Understanding a text requires more than the ability to read individual words: it depends greatly on vocabulary knowledge. This important book brings together leading literacy scholars to synthesize cutting-edge research on vocabulary development and its connections to reading comprehension. The volume also reviews an array of approaches to assessing vocabulary knowledge and helping diverse learners build their skills. Key topics include the relationship of vocabulary acquisition to phonological awareness and to morphological processing, the role of parents in supporting early language development, and considerations in teaching English language learners and children with reading disabilities. The book is divided into the following fourteen chapters: (1) Vocabulary Acquisition: A Primer (Caroline Phythian-Sence and Richard K. Wagner); (2) Vocabulary Development and the Development of Phonological Awareness Skills in Preschool Children (Christopher J. Lonigan); (3) Parents' Support of Children's Language Provides Support for Later Reading Competence (Susan H. Landry and Karen E. Smith); (4) Metalinguistic Awareness and the Vocabulary-Comprehension Connection (William Nagy); (5) Fostering Morphological Processing, Vocabulary Development, and Reading Comprehension (Joanne F. Carlisle); (6) Morphological Structure Awareness, Vocabulary, and Reading (Catherine McBride-Chang, Hua Shu, Jessica Yuen Wai Ng, Xiangzhi Meng, and Trevor Penney); (7) Large Problem Spaces: The Challenge of Vocabulary for English Language Learners (Catherine E. Snow and Young-Suk Kim); (8) Tapping the Linguistic Resources of Spanish-English Bilinguals: The Role of Cognates in Science (Marco A. Bravo, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, and P. David Pearson); (9) Implications of New Vocabulary Assessments for Minority Children (Jill de Villiers and Valerie Johnson); (10) Different Ways for Different Goals, but Keep Your Eye on the Higher Verbal Goals (Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown); (11) Landmark Vocabulary Instructional Research and the Vocabulary Instructional Research That Makes Sense Now (Michael Pressley, Laurel Disney, and Kendra Anderson); (12) Working Memory: A System for Learning (Susan E. Gathercole); (13) An Individual-Differences Approach to the Study of Reading Comprehension (Christopher Schatschneider, Erin Renee Harrell, and Julie Buck); and (14) Promising Avenues for Better Understanding Implications of Vocabulary Development for Reading Comprehension (Richard K. Wagner, Andrea E. Muse, and Kendra R. Tannenbaum).