Building Strong Vocabularies to Empower Students to Express Themselves by: Ms. Sarah The Importance of Vocabulary Strong and robust vocabularies prepare students to be fluent readers, and, allow them to be effective academic and career communicators. When engaged and interested, students are often ready to tackle and acquire new words. While the word coincidence is labeled as an 8th-grade level word, there is no reason that a sixth, seventh, or even third grader should not learn this word, if he or she is able (Beck et. al., 2013). Selecting the Right Vocabulary Words When reading to your child, you may find that your child may not understand all the words on a page. In this situation, it might seem impossible to know which words you should teach your child. Should you explain every single word that is unfamiliar? Or perhaps you should only explain the most common words? Should you try a book with easier vocabulary? While selecting appropriate vocabulary words fr...