Download Vocabulary Instruction Essentials

Vocabulary Instruction Essentials
**The information presented here is summarized from Bringing Words To Life
by Isabel Beck. This book is being read by administrators in our district and at
many school sites. Since so many teachers at WPMS are immersed in work with
Doug Fisher and reading his book Improving Adolescent Literacy, I thought a
summary of key elements from Beck’s book might be useful and less demanding
of your time. However, if you would like to read it for yourself, copies of
Bringing Words To Life are available. Just ask me. Thanks, M.
What is Robust Vocabulary Instruction?
Our district goal is for teachers to increase their use of “robust vocabulary”
strategies. Robust vocabulary instruction has two basic principles;
•Direct explanations of the meaning of words given to students by teachers
•Explanations and activities that are thought provoking, playful and
interactive with follow-up opportunities for meaningful application of new words.
Robust instruction offers rich information about words and their uses.
Students are given frequent and varied opportunities to think about and use words.
Ultimately, robust vocabulary instruction enhances students’ language
comprehension and production.
Give me an example of what Robust Vocabulary Instruction looks
like?
Beck offers some very fun and creative approaches to vocabulary
development and instruction that I will summarize for you. Here are two examples
you will learn more about later but you might be able to incorporate into your
vocabulary instruction now:
Word Associations
Imagine you’ve given kids explanations and examples for new terms:
accomplice, virtuoso, philanthropist, and novice. Then, students are asked to
associate one of their new words with a presented word or phrase such as the
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following:
•Which word
•Which word
•Which word
•Which word
goes
goes
goes
goes
with crook? (accomplice)
with “gift to build a new hospital? (philanthropist)
with piano? (virtuoso)
with kindergartner? (novice)
In each case, students were then asked why they decided on the connection
they made. According to Beck, associating a known word with a newly learned word
reinforces even further the meaning of the word. The associations are not
synonyms; rather, the students must develop and explain a relationship they find
between the words. One student might say that an accomplice helps a crook,
another might say the accomplice is learning to be a crook, and another might say
crooks need accomplices to help them in their wrongdoings. The explanation of the
association is essential. Here is another strategy to try…..
Have You Ever.....?
Have You Ever allows students to associate newly learned words with
contexts and activities from their own experience. Thus it helps students
understand that they have a place for the word in their vocabularies. In this
activity, students are asked to “Describe a time you might urge someone, commend
someone, banter with someone, mimic someone.”
Okay, here’s one more you could probably use today....
Idea Completions
In contrast to the traditional “write a sentence using the new word,” which
can often result in less than scintillating sentences (e.g. I saw a virtuoso.), students
are provided with sentence stems that require them to integrate a word’s meaning
into a context in order to explain a situation. For example:
The audience asked the virtuoso to play another piece of music because.....
The skiing teacher said Maria was a novice on the ski slopes because.....
Beck gives some pretty clear suggestions in the process of vocabulary
instruction that teachers should follow. Then, she recommends incorporation of
these kinds of activities in the overall instructional approach. Before we get to
those steps, you might be wondering....
What words should students learn?
Ahh, good question. All words are not created equal. Doug Fisher and Nancy
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Frey remind us that vocabulary demands skyrocket at the secondary level.
Academic language is a special challenge because everyday speech doesn’t support
the acquisition of the words and language found in textbooks and academic
discourse. Fisher/Frey’s view is to concentrate our energy on concept oriented
words:
“For example, in Lois Lowry’s story The Giver, a boy is faced with the
challenge of confronting truth in his “perfect” community. The word utopia is a
concept word, for it is central to the understanding of a society with no illness or
poverty. On the other hand, the word tunic is a label describing the type of
clothing worn by the characters. Utopia is well worth the instructional effort for
students to think deeply about the complexities represented by this one word;
tunic is a word that could be inferred through context clues and is not essential to
comprehension. Students also benefit from instruction on the differences between
concept and label words because it can prevent them getting bogged down in
minutia at the expense of big ideas.” (Fisher/Frey, Improving Adolescent
Literacy, pg. 121)
Along the same lines, Beck distinguishes three tiers for words and suggests
vocabulary instruction focus on Tier II Tier I - Most basic words - clock, baby, happy, walk - these generally
do not require instruction.
Tier II - These are high frequency words for mature language users
and found across a variety of domains. (Words considered Tier II: coincidence,
absurd, industrious, fortunate, benevolent, performed, maintain, tend, required,
merchant, comment, occurrence, mention, emerging, admit, haunting, reality,
sinister, fortune) **Averil Coxhead, a researcher in New Zealand, has generated
lists of common terms under the heading Academic Language. Her lists are
regarded as among the most comprehensive and well-researched. *We may wish to
draw upon those lists as we generate our Words of the Week. I have also
purchased The Vocabulary Teacher’s Book of Lists by Fry.
Tier III - These are low frequency or specialized language words.
They may be limited to specific domains or content areas - isotope, lathe,
peninsula, refinery. They are learned when a specific need arises or as other
concepts are taught. The strategies that can be used to make Tier II instruction
“robust” can also be applied to content specific vocabulary found in math, science,
history, and other disciplines.
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Here are some questions to ask yourself as you choose words to focus upon
through robust vocabulary instruction:
•How generally useful is the word?
•Is it a word that students are likely to meet often in other texts?
•Will it be of use to students in describing their own experiences?
*For example, students are likely to find more situations to apply typical and
dread than portage and brackish.
Questions to ask yourself as you plot instruction of worthy words might include:
•How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students know or
have been learning?
•Does the word relate to some topic of study in the classroom?
•Might the study of the word add a dimension to ideas that have been
developed? *For example, what might knowing the word hubris bring to a middle
school student’s understanding of the battles at Lexington and Concord, which set
the Revolutionary War in motion?
Think about your current unit of study….what words come to mind that might
merit more instructional time in your classroom based upon the criteria above?
How Do I Know Students Really Know A Word?
Really “knowing a word” is a tricky business. Often, superficial knowledge is
overestimated. Look at the chart below and the words listed. Try rating your own
knowledge of the words provided:
Do Not
know the
word.
Have seen or
heard the
word.
WORD
Tyranny
Surreptitious
Grapnel
Purport
Sensitive
Dubious
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Know something
about it, can relate
it to a situation.
I know it well
and can use it
in writing and
talking.
**A blank form inspired by Beck is provided with this summary. It works as a good pre-assessment.
Amy Hrin added a column that asks students to write a definition or synonym or some other
indicator of what they do know about the words.
Beck discusses levels of vocabulary use and development and offers the
following levels of really “knowing a word.”
III -
Generalization.: ability to define
Application : ability to select or recognize situations
appropriate to a word.
III - Breadth.: knowledge of multiple meanings
IV - Precision : ability to apply a term correctly to all situations and
recognize appropriate use.
VAvailability: actual use of the word in thinking and discourse.
The goal of robust vocabulary instruction is to reach Precision and
Availability in the use of new words. However, much of the instruction students
receive often stops at application and words are lost as a new list is generated.
Beck tells us, “...Students need to keep using words if they are to “own” new words.
Students need to notice words in their environments whose meanings they do not
know. They need to become aware of and explore relationships among words in
order to refine and fully develop word meanings. Indeed, being curious about the
meaning of an unknown word that one encounters and about how it relates to other
words in the hallmark of those who develop large vocabularies.” **Word Walls and
Word Logs can provide a handy archive for words to be reused throughout the
school year.
Robust Vocabulary Instruction In Action
Here is a classroom example of how a teacher could introduce a word related
directly to a recent reading…The teacher does and says…
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In the story, Lisa was reluctant to leave the laundromat without her
friend, Corduroy. Reluctant means you are not sure you want to do
something. (The teacher is putting the word into a familiar context from
the story the students have read.) Say the word with me. (All kids repeat and
pronounce the word.)
Someone might be reluctant to eat a food that he or she has never
before, or someone might be reluctant to ride a roller-coaster for
the
time because it looks scary. (This is considered a studentfriendly
explanation of the word with examples in context.)
had
first
Tell about something you would be reluctant to do.
Use the word
reluctant when you tell about it. You could start by saying
something
like, “I would be reluctant to ________.” (This could
be done in a journal or to
a partner).
What’s the word we have been talking about? (Kids say it again for
further reinforcement.)
**From here, students could be asked to include the word in a writing
assignment, look for it in other readings, put it in the word logs or on the
word wall. The teacher would want to continue to use the word in
context.
The Importance of the Student-Friendly Explanation
Introducing words is the first step toward robust vocabulary instruction.
Very often, teachers will introduce unfamiliar words before text is read. The
reasoning behind this is to make unfamiliar words more available for students when
they encounter them as they read. The words introduced by the teacher should be
those Tier II words that are key to comprehension and Tier III words that may be
technical or specialized.
The key here is how the words are introduced. The teacher starts with a
Student-Friendly Explanation of the word. The teacher characterizes the word
and how it is typically used and explains the meaning in everyday language.
Consider the word tamper. Ask yourself, what comes to mind when you think of
tamper? Maybe tamper-proof bottles designed to ensure safety; tampering is
often done secretly to try or harm someone; tampering with the breaks on a car
can be very sinister; if you tamper with something, like your computer, it might not
work anymore. When the teacher shares this kind of a vivid explanation via
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discussion of the word in context, students can immediately gain a deeper sense of
the word. Students can record these explanations in vocabulary logs. Contrast the
Student-Friendly Explanation to a strict dictionary definition of tamper: “to
interfere in secret or incorrect way.” Huh? If the dictionary definition was all the
student had to go on, the true meaning of tamper might remain a mystery.
So, the Student-Friendly Explanation is delivered in everyday language, rich
in context and example, and should attend to the whole meaning of the word.
Consider the word meticulous which means “extremely or excessively careful about
small details.” If a student read this definition without some explanation he/she
might see careful and think about caution and danger. However, imagine the
teacher explaining the word and adding a statement to describe meticulous as
“being very neat and careful about small details” and sharing an example of
someone who sorts all their socks by color, or a student who color-coded his notes
by subject and ensured his name was always written precisely in the right hand
corner of the paper, or the chef who makes sure the kitchen utensils are arranged
in a particular order. The vivid explanation of meticulous brings the word to life.
Students, then, should be given the chance to share their own examples of
meticulous.
The Student-Friendly Explanation is enhanced when you can include the
words something, someone or describes in your explanation and examples that are
rich in visual detail.
Here’s an exercise that might help as you create Student-Friendly
Explanations:
1) Select some words that your students are currently learning.
2) Look up the definitions for the words in a dictionary or glossary.
3) Think about the definitions from a young learner’s point of view. Dictionary
definitions may be useful to those who already have a broad vocabulary and the
experiences to bring words to life, but without these, the definitions may be highly
confusing. Ask yourself:
•What difficulties might the definitions pose to such a learner?
•How might you characterize the words so that their meanings are
specific? (Amy Hrin has been using pictures to bring words to life.
My
favorite was a picture of Bart and Homer Simpson wearing scuba
masks. The
term was resemblance!)
4) Create Student-Friendly Explanations with those words and try to incorporate
something, someone or describes in your explanation.
5) Share your explanations with your students. Ask them to compare your
explanations with the definitions provided in a dictionary.
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Providing Meaning Information Through Instructional Context
Another common way to convey word-meaning information is through
instructional contexts. Instructional contexts are those that have been developed
with the intention of providing strong clues to a word’s meaning.
Before we look at instructional contexts in action, let’s think a minute about
how words are learned from context. Students do learn words from context as
they are read and spoken. In fact, early learning takes place through oral context.
As children get older, vocabulary learning shifts to written context or what
children read. The problem is that written contexts often lack the features of
oral language (intonation, body language, shared physical surroundings) that support
learning new words. We spend a lot of time teaching kids to use context clues to
determine word meaning. While this can be valuable, using context clues isn’t
enough; in fact, sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
In terms of learning new words in the course of reading, research shows
that it does occur, but in small increments. Those words that are learned will
require multiple encounters before learning is accomplished. Studies estimate that
of 100 unfamiliar words met in reading, between 5 and 15 will be learned. The
reason is frequently the context is not rich enough to truly construe or
demonstrate word meaning. Look at the use of grudgingly in the following
sentence:
“Every step she takes is so perfect and graceful,” Ginny said grudgingly, as
she watched Sandra dance.
If you know what grudgingly means, this makes sense. You can visualize Ginny
rolling her eyes and folding her arms across her chest with a “humph!” However,
the context is really misdirective, the reader could easily ascribe a positive
connotation to grudgingly. Now, look at this next sentence that has been designed
to instruct on meaning:
Ginny hated the way Sandra always danced so beautifully. “No matter how
much I practice, I never do it as well. Every step Sandra takes is so perfect and
graceful,” Ginny said grudgingly.
The difference between the misdirective context and the instructional
context is profound. Teachers should construct or look for instructional context
to support vocabulary development.
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One example at WPMS was recently observed in Kim Saito’s classroom. The
unfamiliar word was disdain. Here’s the instructional context used to illustrate the
meaning of the word: “Conan, a really cool dude, looked to non-athletic, porky,
four-eyed Harold with disdain as if he were lower than the belly of a rat.”
Students quickly picked up that disdain meant “a mean look,” “to despise,” “to lack
respect for.” Fear not, this sentence comes from a book called Caught Ya, Again!
that teaches grammar and vocabulary through the tale of Conan and Harold (and
some other colorful characters). Harold will survive the likes of Conan!
What should I do when we are reading and students encounter
unfamiliar words?
If the word is likely to affect comprehension of the story or article, then
the most effective place to introduce word meaning may be at the moment the
word is met in the text. The meaning can then be integrated into the context of
use immediately, which provides strong support for comprehension. Certainly, allow
students to figure out clues to a word’s meaning from contexts, but don’t let them
stray too far before stepping in, either to give the meaning or to point out the
relevant clues or how to interpret them.
It is important to correct
misunderstandings about word meaning quickly. Once a “wrong” definition or usage
has set in a student’s mind, it takes multiple exposures to the word’s actual
meaning and appropriate use before the student will grasp the word correctly.
Is Robust Vocabulary Instruction just for Language Arts classrooms?
Absolutely not! Of course, you knew I’d answer that way. All that has been
suggested here can work with vocabulary in any content area. Context, studentfriendly explanation, ample opportunity to use, discuss, visualize, draw, talk about
the words, etc. is essential for vocabulary development. Classes like science and
history will likely have more specialized words, but Beck offers ideas on how to
find more Tier II type words in these content areas that can deepen content
knowledge. This is example is clear and meaningful. Beck points out that a lot of
Tier II words in the content area texts may not necessarily be unfamiliar to
students. However, she says, words might be selected for attention that may be
familiar to students but which illustrate the power of an author’s choice of words
to reveal information about a character or situation. Read about Hatshepsut, a
female pharaoh, from sixth grade history and see what can happen with a simple
word like seize….
Hatshepsut
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Hatshepsut was a princess and the wife of a pharaoh. She seized the
change to become pharaoh herself when her husband died. Her young
stepson was supposed to become the new pharaoh of Egypt.
Hatshepsut
proclaimed, however, that the ten-year-old boy was too young to rule on his own.
In this way she succeeded in being named
co-ruler.
The teacher can capitalize on the word seize. That Hatshepsut seized
power reveals something about her character that makes for interesting
discussion. The teacher talk might go like this: “The text says that Hatshepsut
seized the chance to become pharaoh. Seize means to grab something or take
control of it firmly. So, what does that tell us about Hatshepsut? Was she afraid
of being pharaoh? Do you think she was eager to become ruler?” Additionally,
words like ambitious, calculating, and shrewd could be introduced to characterize
Hatshepsut. This journey into vocabulary can make for a deeper understanding of
the history content while enhancing vocabulary development. History classes, too,
can have word walls. Just think of the times ambitious, calculating and shrewd can
be applied in the study of history!!
Words selected for instructional focus can be placed on a word wall and tally
marks added when the word is used by the teacher, a student, or found in text.
As you apply this information in your classroom, save examples of student
work and lessons to share with other staff members.
Vocabulary Bottom Line
Frequent!
Rich!
Extended!
Robust instruction must provide FREQUENT interaction with words. If 10 words (a reasonable number) are
introduced in a given week. By the end of the week, each word should be the focus
of attention through direct instruction, discussion, and activities 8 to 10 times!
Yes, 8 to 10 times. The goal is not “covering” words but inducting them into a
student’s repertoire of language for present and future use.
RICH activities that cause students to create context, discover facets of meaning
and draw relationships among words.
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EXTENDED use of words beyond the classroom. Students need to see the words
in action in print and oral communication. They need to see that the words are
useful and interesting in the “real world.”
Still don’t feel like you have enough ROBUST activities to
draw upon? Here’s more…..
To reveal FACETS OF MEANING have students differentiate between two
descriptions of the word’s meaning. The descriptions should be quite similar,
differing only in features critical to word meaning.
The player comes backs with a
quick answer after the reference
calls a foul on him.
A police officer yells at a driver
whose car is blocking traffic.
Retort
The player complains to the
coach after the referee calls a
Foul on him.
Berate
A police officer calls a tow
truck to move a car that is
blocking traffic.
To reveal RELATIONSHIPS between words provide questions to students that
cause them to examine and explain how words are related. For example:
“Can a virtuoso be a rival?”
“Can a novice be impatient?”
To provide more context for words provide multiple definitions of words, especially
through initial period of instruction. Students should hear and see a slightly
different take on the words. This will help students do more than memorize the
words, especially when coupled with robust activities. Go beyond synonyms to
deeper definitions, explanations or examples of the words. Here are two examples:
Ambitious
1. Really wanting to succeed in becoming successful, rich or important.
2. Really wanting to get ahead by becoming powerful.
3. Really wanting great success in life.
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Stern
1. Being very strict about how you look and what you do.
2. Very demanding about you and others behave.
3. Acts hard and serious.
A quick assessment called Beat the Clock can give you and your students feedback
on how well words are being absorbed, It’s easy to construct and fun to do!
Students are given a limited time (just a couple of minutes) to do items like the
following:
Shrill sounds can hurt your ears.
true
false
Gregarious people would rather be alone.
true
false
It might be hard to have conversation where there’s a commotion.
true
false
Frank people keep their thoughts to themselves.
True
false
Remember, to make your vocabulary
instruction robust….
•Use direct instruction of vocabulary.
•Provide Student-Friendly explanations of the words. Dictionary
definitions are rarely enough and, indeed, may be misleading and frustrate
acquisition of word meaning.
•Students need to learn words in context. They need to make connections to the
words…those connections should be to self, their world, and other words they
already know.
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•Ensure the words are the focus of repeated attention throughout the period of
study and beyond. Each word should be the focus of attention 8 to 10 times in an
initial week of instruction.
•Ensure students have multiple opportunities to pronounce the words with you and
each other. They must see the words, hear them and speak them.
•Activities should be varied and rich. Those suggested here are good examples.
Work with colleagues to share more.
•Words should be anchored in text as much as possible. Words learned from
isolated lists are less likely to become part of a student’s language repertoire.
•Use the words with students in the classroom and help students find the words in
action outside the classroom.
•Revisit previously learned words. Let them live on in Vocabulary Logs and Word
Walls.
•Content areas like Science, Math and History provide their own vocabulary terms
but also many opportunities to enhance vocabulary development of those Tier II,
less specialized words. Remember Hatshepsut!
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