Jj is for Jottings 17. Learning New Words (Vocabulary) Through Reading.

Following on from Jottings 16, in which I encouraged you to keep reading to your children even when they are learning to read for themselves, here is some further information from a 2015 study:
Beginning in primary school, the ability to work out meanings of unknown words through reading is an important skill for acquiring vocabulary, and this continues right throughout life. The figures say that, when children first meet a new word in reading, they extract 5-15% of its meaning. Coming across the word many times in different contexts helps children to refine meanings as they eliminate incorrect details, add correct details, and work out relationships among similar words. A typical child in Year 5 may learn 800-1200 words per year from reading alone. This incidental learning during reading is an essential source of new vocabulary during the school years.
You’re probably asking yourself what this has to do with reading to your children, since the figures above refer to children reading for themselves. Well, the material that you read to your children is like an extension of what they read for themselves so that, in addition to the vocabulary that they are learning as described above, you are enhancing their vocabulary even further by reading to them at a more advanced level than they can possibly manage. (Of course the gap closes as they get older and become more proficient readers.) What is more – when you are reading to them, you are on hand to check whether they know word meanings and to explicitly teach meanings and cover a variety of contexts, and thereby greatly speed up the process of acquiring a new word. Instead of the child waiting around until he bumps into the word again in a different context so he can refine the meaning, you are able to do it on the spot.