Bringing Words to Life: Effective Vocabulary Instruction

1
Bringing Words to LifeEffective Vocabulary
Instruction

• Mary Rogers Rose, Ed. D.
• Grades 3-5 Director
• Harnett County Schools
• Marilyn McCarthy
• K-5 ELA Consultant
• North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
• Patricia Chalmers
• Grades 6-8 ELA Consultant
• North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

2
What Is Vocabulary?
3
Questions

• What is vocabulary?
• How do we know a word?
• How do we learn vocabulary?
• How might teachers select words to teach?

4
Questions

• What are some principles for effective vocabulary
  instruction?
• What are some ideas/activities for teaching
  vocabulary?

5
Vocabulary Discussion Activity

• Discuss the following questions with
• one or more colleagues
• What is a word?
• What does it mean to know a word?
• How do you know that you know a word?

6
Knowledge of a Word

• A word is a label for singular terms or for
  concepts that represent classes of thing.
• Continuum of word knowledge
• Unknown-dont know the word.
• Initial recognition-have seem it but dont know
  what it means
• Partial knowledge-think that I know a meaning
• Full knowledge-know the word and can use it in
  several ways

7
You Try It!
8
Word Meanings

• Determine your level of knowledge of each
• of these words.
• queck
• nould
• webcam
• cyberphobic
• Doh
• impertransibility

9
What Is Vocabulary?

• Vocabulary refers to words we must know to
  communicate effectively.
• Phonological vocabulary refers to words that we
  use in speaking or recognize in listening.
• Orthographic vocabulary refers to words we use in
  reading and writing.
• Word knowledge is crucial to reading
  comprehension. Repeated exposure to vocabulary in
  many contexts aids word learning.

10
Vocabulary/Background Knowledge Connection

• The packets of information that constitute our
  background knowledge all have labels associated
  with them. This is true for singular terms,
  general terms, and even commonly used phrases.
  Thus, teaching background knowledge.can be
  approached from a vocabulary perspective.
• Robert Marzano
• Building Background Knowledge page 35

11
Predictive Power

• Although the best predictors of kindergarten
• students reading achievement in Grades 1
• and 2 is their proficiency in
• Phonemic Awareness
• Alphabet Knowledge

12
ORAL VOCABULARY at the end of first grade is
the best predictor of readers comprehension ten
years later.

Cunningham, A.E., Stanovich, K.E. (1997). .
13
How Do We Learn Vocabulary?
14
Young children learn word meanings from
one-on-one interactions with parents and
siblings. These interactions may be rich or poor.
15
Meaningful Differences

• Hart and Todd Risley
• Studied 42 families for 2 ½ years, beginning when
  children were between 7 and 9 months of age.
• 13 families Higher SES
• 23 families Middle/Lower SES
• 6 families Low SES (public assistance)
• Observed every month for one hour

16
Meaningful Differences in Early Language
Experiences
500 750 1250
149 216 297
5 15 35
178 301 487
18 26 42
17
Meaningful Differences in Early Language
Experiences
5 12 32
11 7 5
18
Meaningful Differences in Early Language
ExperiencesCumulative Language Experience in a
Typical Week
19
Meaningful Differences in Early Language
ExperiencesCumulative Language Experience at
Age Four
20
Yeah.
Do I have to eat these?
21
Yes, because they have vitamins that will help
you grow and get stronger.
Do I have to eat these?
22
How Does Vocabulary Grow?

• New words per year in the primary grades
• 3000 words for students from middle
  socio-economic status homes
• 1000 words for students from lower socio-economic
  status homes

23
Projection of the Vocabulary Gap
50K 40K 30K 20K 10K 0
45,000 17,000
5,000 1,500
K 12
24
What Does Research Tell Us About Vocabulary
Instruction?

• Students need to
• Be immersed in words. (Snow)
• Discover how words are related to experiences and
  one another. (Marzano)
• Personalize word learning through experiences.
  (Eeds and Cockrum)
• Build on multiple sources of information and in
  multiple contexts. (CIERA)

25
What Does Research Tell Us About Vocabulary
Instruction?

• Students need to
• Gain control of their own learning through
  self-selection. ( Fisher, Blachowicz, Smith)
• Be aided in developing independent strategies. (
  National Reading Panel)
• Use word in meaningful ways (Blachowicz, Fisher)

26
Indirect Vocabulary Instruction

• Children learn word meanings indirectly in three
  different ways
• They engage in oral language.
• They listen to adults read to them.
• They read extensively on their own.

27
Direct Vocabulary Instruction helps children
learn difficult words and concepts by
Direct Vocabulary Instruction

• Providing students with specific word
  instruction.
• Teaching students word-learning strategies.

28
Making Connections
What students already know about the content is
one of the strongest indicators of how well they
will learn new information relative to the
content.

29
Vocabulary Instruction

We can effectively teach 400-500 words per year.
(Block and Mangieri, 2005 Jenkins, Stein, and
Wysocki, 1984 Stahl, 2005).
Students need to learn an average of 3000 words
per year. (Stahl, 2003).
30
Choosing Words to Teach
31
Criteria for Choosing Tier 2 Words

• Conceptual Understanding
• Importance and Utility
• Type of Words

32
Selecting Words for Vocabulary

• The words are unfamiliar to young children, but
  the concepts represented by the words are ones
  they can understand and use in conversation.
• Examples curious, mischief, impress,
• clever, weary, persistent, dazzling

33
You Try It!
34
How Do I Teach Students to Use Context Clues?

• Six types of context clues ( Nagy, Anderson,
  Herman)
• Definition
• Example/illustration
• Contrast
• Logic
• Root words and affixes
• Grammar

35
Strategies for Context Clues

• Read the text without the word.
• Look at the word in relation to the sentence or
  full paragraph.
• Look at the page for illustrations or diagrams.

36
Strategies for Context Clues

• Ask a classmate.
• Look the word up in the dictionary to substitute
  the different meanings.
• Ask an adult.

37
Eight Principles of Effective Vocabulary
Instruction

• Teacher provides a description,
• explanation, or example of the term.
• Students restate the explanation of the
  new term in their own words.
• Marzano, Building Academic Background
  Knowledge

38
Child-Friendly Definitions

• Dictionary Definition
• persistent persevering obstinately insistently
  repetitive or continuous
• Child-friendly Definition
• persistent If you are persistent, you keep
  trying to do something even when it is hard you
  dont give up

39
You Try It!
40
Terms

• Obstinate
• Punctual
• Callous
• Loquacious
• Prim

41
Eight Principles of Effective Vocabulary
Instruction

• Teachers make reading aloud an instructional
  event.
• Motivate students to read widely

42
Effective Word Instruction(Block and Mangieri,
2005 Jenkins, Stein, and Wysocki, 1984 Stahl,
2005)

Includes multiple exposures and reviews
Number of exposures to a word needed by most
students
6-14
Number of exposures to a word needed by students
with learning disabilities
40
43
Explicit, Systematic Teaching

• There is evidence that children can learn as many
  as three new words a day.
• Children learn about a third or a quarter of the
  words taught eight to ten words need to be
  taught every day.
• Different children learn different words.

44
Eight Principles for Effective Vocabulary
Instruction

• Students periodically do activities that help
  them add to their knowledge of vocabulary terms.
• comparing items
• classifying items
• generating metaphors
• generating analogies
• revise initial descriptions/nonlinguistic
  representations
• apply roots and suffixes to deepen understanding
• Marzano, Building Academic Background Knowledge

45
Eight Principles for Effective Vocabulary
Instruction

• Students periodically discuss the terms with each
  other.
• Involve students in games that allow them to
  play with the terms.
• Teach vocabulary in semantic and morphological
  clusters.

46
Brainstorm ways to assist your students in
learning and using new vocabulary.
47
(No Transcript)
48
Every Teacher Needs To Help
Students with poor vocabularies, including
diverse learners, need strong and systematic
educational support to become successful
independent word learners.
Baker, Simmons, Kameeniu, 1995
49
You Try It!