What Does It mean to Know a Word? Vocabulary Instruction in the Content Areas

1. What Does It mean to Know a Word?Vocabulary Instruction in the Content Areas EDCI 4010 1/21/11

2. “Difference of thoughts will produce differences of language”

3. Vocabulary Acquisition and the Secondary StudentWhy It’s Important • Vocabulary growth is both a cause and effect of skilled reading. • By using more specific vocabulary, students become more efficient, elegant, and fluent communicators of what they know and experience. • Use of vocabulary indicates breadth and depth of knowledge.

4. Vocabulary instruction should be an integral part of an interactive classroom, as opposed to a separate activity such as looking up words in a dictionary or memorizing isolated definitions for a quiz • Vocabulary is often unique to a discipline and specialized study is often distinguishable by its vocabulary. • Multiple opportunities to use new vocabulary (writing, speaking, demonstration, reading) are essential for retention.

5. Factors Contributing to Vocabulary Acquisition What it means to know a word: Five levels* of word knowledge: • never heard/saw it • heard it, but don’t know what it means • recognize it as having something to do with… • know it well • can use this word appropriately and effectively on a number of levels (Paribahkt and Wesche, 1997) * For ease of use and clarity, most teachers shrink knowledge and vocab rating scales to three levels: know it well, have heard it/think it means, no clue

6. Morphology in Incidental Word Learning • Morphology: • the semantic process by which students gain information about words by looking at “meaningful units” within them (roots, prefixes, suffixes) • recognize words more efficiently, remember meanings and spellings of partially known words, infer the meanings/pronunciation of many unknown words (e.g. pedicure, pedometer, pedestal, biped, quadruped, pedal, and pedestrian) A caveat: roots come from a variety of languages and meaning may not transfer… so, for the above example, pediatricianwon’t work.

7. Context in Incidental Word Learning • Context requires facile and sophisticated use of the text to understand new words and improve vocabulary. • Effective use of contextual clues depends upon a student doing a number of things at once. Students should: a) use prior knowledge (What do I already know about this?), b) use syntax (How are the words put together so that they function as a sentence?), c) use semantics on an idea level (What makes sense in this sentence?)

8. Contextual Strategies • Definition/Explanation: “The study of word origins, etymology, helps us understand how one language may be related to another.” • Restatement/Synonym: “Her upbeat perspective encouraged me to adopt an equally positive outlook.” • Contrast/Antonym: “Defeat was inevitable,but the troops kept on fighting despite their fatigue, dwindling supplies, and heavy casualties.” • Inference: “Ivan arrived at the refugee camp hurt, emaciated, and disoriented. The poor boy was covered with ugly bruises, his ribs stood out in frightful rows, and he gazed about vacantly.”

9. The relative usefulness of definitions • Looking up words in a dictionary and memorizing them does not lead to improved comprehension if this is a solitary activity. A person must often know the word or have some idea of context in order to understand the definition. Also, definitions may be abstract (“mere” – that thing alone and nothing else added to it, i.e. mere coincidence or mere chance) or do not contain enough information for a reader to understand how to use the word. Miller & Gildea, 1987; Scott and Nagy, 1997 • Dictionaries are extremely useful, however, when verifying the meaning of a word or as an aid in learning a new language.

10. Size and Growth of Vocabulary • Few students experience systematic, prolonged, and intensive vocabulary instruction. • In an observational study of over 300 hours, upper elementary and middle school students had only 19 minutes of explicit vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary instruction at the high school level tends to be treated as “part and parcel” of curriculum unless students take a course specific to word building such as an SAT prep. • In a study by Nagy and Herman, printed school materials for grades 3-9 contained over 88,0000 words with “upwards of 100,000 distinct meanings.”

11. Building Vocabulary Knowledge • Words in a lexicon, a person’s mental dictionary, are primarily acquired through experiences with spoken language, next by reading, and then by specialized study in the content areas. • After third grade, reading may be the single largest source of vocabulary growth. Yet, reading is NOT sufficient in itself to cement a word within the lexicon – requires active use, 10-15 exposures (includes application)

12. Vocabulary Activities (B-D-A) • Frayer Model, Graphic Organizers (Buehl); Wordle • Concept-Definition Map, Concept Circles, Concept Paragraphs (Buehl) • Magnet Summaries (using key terms) - Buehl • Knowledge Rating Scales • Analogies (Buehl) • List-Group-Label • Connotations/Denotations • Crosswords • Polar Opposites, Vocabulary Scales • Charades • Semantic Feature Analysis, Classification Tables (Buehl)