Oral Vocabulary — Recognition Base for Learning to Read

It is connected to the main concept «uchitsya-legko.rf — learning to read as the decoding of a written code».

If a child decodes a word they already know, the result can loop back to recognition: the resulting sound activates a familiar concept and thereby confirms correct reading.

If the word is unknown to them, there is no such internal check. Even technically correct reading remains a meaningless sequence of sounds.

Therefore, the initial written vocabulary should mainly consist of words for which the following already exist:

• a familiar concept;
• a recognizable object, situation, or image;
• a familiar sound;
• the child's ability to pronounce the word themselves.

This is directly related to the model «A written word connects several representations of the same content»: the spelling must attach to an already existing network rather than being created in a vacuum.

If the oral vocabulary is small, expanding it becomes part of the project's preparatory layer. New concepts are first introduced through an object, situation, image, and oral speech, and only then used as reading material.

Later, the direction reverses: developed reading itself becomes a way to expand vocabulary and derive new meanings from text.

In practice, this principle limits the choice of the next task in «Learning to read must proceed from known supports to the unknown code»: a word cannot be considered good educational material just because it is convenient in terms of its letter combination.