Nurturing a Love for Words and Ideas: Enhancing Comprehension for Struggling Readers

1. Growing a Love for Words and Ideas: The Vocabulary-to-Comprehension Connection for Struggling Readers and Writers Kevin Flanigan, Ph.D. West Chester University kflanigan@wcupa.edu

2. Why do you learn to read?

3. Agenda • Bring Back the JOY of Words and Language! • Engage readers and writers (with literacy challenges) • Make the Vocabulary-to-Comprehension Connection • My favorite digital vocabulary resources

4. Vocabulary knowledge is the single best indicator of students’: • Reading ability • Comprehension • Familiarity with academic discourse (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003; Schleppegrell, 2004; Townsend, Collins, & Filippini, 2009)

5. VocabularyWhere does it come from? • Children are naturally curious about words and language • Most of our new vocabulary comes from reading (and talking)

6. 40 SAT vocabulary prep words

7. 3 General Components of Vocabulary Instruction(Templeton, Bear, Invernizzi, & Johnston, 2009) • Overall Context (reading, writing, rich discussion) • Direct Vocabulary Instruction • Word-specific (teaching specific words) • Generative (teaching how words work) • Word Consciousness – a positive attitude and disposition toward learning words

8. Much time must be spend reading for meaning in appropriate and engaging texts and writing for genuine purposes • Reading volume, both in and out of school, is associated with higher reading achievement (Allington, 2001; NAEP, 1998) (Adopted from Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988)

9. Much time must be spend reading for meaning and writing for genuine purposes • Every 8 days, a child in the top 10% will read as much as a child in the bottom 10% reads all year! • Every two months, a child in the top 10% will read as much as a child in the bottom 10% has read his/her entire life!

10. How were YOU taught vocabulary?

11. Definitions are just the “tip of the iceberg” • A first step toward “owning” a word

12. GNARLED • "The last thing that Pippin saw, as sleep took him, was a dark glimpse of the old wizard huddled on the floor, shielding a glowing chip in his gnarled hands between his knees.”

13. Introducing a new vocabulary word in 3 steps(Beck, McKewon, and Kucan, • Student-friendly definition • Context • Personal Connection • “Have you ever . . . ? • Vocabulary Walk • Word Wizard

14. Have you ever?/Word Wizard(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) • Purpose: to connect new words to known concepts and encourage students to notice examples of words in contexts outside of school (or outside of “formal instruction”) • Procedure: • Choose Tier Two words and ask students to bring back examples from home (“I saw a radiant sunset last night!”). • For each word used, the student, group, or class earns a points toward class competition and/or grade, extra credit.

15. Word Wizard • List students’ names on board in classroom • Students earn points for bringing examples of words “from the world” back to class • To earn a point, student must demonstrate knowledge of the word’s meaning – “Dad, this boy in our class is SO supercilious.”

16. Let’s try it • Agog – very excited; impatiently eager • “While waiting for the train to take him home, the soldier was agog about his homecoming.” • Saturnine – sullen, gloomy, depressed • “The teacher’s saturnine demeanor put a damper on any joy or excitement among the children.”

17. Principles of Vocabulary Instruction(Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000) • The students should: • Be ACTIVE and ENGAGED in developing their understanding of words and ways to learn them. • PERSONALIZE word learning. • Be IMMERSED in words (listening, speaking, reading, writing). • REPEATEDLY experience words across a VARIETY OF RICH CONTEXTS. • Learn new words/concepts by RELATING them to existing words/concepts. • Learn both SPECIFIC WORDS and strategies for INDEPENDENT word learning.

18. Degrees of Knowing a WordThe Dimmer Switch • Learning vocabulary is not a one-shot proposition. • We learn words in increments, in little steps • How many encounters with a vocabulary word? • Students need to have 12 encounters with a word to reliably improve their comprehension of a passage containing those words (McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985)

19. Clue Review/Taboo • Purpose – to review concepts repeatedly, actively, across a range of contexts • Procedure • Concept/words are written on cards. • Pairs – (a) clue giver, (b) clue detective. • Clue detective places card on his forehead, so she can’t see it, but clue giver can see it. • Clue giver provides clues to clue detective for each word. • Pairs switch roles.

20. Clue Review Word BankExample

21. Clue Review • Tips • Can’t do “sounds like Nunion!” • Definition/clue must relate to essential elements of that word/concept (For George Washington, can’t say, “Dude with the wig!”). • Pair up ELL and native language speakers. Native language speaker can be first clue giver to provide a language model for ELL. • Use word bank as scaffold.

22. Clue Review • Switch pairs to hear multiple ways of defining the same word/concept. • Taboo tournament! • Every student in class is actively engaged 100% of the time. • Homework assignment with parents/siblings. • Collect words on rings, in soap dishes, baggies, in notebooks, or coffee cans.

23. Act it out/Charades

24. Principles of Vocabulary Instruction(Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000) • The students should: • Be ACTIVE and ENGAGED in developing their understanding of words and ways to learn them. • PERSONALIZE word learning. • Be IMMERSED in words (listening, speaking, reading, writing). • REPEATEDLY experience words across a VARIETY OF RICH CONTEXTS. • Learn new words/concepts by RELATING them to existing words/concepts. • Learn both SPECIFIC WORDS and strategies for INDEPENDENT word learning.

25. Applause, Applause(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) • Clap to indicate how much you would like to be described as: • Saturnine? • A doting mom, dad, aunt, sister? • Compassionate? • A GADFLY?

26. Thumbs up/thumbs down(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) • Would a tough drill sergeant dote on his soldiers? • Is a car tangible? • Is love tangible?

27. Word Associations(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) • Which word goes with a MODEL walking down the runway? Why? • Which word goes with a BULLY? Why? • Which word goes with a GRANDPARENT giving their grandchildren all the candy they can eat? Why?

28. All definitions are NOT equal • Luminous – emitting light, especially self-generated light; lucid, resplendent, incandescent, refulgent • Some definitions define an unknown word with OTHER unknown words • Student-friendly definitions PLUS CONTEXT

29. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English • LUMINOUS - shining in the dark: luminous paint • “Her large dark eyes were almost luminous.” • ldoceonline.com - clear definitions written using only 2000 common words

30. Kevin’s Word-Nerd Wall • Have you ever been waiting so long for a meal, that you have become angry, or frustrated, or both? • HANGRY (Hungry + Angry) • Do you only like to go camping in style? • GLAMPING (Glamour + Camping) • Urban Dictionary

31. Kevin’s Word-Nerd Wall • Do you know someone who is arrogant, but in a pushy way? • BUMPTIOUS • Who loves to be frightened at horror movies and/or rollercoasters? • FRISSON

32. Vocabulary.com

33. Vocabulary.com

34. Online Etymology Dictionaryetymonline.com • Frisson (noun) "emotional thrill," 1777 (Walpole), from French frisson "fever, illness; shiver, thrill" (12c.), from Latin frigere "to be cold" (see frigid). Scant record of the word in English between Walpole's use and 1888. • Frigid, refrigerator, freeze, frozen,

35. Kevin’s Word-Nerd Wall • bumptious • claptrap • gemutlichkeit • ginormous • bedlam • mountebank • discombobulate • frisson • gadfly • Hobson’s choice • hornswoggle • sockdolager • skullduggery • piquant

36. Zach’s Vocabulary Wall • grip tape • trucks • backside air • ollie • kickflip • grind • fakie • goofie foot • McTwist

37. Do we have a word for that? • When your breath freezes on a cold fall morning? • FROSTSPIRATION? • The Vocabulary Assembly Line – Most new English words are created by combining prefixes, suffixes, base words, and roots.

38. It’s all Greek (and Latin) to me! • What percent of English vocabulary words are Latin or Greek derived? • Approximately 70% (Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Padak, Newton, Rasinski, & Newton, 2008) • What percent of upper-level English vocabulary words (middle and high school, science, law, medicine) are Latin or Greek derived? • Over 90% (Green, 2008)

39. Knowledge of just one root . . . • Can be the KEY to unlocking 10, 20, 30 words! • Generative Vocabulary Instruction – • A LITTLE . . . . • Goes a LONG WAY

40. Harnessing Generative Power:Common Affixes (O’Connor, 2014)

41. Root Web/Tree with “Spec, spect” • Create a web with spec, spect at center • Generate as many words with spect as you can • Try to deduce meaning of root

42. SPEC, SPECT

43. Generative Vocabulary Instruction:“When you learn 1 word, you learn 10.” Page 17

44. Root Tree with spect

45. Key word for spect? • Spectacles!

47. Generative Vocabulary Instruction:“When you learn 1 word, you learn 10.” • How many words in English have spec, spect as a root?

48. Learn one root and 100 words! IRA Preconference Institute. try it yourself at www.onelook.com (search using wildcards *spect*)

49. “Knowledge of word-formation processes opens up vast amounts of vocabulary to the reader” (Nagy & Anderson, 1984)

50. Why Latin and Greek Roots? • “Give someone a fish, he/she can eat for a day, teach someone how to fish, he/she can eat for a lifetime.”