More than just words: Why explicit vocabulary teaching matters for learners with SEND and SEMH needs Oana Robu Oana Robu is a Head of English working across specialist secondary SEND settings, with a professional focus on literacy leadership, inclusive pedagogy and trauma-informed practice. She is particularly interested in translating evidence-informed practice into sustainable approaches to teaching, curriculum and whole-school literacy and her work centres on how educators can maintain high academic expectations while developing responsive and inclusive provision for pupils with complex needs.
For pupils with SEND and SEMH needs, vocabulary can represent far more than a measure of literacy as words provide access to the curriculum itself, to relationships, to selfadvocacy and, crucially, to the ability to understand and communicate experiences. Yet vocabulary can easily become an assumed - rather than explicitly taught - component of classroom practice. In specialist settings, this assumption can create an additional barrier for pupils who are already navigating complex learning/trauma profiles. A student may understand a concept but lack the language to articulate it, while another may decode a text accurately while struggling with the vocabulary needed to infer meaning. A pupil experiencing heightened anxiety may know and feel that something feels wrong but not have the words to express their frustration. Explicit vocabulary instruction therefore becomes not an optional literacy intervention, but an important component of inclusive teaching. Vocabulary as curriculum access The relationship between vocabulary and comprehension is particularly significant. As pupils progress through secondary education, texts become increasingly dependent on academic and disciplinary language and words such as ‘analyse’, ‘contrast’, ‘justify’, ‘significant’ and ‘consequence’ appear across subjects, while individual disciplines introduce their own increasingly specialised terminology.
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For some pupils with SEND, encountering unfamiliar vocabulary while simultaneously processing new concepts places considerable demand on working memory. If too much cognitive effort is spent determining what individual words mean, less capacity remains available for understanding the wider text or concept. This is where explicit teaching can make a substantial difference. Rather than relying on pupils to acquire vocabulary incidentally, teachers can identify the words that provide the greatest leverage and teach them volitionally. In practice, this does not mean producing lengthy vocabulary lists but it does translate to accessing carefully selected words. The question around which word could potentially unlock the greatest amount of learning, across subjects, moves vocabulary teaching from an additional activity to part of curriculum design. Teach the word, not just the definition Providing a definition is rarely sufficient for secure vocabulary acquisition because knowing a word involves understanding how said word behaves in different contexts, recognising related forms and eventually being able to use it independently. If we were to take the word ‘reluctant’: a pupil might initially learn that it means ‘not wanting to do something’ but richer instruction might explore ‘reluctantly’, compare ‘reluctant’ with ‘refusing’, examine a character behaving reluctantly and eventually invite pupils to construct their own examples. Morphology can also provide powerful support. Teaching pupils to notice prefixes, suffixes and roots helps them develop useful strategies for approaching unfamiliar vocabulary rather than remaining dependent on an adult explanation. Exploring ‘predict’, ‘prediction’, ‘predictable’ and ‘unpredictable’, for example, teaches considerably more than four isolated definitions as it reveals how words are constructed and connected. For learners with SEND, this structured approach can make language feel less arbitrary and more navigable.
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Repetition, without repetition becoming repetitive Vocabulary is rarely secured after one encounter as pupils need repeated opportunities to hear, read, discuss and use new words. For learners with disrupted/sporadic attendance, fluctuating engagement or difficulties with information retention, this principle becomes especially important. However, repetition need not translate to repeating the same worksheet or definition. A word introduced explicitly on Monday might appear in a class reader on Tuesday, be revisited through retrieval practice on Wednesday and become part of an oral discussion later in the week. Teachers can model it naturally in classroom dialogue and encourage pupils to recognise it and use it independently elsewhere. This deliberate cycle of use creates what might be described as recurrence (or planned opportunities for vocabulary to reappear until unfamiliar language gradually becomes familiar). More importantly, retrieval should also feel psychologically safe. For pupils who associate being questioned with previous academic failure, rapid-fire vocabulary testing can reinforce avoidance rather than learning, and so strategies (such as paired rehearsal, sentence stems, visual prompts and opportunities to think before responding) can preserve academic challenge while reducing unnecessary threat. Vocabulary is also emotional literacy For pupils with SEMH needs, vocabulary has another important function. A pupil who can communicate only that they are ‘angry’ has fewer linguistic tools available than a pupil who can distinguish between nuances of language (eg. feeling frustrated, embarrassed, overwhelmed, disappointed, excluded or anxious). Increasing emotional vocabulary does not automatically produce emotional regulation, but it can provide pupils with more precise ways of interpreting and communicating their internal experiences. This matters in trauma-informed practice because behaviour is often communication, and so expanding the language available to pupils can increase the range of ways in which that communication occurs. English classrooms offer particularly rich opportunities and literature, in particular, allows pupils to encounter complex emotions at a degree of distance from their own experiences. Instead of asking a pupil directly why they became angry, we might first explore why a character appears resentful rather than simply angry. Through characters and carefully structured discussion, pupils can rehearse language for experiences that they may otherwise find difficult to articulate.
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High expectations require high levels of access There can sometimes be a temptation in specialist education to respond to literacy difficulties by simplifying language extensively. Accessibility is paramount but simplification alone risks creating a cycle in which pupils who know fewer words continue to encounter fewer words. Adaptive teaching should instead address the aspect of enabling pupils to access ambitious vocabulary. That might mean pre-teaching key terminology, using visuals, explicitly modelling pronunciation, breaking words into meaningful parts, providing examples/non-examples, rehearsing language orally before writing, and revisiting vocabulary systematically. These approaches scaffold access without reducing intellectual ambition. Ultimately, explicit vocabulary teaching is about more than helping pupils produce stronger written responses or comprehend increasingly complex texts. Explicit vocabulary relates to widening access to knowledge and giving pupils greater precision with which to think and communicate. For learners with SEND and SEMH needs, words can become tools for understanding both the curriculum and themselves. Our responsibility as educators is not to protect pupils from ambitious language, but to build the bridges that enable them to reach it.
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