Parents

It's Not Just How Often You Read — It's How You Talk About the Words

Recent research shows that when it comes to building vocabulary, the number of books matters less than the small conversations you have about them. Here's what that looks like at home.

Great Atlantic Learning Systems

•Thursday, September 3, 2026•3 min read

It's Not Just How Often You Read — It's How You Talk About the Words

If you've ever felt a little guilty that you don't read enough nonfiction with your child, here's some reassuring news from recent research: when it comes to building your child's vocabulary and knowledge, the number of books may matter less than the small conversations you have about them.

What Researchers Found

Two 2025 studies looked closely at how kindergarten teachers read informational books — the kind about animals, weather, space, or how things work — out loud to their classes.

The first study, following 278 kindergartners, expected that classrooms with more nonfiction read-alouds would show bigger jumps in vocabulary and knowledge. Surprisingly, simply reading these books more often wasn't clearly linked to how much children learned. (The researchers were careful to note this was a correlational study — it can't prove cause and effect, and it may have been too small to catch smaller benefits.)

A companion study offered a clue as to why. When researchers watched how teachers handled new words during read-alouds, they found teachers explained about five new words per book — a reasonable number — but rarely circled back to a word a second time, and seldom connected it to ideas the children already knew. Some explanations were even a bit off. The takeaway: children learn words most deeply not from hearing them once, but from meeting them several times, in different ways, tied to things that already make sense to them.

Why It Matters for Your Child

Vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of later reading comprehension. A child who knows what "habitat" or "migrate" means doesn't just have more words — they have more hooks to hang new ideas on. And the good news is that the "quality" ingredient these studies point to isn't a special curriculum. It's conversation, which is exactly the thing a parent on the couch can offer better than almost anyone.

Two Things to Try at Home

When you read a nonfiction book together, pick just one or two interesting words and give them a little life. Say the word, offer a simple meaning ("Nocturnal means the animal is awake at night, like an owl"), and then use it again later that day — at dinner, in the bath — so your child bumps into it more than once.

Then connect it to their world: "Remember how our cat sleeps all day? She's a bit nocturnal too." That link between a new word and something familiar is the deep learning these researchers were looking for — and it turns a quick bedtime book into something that sticks.

You don't need more books or more time. Just a little more talk about the words already on the page.