Vocabulary Development Across the Curriculum

1. Vocabulary Development Across the Curriculum Kelsey Hedrick, Librarian

2. Why is Vocabulary Instruction Important? • Think, Pair, and Share some reasons about the importance of vocabulary instruction. • Academic demands for vocabulary in high school and beyond are very high, but everyday speech counts for just a fraction of that. • Studies have shown that vocab knowledge improves performance in the content areas and greatly improves reading comprehension. • The more words you understand, the more potential for future understanding of words.

3. Making Room for Vocabulary • “I don’t have the time!” • Choose the important words to focus on, and give students skills to figure out the rest! • Vocabulary instruction can help your students understand the content. • If all the teachers in the school participate, the job is much easier! • Find a balance between academic and cross-disciplinary vocabulary and content area vocabulary.

4. Skills to Learn: Overall Goals • Word Schema: Knowing the whole word, not just the definition. • Inferring the meaning through context, and using it in context • Prefixes, suffixes, and roots of the word, as well as common variations • Familiarity with the word and its meaning • Self-Awareness • How do we learn a new word if we don’t fully realize how much we don’t know? • Word-finders • Encouraging students to seek out words everywhere they look. • Texts as a Source • What else can they find in the book?

5. Important Things to Remember • In order for students to process vocabulary to the full extent of their potential, they need to: • Be actively involved in word learning • Make personal connections with the words • Be immersed in all vocabulary • Focus on key concept words • Make meanings their own

6. Vocabulary Instruction • What are the key ways that you teach vocabulary? Brainstorm for one minute. • Definitions from the book? • Always homework? • Group work in class? • Self-assessment? • Discussions with instruction? • Sentences? • Pictures? • Games? • Context Clues?

7. Vocabulary in Action: Strategies • Many of these strategies can be used across the content areas, even if examples are only given for a particular content area. • As the strategies are revealed, consider the value of using these in your own classroom. • Keep thinking about ways that you can modify these for your own use!

8. 1. Word Walls • Keep a word wall in a visible area that has vocabulary from the unit. • Use an adjective word wall to give students other options for commonly used words like “said” or “pretty” • Give instruction for roots to give students associations for common strings like “port” or “dict” and for common prefixes and suffixes. • Focus on words with multiple meanings.

9. 2. Vocabulary Journals • Usually used for vocab that includes real life examples (like geometry with its shapes) • Uses word immersion for effectiveness – pictures, drawings, theorems, formulas, diagrams, word summary, and any real life applications. • This strategy allows students to create their own expressions of the vocabulary and gives them ownership of the words. • Many teachers use a framework to give guidelines to students, teach it early in the year to ease the way!

10. 3. Frayer Model / Vocab Squares • Similar to the vocabulary journal, the Frayer model gives students a way to explore a word deeply, using Facts and Characteristics, a Definition, and Examples and Non-Examples. • Examples and Non-examples are particularly effective, making students consider not just what the word is, but what it is not. • Vocabulary squares are similar to this model, using a variety of components in order to comprehend the word in multiple ways: definition, sentence, part of speech, picture, and rating of how much it is understood. • Use what will work best for YOUR students and YOUR content!

11. Frayer Model Example

12. 4. Kinesthetics and Role-Play • The strategy of Total Physical Response is very effective with English Language Learners and students with hearing disabilities. • The strategy helps students recall the word because they critically think about how to portray the meaning and remember it more clearly when they act it out. • This is commonly a group activity, often used with complex vocabulary that could translate into small skits. It can also be used as a whole group activity for new vocabulary.

13. 5. Word Sorts and Quiz Me Cards • This strategy is effective for repetition and organization of new vocabulary. It is also very useful for those who enjoy interacting with other people. • For word sorts, give students a group of vocabulary on cards and have them find the similarities to group them accordingly. • For Quiz Me Cards, students need a group of vocabulary words that require signatures on the back, proving that they asked others to quiz them and that they got the words correct.

14. 6. Shades of Meaning • Being able to use the right word and discern between two similar words is a very valuable skill, one that is highly tested on the SAT and ACT tests. • Use paint chips to demonstrate meaning with colors. Have students create these for sets of words. • They have a visual representation of the shades of a word and its meaning. fear dread terror panic

15. Discussion • Which of these could be the most useful in your class? Get with your content team to decide one strategy that you can use today! • Which strategy is the most useful for you? Why? • Please take a handout that has some useful information on it, and feel free to ask questions in the library!