Did you know …?

1. Did you know …? “High school seniors near the top of their class knew about four times as many words as their lower-performing classmates (Smith, 1941).” (in Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)

2. Did you know …? “Kuo and Anderson (2006) summarize research that shows that morphological awareness makes a difference in decoding of morphologically complex words and to comprehension of text. As students move through the grades, morphological awareness increasingly predicts students’ reading.” (in Hiebert, http://www.textproject.org/wordfindings)

3. Did you know …? “Instruction that involves activating prior knowledge and comparing and contrasting word meanings is likely to be more powerful than simple combinations of contextual information and definitions” (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003). (in Graves, 2006)

4. Did you know …? “Instruction that involves activating prior knowledge and comparing and contrasting word meanings is likely to be more powerful than simple combinations of contextual information and definitions” (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003). (in Graves, 2006)

5. Did you know …? Ellis (1984) found that if “students are involved in a conversation, they will be more apt to remember and use a word than if the input is only through listening to a teacher lecture.” (in Hiebert, www.textproject.org/wordfindings)

6. Did you know …? Hart and Risley (1994): The gap in students’ vocabularies on school entry is extensive. There are approximately 180,000 words in school texts (Zeno et al. 2000). All words cannot be a focus (through either direct or incidental instruction). Strategic selection of vocabulary is required if the gap for students who depend on schools to become literate is to be narrowed. (in Hiebert, 2008, IRA presentation)

7. Did you know …? “People can usually select (for either comprehension and production) exactly the right word from their memory of 50,000 words or more in a fraction of a second.” (in Nagy & Hiebert, 2007, presentation for National Reading Conference)

8. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • Dependence on a single vocabulary instructional method will not result in optimal learning. (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

9. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • Intentional instruction of vocabulary items is required for specific texts. (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

10. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important. (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

11. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

12. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • Vocabulary learning should entail active engagement in learning tasks. (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

13. Did you know …? • “Lack of vocabulary can be a crucial factor underlying the school failure of disadvantaged students (Becker, 1977; Biemiller, 1999).” • One study found that three year-olds from advantaged homes had oral vocabularies as much as five times larger than children from disadvantaged homes (Hart & Risley, 1995). (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

14. Did you know …? “First-grade orally tested vocabulary was found to be predictive of eleventh-grade reading comprehension (Cunningham & Stanovich 1997).” (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

15. Did you know …? “Many teachers turn to the teacher’s editions that accompany their comprehensive reading programs. Virtually all of these teacher’s editions include lists of words deemed important for each selection in the program, along with activities for teaching those words. Based on analyses of such lists, however, Hiebert (in press) suggests that many of the recommendations are very rare words – those that can be expected to occur once or fewer times in a million words of school texts.” (Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, A Focus on Vocabulary, 2004)

16. Did you know …? “There is great improvement in vocabulary when students encounter vocabulary words often (National Reading Panel, 2000). According to Stahl (2005), students probably have to see a word more than once in different and multiple contexts to place it firmly in their long-term memories.” (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

17. Did you know …? “Seeing vocabulary in rich contexts provided by authentic texts, rather than in isolated vocabulary drills, produces robust vocabulary learning (National Reading Panel, 2000).” (in Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

18. Did you know …? “It is often assumed that when students do not learn new vocabulary words, they simply need to practice the words some more. Research has shown, however, that it is often the case that students simply do not understand the instructional task involved (National Reading Panel 2000). Rather than focus only on the words themselves, teachers should be certain that students fully understand the instructional tasks (Schwartz & Raphael,1885).” (Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006)

19. Did you know …? “Preliminary evidence…suggests that as late as Grade 5, about 80 percent of words are learned as a result of direct explanation, either as a result of the child’s request or instruction, usually by a teacher.” (Biemiller, 1999)

20. Did you know …? The National Reading Panel (2000) identified the components of reading as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

21. Did you know …? A finding of the National Reading Panel, 2000: • “Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. Vocabulary words should be those that the learner will find useful in many contexts. When vocabulary items are derived from content learning materials, the learner will be better equipped to deal with specific reading matter in content areas.” (Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

22. Did you know …? “Intensive or rich vocabulary instruction requires giving students both definitional and contextual information (i.e. what a word means and how it is used), and providing them with opportunities to process this information deeply by applying it in ways that require creativity and connections with their existing knowledge.” (Nagy in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

23. Did you know …? “…a number of instructional encounters—somewhere between 7 and 12—are necessary if students are to achieve real ownership of the instructed words (Stahl, 1986).” (Nagy in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

24. Did you know …? “A review of the research on learning words from context indicates that the chances of learning the meaning of a particular word after encountering it once in context are relatively low, somewhere around 15% (Swanborn & Glopper, 1999). Exposure to rich language is essential for promoting vocabulary growth, but the benefits of such exposure accumulate slowly.” (Nagy in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

25. Did you know …? For every 100 unknown words encountered, students appear to gain enough knowledge of about 15 words to enhance their scores on measures of word knowledge. (Scott in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

26. Did you know …? “Research indicates that it is harder to learn a word for new concept incidentally through context than to learn a new word for a known concept” (Nagy, 1997; Nagy et al., 1987). (Scott in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

27. Did you know …? “In a study of sixth-grade students, Swanborn and de Glopper (2002) found that reading texts for different purposes influences the amount of incidental word learning that occurs. The probability of learning a word incidentally was highest when students read to gain knowledge of the topic (.10) and lowest in a free reading condition (.06). The low-ability group made no significant progress in its knowledge of words, regardless of the reading purpose. The average group made gains only when asked to learn about the topic, and the high-ability group learned significantly more words, with probabilities as high as .27 in both the free reading and the text comprehension conditions.” (Scott in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

28. Did you know …? “In a recent study of workplace literacy demands, Craig (2001) found that over 60% of workers surveyed reported that at least 30% of their workday was spent reading for information, equaling approximately 2 ½ hours in an 8-hour shift.” (Scott in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

29. Did you know …? “Estimates of how many words are in the English language vary. The Oxford English Dictionary, which is the largest compilation of English words—modern, obsolete, and archaic—contains upward of one million words, with new words (such as McJob and JPEG) constantly being added.” (Stahl in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

30. Did you know …? “If it is assumed that a child enters grade 1 knowing roughly 6,000 different words, the child needs to learn 39,000 additional words or so over the next 12 years. That’s about 3,000 new words per year….But although this may sound like an impossible goal to achieve, research suggest that the average child does learn roughly 3,000 words per year (White, Graves, & Slater, 1990). (Stahl in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

31. Did you know …? “… the average child does learn roughly 3,000 words per year (White, Graves, & Slater, 1990). This average, however, obscures some important differences. White and his colleagues found a range of growth between 1,000 words or low-achieving children and 5,000 for higher achieving children.” (Stahl in Hiebert & Kamil, 2005)

32. Did you know …? “In investigating the effects of Semantic Feature Analysis [involving activation of prior knowledge and comparing and contrasting word meanings], Aners, Box, an Filip (1984) found that learning disabled high school students learned more vocabulary and better comprehended a social studies passage containing the taught vocabulary than did students who looked up words in the dictionary and wrote out their definitions.” (Graves, 2006)

33. Did you know …? “Nagy, Anderson, and Herman (1987) have found that a reader has about a 5 percent chance of learning a new word fully from encountering in only once in print. Therefore, when specific words are key to understanding a concept, intentional, explicit instruction in word meanings is efficient and productive.” (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

34. Did you know…? • Students achieved a 12 percentile gain with any vocabulary instruction (definition & sentence). • Students achieved a 33 percentile gain with systematic, robust direct instruction of words in a passage. (Marzano, 2004)

35. Did you know …? “Teaching 350 words each year may augment learning from context by 10 percent to 30 percent, a significant amount (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).” (in Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

36. Did you know …? “Students who were given direct instruction in word meanings are better able to discern meanings of untaught words. (Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982).” (in Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

37. Did you know …? “According to Irvin (1998), people have four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The listening and reading vocabularies are receptive, and the speaking and writing vocabularies are expressive.” (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

38. Did you know …? “Vocabulary correlates to comprehension .66 to .75 (Just & Carpenter, 1975)”. (in Hiebert, 2008, presentation)

39. Did you know …? What do we mean by vocabulary? “Most often, the term is associated with the body of words students must understand in order to read text with fluency and comprehension.” (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

40. Did you know …? “According to Irvin (1998), people have four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The listening and reading vocabularies are receptive, and the speaking and writing vocabularies are expressive.” (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000)

41. Did you know …? A morpheme is “a meaningful linguistic unit that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful elements, as the word book, or that is a component of a word, as s in books.” (Harris & Hodges, 1995)

42. Did you know …? Generativity refers to the extent to which a word’s parts can be used to derive new, related words. • divide, divisor, dividend, undivided, individual

43. Did you know …? When children “know” a word, they not only know the word’s definition and its logical relationship with other words, they also know how the word functions in different contexts. (Stahl & Kapinus, 2001 qtd in Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2006)

44. Did you know …? More than 60% of words that readers encounter have relatively transparent morphological structure—that is, they can be broken down into [meaningful] parts. (Nagy et al., 1989 in Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2006, p. 91)

45. Did you know …? “For every word a child learns, we estimate that there are an average of one to three additional related words that should also be understandable to the child, the exact number depending on how well the child is able to utilize context and morphology to induce meaning.” (Nagy & Anderson, 1984 qtd in Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2006, p. 91)