What is Core Vocabulary?

You may have heard the term, “core vocabulary”. What exactly does that mean? How do you incorporate core vocabulary into your daily routine? Is this going to be one more thing to add to the “to-do” list for the day? Core vocabulary does not need to be scary, and is actually something you’re probably already using in your everyday life. 


When your therapist discusses core vocabulary, they’re referring to a set of highly used and common words that can be used in various  settings. These include words such as: want, go, more, yes, no, and please. It is vocabulary that incorporates a variety of language such as verbs, descriptors, prepositions and pronouns. Core vocabulary is our everyday language! In fact, one study has shown that 50 words account for 40 to 50% of what we say, 100 words account for about 60%, and 200 to 400 words account for 80% of the words we use every day. Since core vocabulary is actually our everyday language, it can easily be targeted during typical activities and routines. 

As with all language development, the key is to start with modeling the target vocabulary. It is important to model 1-2 steps above your child’s current level. For example, with the upcoming Easter holiday. You can target colors when dying Easter eggs. If your child says “red” to describe the egg color, you can expand by saying “red egg” or “I see red”.

Other core vocabulary that can be targeted during this activity include: wet/dry, same/different, quantitative concepts such as numbers, and even spatial concepts (under, on top, behind etc) when hiding the Easter eggs.
Core vocabulary is all around us, we just have to look for the opportunities to highlight it!

100 High Frequency Core Vocabulary List
https://aaclanguagelab.com/materials/100highfrequencycorewords21.pdf