Putting Vocabulary Back into Your Classroom

1. Putting Vocabulary Back into Your Classroom Prepared and Presented by: Mona Yoast National Literacy Consultant Rigby / Steck-Vaughn Sponsored by: Jennifer Brown Your Rigby / Steck-Vaughn Sales Representative 301-681-1177 Jennifer.brown@harcourt.com

2. Statistics • First-grade children from higher-SES groups knew about twice as many words as lower SES children • High school seniors near the top of their class knew about four times as many words as their lower-performing classmates • High-knowledge third graders had vocabularies about equal to lowest-performing 12th graders Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002, Bringing Words to Life.

3. Three key themes emerged in Comprehension Research • 1. “Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process that cannot be understood without a clear description of the role that vocabulary development and vocabulary instruction play in the understanding of what has been read.” (NRP, 2000, pg. 13)

4. Implications for Reading Instruction:(NRP, Comprehension subcommittee report, 2000) • Vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly • Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important • Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. • Vocabulary tasks should be restructured when necessary. • Vocabulary learning should entail active engagement in learning tasks. • Computer technology can be used to help teach vocabulary. • Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning. • How vocabulary is assessed and evaluated can have differential effects on instruction. • Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction method will not result in optimal learning.

5. Vocabulary • The scientific research on vocabulary instruction reveals that (1) most vocabulary is learned indirectly, and (2) some vocabulary must be taught directly. (Partnership for Reading, 2001) • Indirectly: • Listen to adults read • Daily use of oral language • Extensive independent reading • Directly: • Not just definitions but contextual understandings and strategies for encountering new words in context.

6. Implications for Reading Instruction:(NRP, Comprehension subcommittee report, 2000) • Vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly • Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important • Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. • Vocabulary tasks should be restructured when necessary. • Vocabulary learning should entail active engagement in learning tasks. • Computer technology can be used to help teach vocabulary. • Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning. • How vocabulary is assessed and evaluated can have differential effects on instruction. • Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction method will not result in optimal learning.

7. Multiple Levels of Knowing • No knowledge. • General sense, such as knowing mendacious has a negative connotation. • Narrow, context-bound knowledge, such as knowing a radiant bride is a beautiful happy one but unable to describe an individual in a different context as radiant. • Having knowledge of a word but not being able to recall it readily enough to use it in appropriate situations. • Rich, de-contextualized knowledge of a word’s meaning and its relationship to other words, such as understanding someone devouring a book. Beck, McKeown, & Omanson, 1987)

8. How will we know it’s working? • “Whatever assessment you choose, moving students into roles that require them to recognize words, think about ways the words could be used in multiple contexts, and write about their personal connections to the words will be a step forward in helping them become independent word learners.” (Allen, 1999, pg. 104)

9. Professional Development • Training in Research-based methodology • Organized self or group study • CD Rom and web resources make preparation for group leader easy • Four modules Professional Development Series

10. Vocabulary Instructional Methods

11. Vocabulary • There are two types of vocabulary – oral and print. A reader who encounters a strange word in print can decode the word to speech. If it is in the reader’s oral vocabulary, the reader will be able to understand it. (NRP, 2000) • Please brun the crip jangar.

12. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary InstructionBeck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002 • “As we analyzed traditional vocabulary instruction, we concluded that it wasn’t rich enough, interesting enough, or extensive enough to have a strong impact. So we developed vocabulary instruction that provided thoughtful interactive encounters with words, frequent practice with word meanings and their uses, and that prompted children to take the words they learned beyond the classroom.”

13. Research Showed… (Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002) • Young children’s listening and speaking competence is in advance of their reading and writing competence. That is, they can understand much more sophisticated content presented in oral language than they can read independently. As children are developing their reading and writing competence, we need to take advantage of their listening and speaking competencies to enhance their vocabulary development. We certainly must not hold back adding vocabulary to children’s repertoires until their word recognition becomes adequate. Thus, a major source for identifying interesting words are the delightful trade books that are read to children. Pg. 48

14. Vocabulary for Struggling Readers • “It is essential that teachers engage struggling readers in activities that foster vocabulary development. Although wide reading should be encouraged and facilitated, struggling readers need more than just time to read. They seem to have difficulty gleaning the meanings of words form context (McKeown, 1985) and benefit from having new words and concepts that are critical to their learning taught directly to them.” • Strickland, Ganske, Monroe, 2002, pg 108-109

15. Vocabulary for ELLs • “Teacher read-alouds are perhaps the most consistent activity used by classroom teachers that provides frequent opportunities to enhance the literacy of ELLs by integrating effective vocabulary development practices.” • “Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) suggest focusing on words of high utility that can be used across contexts. These are the types of words that are critical to the language development of ELLs.” • “The success of this story read-aloud practice for the increased comprehension and oral language development of ELLs is dependent not only on the teacher’s selelction of texts and vocabulary words but also on the implementation of the lesson design.” • Hickman, Pollard-Durodola, Vaughn (2004): Storybook Reading: Improving Vocabulary and Comprehension for English Language Learners.

16. 3 Tiers(Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002) • Tier One – Basic, High-frequency • Tier Two – High-frequency and utility for mature language users, but young students have vocabulary necessary to talk about the concepts • Tier Three – Low-frequency, usually content specific

17. From the story About the story Tier 2

18. Vocabulary Instructional Design Implement a research base with the following tenets: • Rich Literature • Robust Vocabulary Selection • Explicit Instruction • Oral Use and Personalization • Multiple Contexts • Ample Practice

19. Robust Vocabulary Instruction • Provide student friendly explanations • Use words in instructional (direct) contexts. • Provide opportunities for students to interact with new word meaning. • (Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002) • “Children learn word meanings from listening to adults read to them. Reading aloud is particularly helpful when the reader pauses during reading to define an unfamiliar word and after reading, engages the child in conversation about the book.” – (Partnership for Reading, 2001, pg. 35)

20. Vocabulary Instructional Design Implement a research base with the following tenets: • Rich Literature • Robust Vocabulary Selection • Explicit Instruction • Oral Use and Personalization • Multiple Contexts • Ample Practice

21. Ample Practice in Multiple Contexts • Daily Word Chats • Word Watchers • Picture prompted discussion • Personalized use • In class • Beyond class • Writing • Reading

23. Marzano’s Six-Step Process Step 1 Step 6 Step 5 Step 3 Step 4

24. artery • Blood • Heart • Angioplasty • Aorta • Clogged

25. culprit • Guilty • Bad • Criminal • Felon • Villain

26. Vocabulary Support in Content Areas Jangur – To snop the bip from luggies. Test: 1. What does jangur mean? 2. What might you do with the bip that comes from luggies? 3. Do you think janguring should be legal? Why or why not? “It is important that using simple definitions to teach or test vocabulary will not suffice. A student may be able to state “the process by which green plants make their own food” as the definition of photosynthesis, yet still have only a very superficial understanding of the concept.”(Armbruster, Nagy, 1992)

27. Vocabulary Support in Content Areas • Tier Two vs. Tier Three (Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2003) • Target vocabulary vs. Prerequisite vocabulary (Armbruster, Nagy, 1992) • Semantic Mapping (Johnson and Pearson, 1984) • Possible Sentences (Stahl and Kapinus, 1991) • Use it or lose it “It is important that using simple definitions to teach or text vocabulary will not suffice. A student may be able to state “the process by which green plants make their own food” as the definition of photosynthesis, yet still have only a very superficial understanding of the concept.”(Armbruster, Nagy, 1992)

28. Putting Vocabulary Back into Your Classroom Prepared and Presented by: Mona Yoast National Literacy Consultant Rigby / Steck-Vaughn Sponsored by: Jennifer Brown Your Rigby / Steck-Vaughn Sales Representative 301-681-1177 Jennifer.brown@harcourt.com