Developing Academic Vocabulary

1. Developing Academic Vocabulary ELL/SE coordinators’ meeting 1230 Zerega Avenue Monday, March 30, 2009

2. Review of Last Session • Why teach vocabulary? • What constitutes an academic and a non academic sentence? • Vocabulary facts (how numbers matter). • How do we make the traditional/rote activities innovative? • Jim Cummins’ Aspects of language proficiency.

3. Review of Last Session • Isabel Beck et al.’s Robust Vocabulary (the 3 tiers). • Paul Nation’s classification. • So…why should we tier? • Definition vs. Explanation • The Alphabet game. • Reading in context. • Group activities.

4. Objectives (for February and March meetings) • To understand vocabulary development • To get familiar with research around teaching vocabulary • To teach and learn strategies to develop vocabulary • To experience vocabulary development activities

5. AGENDA 8:00-8:40am Breakfast and Networking 8:40-9:00am Review of last session, Objectives, Agenda 9:00-9:45am Text-based discussion/activity (Four A’s protocol) 9:45-10:30am Sharing of best practices in Voc. Dev. 10:30-10:45am COMFORT BREAK 10:45-11:30am Vocabulary Development- PPT 11:30am-12:00pm The Story of Cardinal Mezzofanti 12:00-1:00pm LUNCH 1:00-1:30pm Monitoring the Intervention Process 1:30-2:30pm Experiencing activities that promote Voc. Dev. 2:30-3:00pm Task Analyses, Q and A, Evaluation

6. Text-based Discussion Four “A”s Text protocol: At your table, using the Four “A”s protocol, you will read, the part of the text assigned to the table (talk to the text), discuss (in a round robin) your insights and then debrief with the whole group

7. Sharing of Best Practices At your table, you will have 20mn to go around and share your best practices in vocabulary development. Once those 20mn are up, you will be given 10mn to go around the room and find other colleagues with examples of best practices. After that second round, you will have 5mn to write down one strategy named that you use yourself, one that is novel to you, and one that you liked so much that you will try. Then we will have a whole group share!

8. Sharing of Best Practices Please use the templates given for this activity

9. COMFORT BREAK About 15mn

10. Dr. Coyne’s Research of Vocabulary Development Dr. Michael D. Coyne is assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut

12. A Conceptual Framework for Reading/Literacy Instruction

13. Importance of Vocabulary Beginning readers should develop a rich and functional vocabulary. Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge. Learners must have access to the meanings of words that teachers, or their surrogates (e.g., other adults, books, films, etc.), use to guide them into contemplating known concepts in novel ways (i.e., to learn something new). (Baker, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998)

14. Importance of Vocabulary • Importance of vocabulary knowledge to school success, in general, and reading comprehension, in particular, is widely documented. (e.g., Becker, 1977; Anderson & Nagy, 1991) • The National Research Council (1998) and National Reading Panel (2000) recently concluded that vocabulary development is a fundamental goal for students in the early grades. • However, very little instructional time is devoted to vocabulary development in the primary grades. (Biemiller, 2001)

15. Importance of Vocabulary What we know from research: • Children enter school with meaningful differences in vocabulary knowledge as a result of differences in experiences and exposure to literacy and language activities.(Hart & Risley, 1995) • The vocabulary gap grows larger in the early grades. Children who enter with limited vocabulary knowledge grow much more discrepant over time from their peers who have rich vocabulary knowledge. (Biemiller & Slonim, 2001)

16. Vocabulary Knowledge What does it mean to know a word? • No knowledge • General sense • Narrow context-bound knowledge • Having knowledge of a word but not able to recall it readily enough to use it in appropriate situations • Rich, decontextualized knowledge of a word’s meaning, its relationship to other words, and its extension to metaphorical uses (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) Knowing a vocabulary word is “not an all-or-nothing proposition.”

17. Independent Word Learning The best way to foster vocabulary growth is to promote wide reading “Research has shown that children who read even ten minutes a day outside of school experience substantially higher rates of vocabulary growth between second and fifth grade than children who do little or no reading.” (Anderson & Nagy, 1992, p. 46)

18. Independent Word Learning • Contextual Analysis (using context clues) - A strategy readers use to infer or predict a word from the context in which it appears. • Morphemic Analysis (using word parts) - A strategy in which the meanings of words can be determined or inferred by examining their meaningful parts (i.e., prefixes, suffixes, roots)

19. Independent Word Learning Summary: • Primary focus of instruction in K-3 should be on developing critical beginning reading skills. • Encourage wide independent reading. • Read storybooks aloud to children to develop vocabulary. • Teach strategies for contextual analysis and morphemic analysis.

20. Vocabulary Instruction Effective vocabulary instruction: • Provides students the skills and opportunities to learn vocabulary independently. • Teaches students the meanings of unfamiliar words and concepts. • Nurtures an appreciation and consciousness of words and their use.

21. Definition & Context When introducing a new vocabulary word, teachers should provide a simple definition or synonym and then model the definition within the context of a sentence or story. Example: (From Where the Wild Things Are) Let the wild rumpus start! “Rumpus means ‘wild play’. Now I’ll say the sentence with the words that mean the same as rumpus. ‘Let the wild play start.’”

22. Varied & Rich Interactions Teachers should provide children with opportunities to discuss words in extended discourse before and after reading. Additionally, teachers should provide children with tasks that challenge them to process word meanings at a deeper and more complex level. Ways to provide varied and rich opportunities to practice • Finding a synonym or antonym • Making up a novel sentence with the word • Classifying the word with other words (e.g., concept maps, word maps, semantic maps) • Relating the definition to one’s own experience

23. Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford.

24. Varied & Rich Interactions Examples that Encourage Deep Processing: Which word goes with fabulous - o.k. or super? Why does super go with fabulous? Is fabulous if you fall and scrape your knee? What would it be? Maria thought her car was fabulous because. . . The family had a fabulous time at the park. How could a family have a fabulous time? When have you had a fabulous time? Is a masterpiecefabulous? Why? The concert was the best he had ever heard. Every note seemed perfect. Am I talking about fabulous or discover?

25. Varied & Rich Interactions Examples that Encourage Deep Processing: • Let’s play a word game. I’ll tell you about some things. If you think it is strong, say “That’s sturdy!” If you think it is not very strong, say “Uh oh, that’s not very sturdy!” • Examples: • A big jet airplane in the sky. • A little paper airplane on a windy day. • A tall tower made of cards. • This school. • A big huge rock. • A snowman on a hot sunny day.

26. Varied & Rich Interactions Examples that Encourage Deep Processing:

27. Varied & Rich Interactions Examples that Encourage Deep Processing:

28. Vocabulary Instruction Effective vocabulary instruction: • Provides students the skills and opportunities to learn vocabulary independently. • Teaches students the meanings of unfamiliar words and concepts. • Nurtures an appreciation and consciousness of words and their use.

29. Resources Baumann, J. F. & Kame’enui, E. J. (2003). Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York, NY: Guilford Publishing Company. Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford. Hart, B., & Risley, R. T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Honig, B., Diamond, L., & Gutlohn, L. (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

30. Resources National Institute for Literacy (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. Washington, DC: Department of Education. National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. National Research Council (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Stahl, S. A. (1999). Vocabulary development. Cambridge, MA. Brookline Books.

31. A True Story The story of cardinal Mezzofanti is an interesting one dealing with language acquisition… Let us take you on this journey and be ready to be amazed!

32. LUNCH! (on your own this time)

33. Monitoring the Intervention Process Abigail Lovett, Principal intern at P 339

34. Experiencing Activities around Vocabulary Development For the following activities, we will be divided in groups: one group will go through the first activity and the other will observe and record its observations while filling out the task analysis sheet. After the first activity, the group which observed will “do” and the group that completed the first activity will observe.

35. Vocabulary in Lesson Review Get in groups of at least four to complete this activity. When a team member chooses a number to read, all members will read the same number on their cards. You will continue in a round robin and exchange cards after a few tries.

36. Developing Oracy (Jigsaw) A- In your expert groups, describe what you see in the picture (do not assume anything). B- Go back to your base groups and describe your pictures to your group members without showing them the picture. C- After everyone has shared, put all of the pictures together and tell a story with your cards/pictures. D- Whole group share. Let’s see who comes the closest to the real story.

37. Task Analyses, Q & A and Evaluation - Let’s debrief the experiences: how did it feel to experience these activities as “students”? - Each group will share its answers to its task analysis. • Q and A • Please don’t forget to fill out the evaluation!

38. Thank you for coming! Enjoy the upcoming break....