Why the same words in every resource
A word is learnt by meeting it often, in varied situations. That is why Lexikit starts from a single list of words for every resource.
With the games and worksheets, Lexikit now works as I first planned it: a single list of words, and every resource that comes out of it. This way of working comes from a way of teaching vocabulary.
A word is not learnt in one go
A word does not settle after a single encounter. A young child quickly links a new word to what it names, but this first link does not hold without repeated encounters. The Eduscol guide on teaching vocabulary in preschool (2020) puts it this way: “In young children, the mental operations of memorisation are not voluntary, and simply being exposed to words, without analysis, is not enough to memorise them” (page 29, translated from French). Each encounter adds something: the sound, then the meaning, then the use in a sentence, then the spelling.
Varied encounters
Repeating does not mean doing the same thing ten times. The Eduscol guide writes that “repetition activities that vary the contexts, situations and materials are therefore indispensable” (page 26). Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown and Linda Kucan, in Bringing Words to Life (second edition, 2013), stress the variety of contexts in the same way: hearing the word, saying it, looking for it, sorting it, playing with it. In Lexikit, bingo makes the child listen, the memory game makes the child name, sorting makes the child think about meaning and the worksheet makes the child write.
What Lexikit changes
Preparing ten resources with the same words and the same pictures takes hours of searching and layout. Lexikit does this work from the list. What is left is choosing the order: discover the words with a picture dictionary, play them with bingo, find them again on a worksheet. The materials do not replace the adult who explains the words. The meta-analysis by Loren Marulis and Susan Neuman (2010), on 67 studies in preschool, finds the strongest effects when the teacher explains the words and has children meet them in context.
