175 Kindergarten Vocabulary Words (2023)

FAQs

What are some vocabulary words for kindergarten? ›

4 The typical 4-year-old child will have about a 1,500–1,600-word vocabulary. 5 By the time a child reaches school age and heads to kindergarten, he/she will have between a 2,100- and 2,200-word vocabulary.

Some literacy experts like Tim Shanahan believe that kindergarteners should master 20 sight words by the end of kindergarten. The Dolch word list has 40 words listed for Pre-K students and some school districts require that kindergarteners learn 100 sight words by the end of the school year.

Tier one consists of the most basic words. These words rarely require direct instruction and typically do not have multiple meanings. Sight words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and early reading words occur at this level. Examples of tier one words are: book, girl, sad, run, dog, and orange.

After children begin understanding words in the first year of life, their receptive vocabulary size increases rapidly. At age one, children recognize about 50 words; by age three, they recognize about 1,000 words; and by age five, they recognize at least 10,000 words (Shipley & McAfee, 2015).

Most “typical” 5-year-olds have a vocabulary of about 10,000 words. When children are in school, they learn vocabulary at a rapid rate each year (Merritt, 2016).

4 and 5-year-olds vocabulary is between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Speech at this age should be completely understandable, although there may be some developmental sound errors and stuttering, particularly among boys.

At this age, children are forming complete sentences with as many as 8 or more words. Children of this age are using increasingly descriptive and specific language. They are also learning to identify the parts of a story, the setting, characters, beginning, middle and end, etc.

By age 6, children understand over 20,000 words, and their sentences are longer and not as simple. But even more amazing are the new complexities in their thought processes — their wheels are constantly in motion. With this deepening, you'll see a change in how your child uses language to express thoughts and ideas.

While a non-gifted child may have a vocabulary of 150 to 300 words at age 2, gifted children may have surpassed the 100-word mark by the time they are 18 months old.

How many words should a 6 year old have in their vocabulary? ›

Most children have a large vocabulary—about 13,000 words—at age 6. But they have limited ability to understand complicated language structures. From ages 6 to 10, children slowly start to think in more complex ways. This growth helps them understand and use the nuances and subtleties of language.

What are high frequency words in kindergarten? High-frequency words are those words that appear in print most often. But guess what, just 13 words in English account for 25% of the words we see in print. These essential words are: a, and, for, he, is, in, it, of, that, the, to, was, and you.

Tier 2 words are words such as obvious, complex, reasoned, national, or informed. In contrast, Tier 1 words are extremely common, almost ubiquitous-frequency words that require little or no explicit instruction. They are usually root words themselves and are not typically modified with prefixes and suffixes.

The grade 1 national reading vocabulary list developed by TampaReads includes 340 words kids should be able to read by the end of this school year. Most of these are short sight words, so you can learn these little words in addition.

Kids 4–5 years old can follow more complex directions and tell you all about the things they do. They can make up stories, listen carefully to stories, retell stories, and say what comes next in a well-known story. Their sentences include 4 or more words, and their vocabulary continues to grow.

At 4-5 years, children are getting better at conversations. They can use longer sentences and take turns speaking. Preschoolers can say what they're thinking, tell stories and describe feelings. Adults can understand most of what preschoolers are saying.

Remember that the milestones on speech-language tests are based on when 90% of all children have mastered the skill. This means the majority of toddlers, usually 90%, are using 50 different words by 24 months.

Experts say that most children learn to read by age 6 or 7, meaning first or second grade, and that some learn much earlier. However, a head start on reading doesn't guarantee a child will stay ahead as they progress through school. Abilities tend to even out in later grades.

How many words should a 5 6 year old know? ›

Be able to count up to 100 and count a few numbers backwards. Be able to do some basic maths such as adding '1 apple to 2 apples makes 3 apples' and will be able to tell when numbers are higher than other number. Be able to give their full name and know their age, birthday and where they live.

Some children learn to read at 4 or 5 years of age. But most will get the hang of it by age 6 or 7. It's important to remember that all children learn at their own pace, and the key to reading success is to make it an enjoyable process.

By the time a child turns 5 years old, they should be able to say all speech sounds correctly. This means that even tricky sounds like /l/, /s/, /r/, and “TH” should be produced correctly in a 5-year-old's speech.

Receptive language skills during this period become more sophisticated. A child learns to make subtle distinctions between objects and relationships. Also, the child can understand multi-step requests. Most children also gradually speak more fluently and use proper grammar more consistently.

The top quarter of pupils know about 7,100 words by age seven, and add about three new ones each day. The bottom quarter have fewer than half as many words at that age – about 3,000; they acquire only about one word a day, so the gap continues to widen.

Reading fluency occurs when a child has developed the knowledge and skills to recognize words automatically, accurately and quickly. This usually develops at ages 7 to 8.

Your 7-year-old now

use a wide-ranging vocabulary when speaking (now as many as 20,000 words!)

Signs of Verbally Gifted Kids

Generally, kids who are verbally gifted have noticeable talents in five areas: reading, speaking, creative writing, foreign language, and general verbal reasoning.

When can a child say 200 words? ›

By age 3, a toddler's vocabulary usually is more than 200 words. Kids can string together 2- or 3-word sentences. They can talk with you in a conversation that has at least 2 back-and-forth exchanges. Other people can understand your toddler most of the time.

First and Second Grade (Ages 6–7)

Kids usually begin to: read familiar stories. "sound out" or decode unfamiliar words. use pictures and context to figure out unfamiliar words.

Signs of an Intermediate Reader: Ages 6 to 8

Your child is probably an intermediate reader (also known as a developing reader) if he does most of the following: Reads smoothly most of the time with few mistakes, but sometimes stops to sound out words.

By the time a child is 5 years old, they should be able to say all speech sounds correctly. So when a child is 6, they should definitely be speaking clearly, without any speech errors. This includes pronouncing trickier sounds like /l/, /s/, /r/, and “TH.”

The Kindergarten Sight Words are:

all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes.

What they will learn. By the end of kindergarten, your child will recognize, name, and write all 26 letters of the alphabet (both uppercase and lowercase). They'll know the correct sound that each letter makes, and they'll be able to read about 30 high-frequency words—also called "sight words"—such as and, the, and in.

Tier 3 words are highly specific for each content area, and are housed within a particular subject. Examples of Tier 3 words include: parabola, hypotenuse, simile, monarchy, osmosis, etc.

Tier 3 vocabulary is a term coined by Isabel Beck to describe subject-specific language. Every subject has its own terminology: chemistry students need to know 'polymerisation', mathematicians need to know terms like 'integer' and 'radius', while geography teachers have to explain 'biosphere' and 'atoll'.

Tier three consists of low-frequency words that occur in specific domains. Domains include subjects in school, hobbies, occupations, geographic regions, technology, weather, etc. We usually learn these words when a specific need arises, such as learning amino acid during a chemistry lesson.

What are Tier 1 3 vocabulary words? ›

Useful words

Recall that Tier One consists of the most basic words — clock, baby, happy — rarely requiring instruction in school. Tier Three includes words whose frequency of use is quite low, often being limited to specific domains — isotope, lathe, peninsula — and probably best learned when needed in a content area.

Tier 1 words are described as common, basic, every day words. Tier 2 words are academic words used in texts across multiple contexts. Tier 3 words are academic words that are discipline specific and very narrow in their usage.

On the other hand, Tier 2 vocabulary is more academic and nuanced in nature and includes high frequency words such as 'analyse' ''quantify' and 'examine', whereas Tier 3 vocabulary consists of low frequency, subject-specific terminology such as 'algorithm', 'cardiovascular' and 'Renaissance'.

Some of the 1st Grade Spelling Words for kids to learn are bird, crown, crowd, draw, dew, get, gown, eleven, eat, fast, fill, hen, hat, any, another, bone, tea, black, green, banana, orange, grape, kiwi, etc.

Some of the Vocabulary Words for Kids are they, him, her, he, she, their, this that, old, new, book, big, small, light, dark, hot, cold, rainy, shine, of, on, or, etc.

What are the top 100 most used words? ›

T/F: For children acquiring English, nouns dominate early vocabularies: typically, of their first 50 words, 45% are nouns and only 3% are verbs.

In American English, the 10 most frequent first words, in order, are mommy, daddy, ball, bye, hi, no, dog, baby, woof woof, and banana. In Hebrew, they are mommy, yum yum, grandma, vroom, grandpa, daddy, banana, this, bye, and car.

Some of the important easy spelling words for kids are tree, bee, doll, toy, chair, mother, father, piece, peace, camel, horse, family, friend, pony, jump, forest, deer, clouds, earth, moon, sun, jelly, bees, monkey, bull, etc.

By age 3, a toddler's vocabulary usually is more than 200 words. Kids can string together 2- or 3-word sentences. They can talk with you in a conversation that has at least 2 back-and-forth exchanges. Other people can understand your toddler most of the time.

A 5 year old should be able to read short vowel words like: ham, hat, lad, pet, vet, Ben, him, nip, wit, hop, Bob, dot, cup, fun, pup. Keep in mind that I'm talking about a 5 year old that's been going to Kindergarten for a few months.