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DYNAMIC VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION. ANITA L. ARCHER, PHD. Summary. Importance of vocabulary instruction Components of a vocabulary program Explicit instruction Instructional routines. Importance of vocabulary instruction.
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DYNAMIC VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION ANITA L. ARCHER, PHD.
Summary • Importance of vocabulary instruction • Components of a vocabulary program • Explicit instruction • Instructional routines
Importance of vocabulary instruction • Children’s vocabulary in the early grades directly effects reading comprehension in the upper grades • Hart & Risley, 1995 • More directive language in low income families • To close the gap, vocabulary acquisition must be accelerated through intentional instruction in all grades, all classes.
Components of a vocabulary program • High quality classroom language • Tell students the meaning of words when first used. • Ex. “Don’t procrastinate on your project. Procrastinate means to put off doing something.” • Pair in the meaning of the word by using parallel language. • Ex. “Please refrain from talking. Please don’t talk.”
Components of a vocabulary program • Read-Alouds • Listening to a book being read can significantly improve children’s expresssive vocabulary. (Nicholson &Whyte, 1992; Senechal & Cornell, 1993) • Print vocabulary is more extensive and diverse than oral vocabulary. (Hays, Wolfe, & Wolf, 1996) • Choose interesting, engaging stories • Be a story-teller • Provide students with a little explanation of novel words encountered in the text. • Ex. “They concluded, or decided, that something dreadful, or terrible, must have happened...”
Explicit vocabulary instruction • Sources: words from read-alouds, core reading programs, reading intervention programs, and content area instruction. • Selecting vocabulary words: • Select a limited number (3-10) of words for explicit instruction from a chapter or section. • Select words that are unknown, critical to the passage, likely to be encountered in the future, and difficult to obtain (abstract or no known synonym) • Goldilocks words: not too easy (store), not too difficult (cellular respiration), just right (absurd).
Instructional Routine for vocabulary • Step 1: Introduce the word • “The word is compulsory. What word?” “____”. • Step 2: Introduce the meaning. • Use a student-friendly explanation • Have students locate it in the glossary or text • Introduce using morphographs in the words • Ex. Autobiography: auto=self, • Step 3: Illustrate with examples • Concrete, visual, or verbal • Step 4: Check for student’s understanding. • Ask deep processing questions. • Ex. “Many things become compulsory. Why do you think something would become compulsory?”
Instructional Routine for vocabulary • Step 4 continued: Check for student’s understanding. • Have students discern between examples and non-examples. • Ex. “Is going to school in 8th grade compulsory? How do you know? Is going to college when you are 25 compulsory? Why not?” • Have students generate their own examples. • Ex. “Make a list of things at this school that are compulsory.”
Resources • Student-friendly dictionary • www.wordcentral.com • Photos for target vocab words • www.taggalaxy.com • Video resources from Anita L. Archer, Phd. • www.explicitinstruction.org