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Engaging Vocabulary Instruction. Presented by Jeffrey J. Kuntz Punxsutawney Area Middle School Punxsutawney Area School District. Mark Twain on Words.
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Engaging Vocabulary Instruction Presented by Jeffrey J. Kuntz Punxsutawney Area Middle School Punxsutawney Area School District
Mark Twain on Words • “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Albus Dumbledore on Words “Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”
The Vocabulary Gap • In many ways the “Reading Gap,” especially after 2-3 grade is essentially a Vocabulary Gap and the longer students are in school the wider the gap becomes. What can we do to close this gap?
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 1. Some words are more important to teach than others. • Reading vocabulary of 3,000-4,000 words per year. • Focus on Tier Two words
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 2. Students have to learn words at more than one level. • No knowledge to general sense of the word to narrow, context-bound knowledge to having knowledge to deep meaning
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 3. Students learn words when they experience them multiple times • Students need multiple exposures over time. (Research shows somewhere between 6 and 12 exposures)
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 4. Asking students to look up words in the dictionary and write the definition does not help them learn words. • Dictionary definitions often cloud a word’s meaning.
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 5. When students learn words, they build patterns and networks of meaning called “word schemas.” • Context, root words, prefixes, suffixes, where have I seen this before, is it a verb or a noun, etc.
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 6. Students can learn some words through the use of wide reading. • Reading texts, fiction and non-fiction trade books, newspapers, comic books, cereal boxes, etc.
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 7. Students can learn some words through rich conversation with adults and peers. • Instructional conversation, parent/child general conversation, read alouds, television, etc.
Using a Read Aloud • This comes from the picture book A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon (1998) • “The Creams were swamped with all kinds of remedies from psychologists, allergists, herbalists, nutritionists, psychics, an old medicine man, a guru, and even a veterinarian. Each so-called cure only added to poor Camilla’s strange appearance until it was hard to even recognize her.”
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 8. Students can learn some words through word play. • Vocabulary instruction that includes multisensory activity can help students internalize new words and continue to develop word schema. • Word play is motivation
Multisensory Activity • For the visual learner: draw a picture, see it in your mind, jot it down, use a graphic organizer • For the auditory learner: say it to self, discuss with a partner or group, say your thoughts out loud • For the kinesthetic learner: show how, act it out, point to
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 9. Students can learn some words through direct instruction.
Top Ten Essential Ingredients for Word Studyaccording to Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013) • 10. Most students need word learning strategies to become independent readers. • Context clues, prefixes, suffixes, root words, grammar rules, parts of speech, etc.
Importance of Vocabulary Instruction • Vocabulary Gap • Children enter school with different levels of vocabulary. (Hart & Risley, 1995) • By the time the children were 3 years old, parents in less economically favored circumstances had said fewer words in their cumulative monthly vocabularies than the children in the most economically advantaged families in the same period of time. • Cumulative Vocabulary (Age 4) • Children from professional families 1100 words • Children from working class families 700 words • Children from welfare families 500 words
Importance of Vocabulary Instruction • To close the vocabulary gap, vocabulary acquisition must be accelerated through intentional instruction. • Vocabulary instruction must be a focus in all classes in all grades. • Adequate reading comprehension depends on a person knowing between 90 and 95% of the meaning of words in the text.
High Quality Classroom Language • Use high quality vocabulary in the classroom. • To ensure understanding, • Tell students the meaning of words when first used. “Don’t procrastinate on your project. Procrastinate means to put off doing something.” • Pair in the meaning of the word by using parallel language. “Please refrain from talking. Please don’t talk.” “Laws have their genesis…their beginning…in the legislative branch.” “What is your hypothesis… your best guess?”
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction-Selection of Vocabulary • Select a limited number of words for robust, explicit vocabulary instruction. • Three to ten words per story or section in a chapter would be appropriate. • Briefly tell students the meaning of other words that are needed for comprehension.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction-Selection of vocabulary • Select words that are unknown. • Select words that are critical to passage understanding. • Select words that students are likely to encounter or use in the future. (Stahl, 1986) • Focus on Tier Two words (Beck & McKeown, 2003) • “Academic Vocabulary” • Select difficult words that need interpretation.
Explicit Instruction of Words-Selection of Vocabulary • Tier One - Basic words • chair, bed, happy, house, car, purse • Tier Two - Words in general use, but not common • analyze, facilitate, absurd, fortunate, observation, accountant, dignity, convenient, laboriously • Tier Three - Rare words limited to a specific domain • tundra, totalitarian, cellular respiration, genre, foreshadowing, monoculture farming, judicial review
Explicit Instruction of Words-Selection of Vocabulary • “Goldilocks Words” • Not too difficult • Not too easy • Just right (Stahl & Stahl, 2004)
Explicit Instruction of Vocabulary-Preparation • Student Friendly Explanation Dictionary Definition: compulsory (1) Employing compulsion; coercive (2) Required by law or other rule Student Friendly Explanation: -Uses known words -Is easy to understand When something is required, you must do it, it is compulsory.
Explicit Instruction of Vocabulary-Preparation • Use a dictionary designed for English language learners for better definitions. • Exampleconglomeration First dictionary-The act of conglomerating. Second dictionary- The act or process of conglomerating; an accumulation of miscellaneous things. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary-A large group or mass of different things all gathered together in an untidy or unusual way.
Dictionaries • ELL Dictionary • Collins Cobuild Dictionary • http://www.ldoceonline.com • www.learnersdictionary.com • www.howjsay.com (will pronounce the word)
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 1. Introduce the word. • Write the word on the board or overhead. • Read the word and have the students repeat the word. If the word is difficult to pronounce or unfamiliar have the students repeat the word a number of times. Introduce the word with me. “ This word is compulsory. What word?”
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 2. Introduce meaning of word. Option # 1. Present a student-friendly explanation. • Tell students the explanation. OR • Have them read the explanation with you. Present the definition with me. “When something is required and you must do it, it is compulsory. So if it is required and you must do it, it is _______________.”
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 2. Introduce meaning of word. Option # 3. Introduce the word using the morphographs in the word. • Introduce word in relationship to “word relatives”. • Declare Declaration of Independence • analyze analyzinganalysis • maintain maintenance b. Analyze parts of word. • autobiography auto = self bio = life graph = letters, words, or pictures
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 3. Illustrate the word with examples. (Google images at www.taggalaxy.com) • Concrete examples. • Visual examples. • Verbal examples.(Also discuss when the term might be used and who might use the term.) Present the examples with me. “Coming to school to as 8th graders is compulsory.” “Stopping at a stop sign when driving is compulsory.”
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 4. Check students’ understanding. Option #1. Ask deep processing questions.Check students’understanding with me. “Arriving to class on time is compulsory. Why do you think it is compulsory?” “Paying taxes is compulsory. Why do you think paying taxes are compulsory?”
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 4. Check students’ understanding. Option #2. Have students discern between examples and non-examples. Check students’ understanding with me. “Is going to school in 9th grade compulsory?”Yes “How do you know it is compulsory?”It is required. “Is going to college when you are 25 compulsory?” “Why is it not compulsory?”It is not required. You get to choose to go to college.
Instructional Routine for Vocabulary Step 4. Check students’ understanding. Option #3. Have students generate their own examples. Check students’ understanding with me. “There are many things at this school that are compulsory. Think of as many things as you can?” “Talk with your partner. See how many things you can think of that are compulsory.”
Practice Activity: Example A Introduce the word.This word is migrate. What word? 2. Present a student-friendly explanation.When birds or other animals move from one place to another at a certain time each year, they migrate. So if birds move to a new place in the winter or spring, we say that the birds _________________. Animals usually migrate to find a warmer place to live or to get food. 3. Illustrate the word with examples.Sandhill Cranes fly from the North to the South so they can live in a warmer place. Sandhill Cranes _______________.
Practice Activity: Example A continued The wildebeests in Africa move to a new place so that they can find water and grass. Wildebeests _______. 4. Check students’ understanding. (Deep processing question.)Why might birds migrate? Tell your partner. (The teacher monitors and coaches. Then the teacher calls on someone to answer.)
Practice Activity: Example B Introduce the word.This word is survive. What word? 2. Present a student-friendly explanation.When people or animals don’t die when things are very bad or dangerous, they survive. 3. Illustrate the word with examples.Look at the people on this river. It is very dangerous.However, they don’t get hurt or die, they __________.
Practice Activity: Example B continued Check students’ understanding. (Examples and non-examples)Get ready to tell me if this group would survive.If the winter was very cold and all food was buried under the snow, would whooping cranes survive?________ Ones, tell your partner why they wouldn’t survive?If whooping cranes had plenty of food and the weather was warm, would they survive? __________ Twos, tell your partner why they would survive?(Deep Processing Questions)If a rabbit was being chased by a coyote, what could the rabbit do to survive?
Vocabulary Logs • Vocabulary Word • Student Friendly definition • Student derived visual representation • Knowledge Rating (revisited over a period of time)
Vocabulary Logs…Assess Yourself • *I am a Novice (1) I am just starting to learn this and I don’t really understand it yet. • *I am an Apprentice (2) I am starting to get it, but I still need someone to coach me through. • *I am a Practitioner (3) I can mostly do it by myself, but I sometimes mess up or get stuck. • *I am an Expert (4) I understand it well and I could thoroughly teach it to someone else.
Strategies In Action • This is a introductory vocabulary lesson from Chapter 1 of our fifth grade social studies text.
archaeologist • *a person who studies tools, bones, and remains of ancient people • 1. Many archaeologists believe that the first people to arrive in North America crossed a land bridge from Asia. • 2. The archaeologists found many Native American artifacts at the dig site.
Archaeologist-Meet the Relatives *archaeologist *archaeology-comes from a word meaning ancient -ology is a suffix that means “the study of” What other -ology words do you know?
Social Studies Log • Archaeology-the study of ancient people.
glacier • *a thick sheet of slow moving ice • *the root word of glacier, glace, means “ice” • 1. Glaciers held so much water that ocean levels dropped and land appeared in some places. • 2. The Titanic began to sink when it hit a bank of glaciers.
