增加閱讀理解，就能夠幫助詞彙的增加(Beck,Perfetti & McKeown, 1982; Kameenui,Carnine & Freschi, 1982; Stahl, 1983)，這樣子的說法經Davis (1944) 分析了許多因素之間的關係後，也發現這閱讀理解和詞彙增加確實存在互相彼此影響的關係。
在第一語言詞彙成長的討論中，其中心都是伴隨著閱讀理解的關係(Hague, 1987)。Hague (1987)曾把第一語言詞彙成長的五種解釋放在第二語言學習的脈絡下討論：這五個解釋分別是性向(aptitude hypothesis)、知識(knowledge hypothesis)、工具性(instrumentalist hypothesis)、讀取(access hypothesis)，以及融合以上四個解釋的互動(interaction, instructional design hypothesis)。
性向假說指的是一個人天生的能力，某些人自然就能夠學會較多詞彙，而有較好的閱讀能力；知識假說則認為詞彙的知識是反應了這個人一般的知識，而間接影響了他的閱讀能力；工具性假說則提直接將詞彙和閱讀能力以「相關」的形式表示(這樣的假說下，可以透過刻意去教詞彙來帶動閱讀能力的提昇)；讀取假說則認為當一個詞語還沒被完全熟悉而能夠快速、輕易地讀取時，人們是不會使用這個詞，因此需要有多次的接觸和練習才能達成熟悉；在上面四種解釋互動下，Kameenui,Dixon and Carnine (1987)提出了詞彙應該如何學習的方法，其目標就是增進閱讀的理解。
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