POWERFUL VOCABULARY: The Keystone to Reading Success for All Students

1. POWERFUL VOCABULARY:The Keystone to Reading Success for All Students Dr. Cathy Collins Block Professor of Education Texas Christian University c.block@tcu.edu Dr. John N. Mangieri Executive Director Institute for Literacy Enhancement jmangieri@carolina.rr.com

2. Our Objectives The effects of reading children�s books on attitudes toward reading The effects of reading children�s books on vocabulary achievement

3. Vocabulary: Status Report The typical third grade student knows between 2,500 and 25,000 words (Anderson & Nagy). To be successful after graduation from high school, a person needs to know approximately 200,000 words (Herbert).

4. Vocabulary: Status Report (Cont.) To learn 175,00 words between third grade and college, a student has to learn: about 17,500 words every year. about 97 words every school day. about 16 words every hour of the school day.

5. Vocabulary: Status Report (Cont.) Currently, research shows that: Students learn 7 words per day. Students in grade 3 through 9 encounter in their reading experiences between 500,000 and 1,000,000 words per year (Anderson & Nagy). What this research means is that for less able students, they know less than 1% of the new words that they encounter in print. For highly skilled readers, they know only 4% of these new words.

6. Vocabulary: Status Report (Cont.) How do these data affect student performance on standardized assessments? In 1940, a typical student knew the meaning of 80% of the words on a standardized reading test. By the mid-1990s, a typical student knew only 30% of the words, which is just a little better than having randomly guessed (Nagy & Anderson).

7. Research Results: Effects of Reading Books on Students� Achievement Data obtained from exemplary literacy teachers as well as principals and students of high performing schools included the following groups: 364 elementary teachers 2,136 elementary and middle school students 108 middle school teachers 147 administrators

9. Administrators & Society Want:Significant Achievement Gains Does 20 minutes of reading books in the classroom result in significant achievement gains? Yes, as shown in Word Forward Research

10. Vocabulary Building Strategy 1 FREQUENTLY APPEARING WORDS: Think about a word�s part of speech in the sentence AND add all context clues together.

11. Vocabulary Building Strategy 2 WORDS WITH PREFIX/SUFFIX: Add meanings in word together AND think about that word�s �vocabulary building family�. By learning one root�s meaning, the meaning of all words in that �vocabulary building family� become clear.

15. Vocabulary Building Strategy 3 CONTENT-SPECIFIC WORDS: Long, difficult words are topic-related AND think about how a new word is connected to other specific words in a paragraph

16. Vocabulary Building Strategy 4 WORDS WITH UNUSUAL LETTER COMBINATIONS OR SOUNDS: Use the unusual letter order, or the sound that a word makes as a clue to meaning AND create a personal clue to meaning.

17. Teachers Want: Life-Changing Tools �Books are the only printed tools that have the power to grow people up. If Abraham Lincoln had not discovered this power in books, he would have likely stayed as he began in life, which had he lived today would have been as an at-risk, Title I student.�

18. Exemplary Literacy Instruction: Linking Books to Students GENERATIVE LEARNING versus ADDITIVE LEARNING (Four Square Activity) METACOGNITION: Ask �Why� & �How� after each student answer (Buddy Beside Me) FASTMAPPING (Inference Activity or Post it Note Activity)

19. Fast Mapping: What It Is And Why It Is Needed �Fast mapping� occurs when students generate at least six explanations or examples of a vocabulary building principle before you teach another vocabulary building principle. Fast mapping creates a new neurological pattern that increases students� metacognition, vocabulary consciousness, retention, and desire to learn new vocabulary processes.