EN
The author presents the function and meaning of the notion "lexical item'' in the Polish language teaching program. Having reviewed textbook vocabulary from the point of view of range and frequency he selected a group of 1291 with 6912 counts of their use which he limited to 299 derivatives built from 151 stem words. He points out the necessity of developing pupils vocabulary to ensure the optimum of glottodidactic structure of vocabulary size in the teaching process.