, or when possible (e.g., pretend you are exhausted and slump into a chair, assuming an exhausted posture) Change the way you say the word - e.g., use a tired voice for “exhausted” Tell the children what the word means: Describe the word’s meaning - e.g., “He’s exhausted . That means that he is very, very tired. He’s so tired, he can hardly move. That’s what exhausted means.”

Give specific details about the word – e.g., “Look. The dog’s tongue is hanging out of his mouth and he’s panting because he’s been running so much. That has made him exhausted. If someone has been running for a long time that can make him feel exhausted. Staying up all night and not sleeping can also make you feel exhausted the next day.”

Describe what the word is and what it is not – e.g., “Exhausted doesn’t mean you are just a little tired. It means that you are very, very tired - so tired that your whole body feels like it can’t move and you just want to lie down and rest.” and Relate the word to the children’s experience, background knowledge and other situations.