Vocabulary Instruction

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repetitious
technical
fervid
covert
Vocabulary Instruction
constantly
simulation
Structural Analysis
adversary
initiate
fortunate
articulate
Diana Triplett
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"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug
used by mankind." --Rudyard Kipling
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Vocabulary Trends

• Average 6 year old
• Knows about 14,000 words
• Middle and High School Students
• Need 1,500 to 3,000 new words each year
• Should learn 6-8 new words per day
• Seniors should know 40,000 words
• Adults
• Continue to learn new words to at least age 30
• Average adult has 100,000 word vocabulary

Clark, Nagy, Gleitman and Johnson
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How Can We Teach So Many New Words???!!!!????

• Majority of new words are learned in context
  during reading.
• Structural analysis gives readers the opportunity
  to understand many new words.
• Raising students word consciousness can help
  students to increase their vocabularies.

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Analyzing Words

• Consider
• Origins
• Structure
• Meaning

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Spelling-Meaning Connection

• Words with similar origins/meaning are often
  spelled in similar ways.
• sign
• signal
• signature
• Such words may be pronounced differently.
• Structural analysis can help students to make
  these connections.

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What do you know about this word?

• pandemonium?

What does it mean?
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Pandemonium - definition

• An uproar
• An extremely disorderly situation
• Mass disorder
• Chaos

What is the origin of this word?
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Pandemonium??????

• Pandas first visited the U.S. in the early 20th
  century
• Their arrival sparked much curiosity
• Pandamonium became pandemonium

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Pandemonium????

• Pandoras box
• A Greek myth
• Pandora opens the mysterious box that leads to
  the unleashing of all the evils in the world
• Her name became associated with chaos

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Pandemonium????

• John Milton wrote Paradise Lost.
• He used pandaemonium as the name for the capital
  of Hell.
• Greek pan means all.
• Latin daemonium means demon.

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Vote for your favorite
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Teach Students about Word Parts

• Derivatives
• (root words)
• Prefixes
• Suffixes

These word parts come from other languages like
Greek or Latin. They are often the source of odd
English spellings.
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Prefixes

• Added to the beginning of words
• Change the meaning of words
• Example
• Cover means hide from view.
• Discover means to find.

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Common Prefixes
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Common Prefixes
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Suffixes

• Added to end of words
• Change words function and meaning
• Example
• Exclaim is a verb meaning to shout suddenly
• Exclamation is a noun meaning noisy talk

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Common Suffixes
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Common Suffixes
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Derivatives

• Root words
• Base words
• Carry the most meaning
• Most English words are built from at least one
  root.

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Common Derivatives
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Common Derivatives
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Put It All Together And

• Analyze transport
• Latin root port
• Means to carry
• Prefix trans
• Means across
• Transport carry across
• Add a suffix - ation
• Means action or process
• Transportation the act of carrying something
  across a space

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Transfer this knowledge to understand all of
these words
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Caution!!!

• It is impossible to teach ALL of the possible
  root words, prefixes or suffixes
• It is better to teach students to generalize
  unknown words from known words
• Example I know that a biologist studies life,
  so a chemist probably studies chemistry.

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Word Study for Readers and Writers in the
Secondary Grades

• Structural analysis
• Vocabulary and spelling skills based on knowledge
  of morphemes and affixes
• Word meaning can often be derived from experience
  with word bases, prefixes and suffixes.
• Growth depends heavily on the amount of time
  spent reading (exposure to words in context)

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Give students practice in inferring meaning based
on word structure

• Give students words with the same derivative and
  have them infer the meaning
• Construction, instruct, structure
• Judge, prejudice, adjudicate
• Give students words with the same affixes and
  have them derive the meaning.
• Biology, pathology, ecology
• Hydrogen, hydrologist, hydraulic

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Activities for exploring word parts

• Collecting roots and related words
• Choose a root, prefix or suffix a week
• Class lists
• Individual lists
• Homework lists
• Bookmarks

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Word Games

• Word part concentration
• Competitions to see who can generate the most
  words using a particular word part
• Word sorts
• Word Jeopardy!
• Bingo

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Latin Root Jeopardy!
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Wall displays
luminous

• Trees
• Derivatives on the roots
• Words on the leaves

luminary
illumination
lum
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Examples of Bell Work

• They had to reapply the paint because the first
  coat was too thin.
• What does reapply mean?
• How do you know?
• List two more words that have the same root as
  reapply.
• Billy was a disobedient child.
• What does disobedient mean?
• How do you know?
• List two more words that have the same prefix as
  disobedient.

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Examples of Bell Work

• Underline the words that contain
• a prefix. Write a definition for
• each word you underlined.
• Because I was uncomfortable, I had to readjust
  the seat belt.
• The teacher proposed that students excise all
  curse words from their vocabularies.

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Deductive Word Play

• Give students 3-5 examples of words with a common
  base.
• Have them work in groups to determine the base
  and its meaning

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Graphic Word Study
asterisk
aster
Base word Means
astronomy
astronaut
Base word ast Means star
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Graphic Word Study
submarine
Prefix sub Means
subcontract
circumference
circular
Prefix Means
curcumnavigate
circulate
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ALWAYS Make the Connection to Authentic Reading

• Examine unknown words in a reading passage
  looking for meaningful parts.
• Do you see a prefix?
• A suffix?
• Is the root word familiar?
• Do you know other words that have this root?
• Can you infer the meaning?
• Try out the meaning to see if it makes sense in
  the context.

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Ultimate Goals

• Students will not be overwhelmed when confronted
  with unknown words.
• Students will have strategies for analyzing words
  to find clues to meaning
• Students will generalize from known words to
  unknown words.

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Resources

• Words Their Way by Donald Bear
• Modifying The Four Blocks for Upper Grades by
  Cheryl M. Sigmon
• Easy Mini-Lessons for Building Vocabulary by
  Laura Robb
• The Word Detective by Evan Morris
• The Vocabulary Teachers Book of Lists by Edward
  Fry