Vocabulary: A Powerful Connection to Comprehension Tamara Konrade tamarak@essdack.org.

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Vocabulary:

A Powerful Connection to Comprehension

Tamara Konrade

tamarak@essdack.org

4 Types of Vocabulary

Listening: words we understand when others talk to us

Speaking: words we use when we talk to others

Reading: words we know when we see them in print

Writing: words we use when we write

Why Vocabulary is Important…

The Vocabulary Gap

Grade Average Student (2.4 root words per day)

Bottom 25%(1.6 root words per day)

End of Pre-K 3,440 2,440

End of K 4,300 3,016End of Grade 1 5,160 3,592

End of Grade 2 6,020 4,168*Anglin 1993; Biemiller and Slonim 2001; Biemiller 2005

Research shows that average students learn approximately 7 words per day (Miller, 1978).

At-risk students are learning less than 1-2 words per day or none at all.

How Vocabulary is Learned

• Indirectly: Children learn the meanings of most words through everyday experiences:– having conversations with adults and peers– hearing stories– reading extensively

• Directly: Children learn vocabulary when they are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies:– morphemic analysis– contextual analysis

Variation in Amount of Independent Reading

Anderson, R. C. (1992)

PercentileRank

Minutes Per Day Words Read Per Year

Books Text Books Text

98 65.0 67.3 4,358,000 4,733,000

90 21.2 33.4 1,823,000 2,357,000

80 14.2 24.6 1,146,000 1,697,000

70 9.6 16.9 622,000 1,168,000

60 6.5 13.1 432,000 722,000

50 4.6 9.2 282,000 601,000

40 3.2 6.2 200,000 421,000

30 1.8 4.3 106,000 251,000

20 0.7 2.4 21,000 134,000

10 0.1 1.0 8,000 51,000

2 0 0 0 8,000

FREQUENT WORDS RARE WORDS

Adults talking to children 95.6 9.9

Adults talking to adults 93.9 17.3

Prime-time TV: adult 94.0 22.7

Children’s Books 92.3 30.9

Comic Books 88.6 53.5

Books-Adult 88.4 52.7

Popular Magazines 85.0 65.7

Newspapers 84.3 68.3

Abstracts of Scientific Papers

70.3 128.2

Frequent words = percentage of text from most frequent 1,000 words

Rare words = number of rare words (not in most common 10,000) per 1,000 tokens

Source: Hayes and Ahrens 1988

Common and Uncommon Words

Target vocabulary should include:

– Words that are important for understanding the text or content (and that are not explained within the text).

– Words that students will encounter often, functionally important words.

Selecting Words

Kindergarten

(Read Aloud)

Grade 1

(Read Aloud)

Grade 2

(Read Aloud)

Grade 2-8

(Independent Text)

3-4 words per book at 1-2 books per week.

3-10 words per selection at one selection per week.

~Based on Beck et al. 2002

Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3

Description Basic words that most children know before entering school

Words that appear frequently in texts and for which students already have conceptual understanding

Uncommon words that are typically associated with a specific domain

Examples clock, baby, happy sinister, fortunate, adapt

isotope, peninsula, bucolic

(Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002)

Selecting Words to Teach

Demands of Text• Narrative

– Unnecessary to know all the word--gist of the story.– Learning new words often involves learning a new term for a

known concept.– Words are usually unrelated to each other.

• Expository – Word meanings are closely tied to major topic.– New vocabulary is rarely associated with familiar concepts.– Words are often related to each other (e.g., metamorphosis,

pupa, and larvae).

B3: Vocabulary Tested Indicators

▲Context Clues (3-HS)

definitions, restatements, examples, descriptions, comparison-contrast, clue words, cause-effect

▲Structural Analysis (3-HS)

roots, prefixes, suffixes

▲Figurative Language (6-HS)

similes, metaphors, analogies, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification, idioms, imagery, and symbolism

Contextual Analysis

“Clue instruction appears to be more effective than other instruction types or just practice.”

Analysis by Fukkink and de Glopper (1998)

Contextual Analysis Strategy

• Look for Context Clues in the words, phrases, and sentences surrounding the unfamiliar word. Determine:– Signal Words or Punctuation– Type of Context Clue

Highlight different context clues you

find in the article.

Facts about Prefixes

Twenty prefixes account for 97 percent of the prefixed words in school reading materials.

Four prefixes (un-, re-, in-, and dis-) account for 58 percent of all prefixed words.

Highlight your grade level prefixes and suffixes.

Structural Analysis Strategy

• Look for the Root Word. What does it mean?

• Look for a Prefix. What does it mean?

• Look for a Suffix. What does it mean?

• Put the Meanings of the Word Parts Together. What is the meaning of the whole word?

Vocabulary Activities

• Kansas Parent Information Resource Center: http://www.kpirc.org

Attributes: Roll the Dice

1. Start with the stack of reading standards vocabulary cards.

2. Choose a vocabulary card and roll the dice.

3. Give attributes or something you’ve learned for each vocabulary word you draw (roll a 3 = 3 attributes).

Alphaboxes

• At your table, write one word that relates to the state reading assessment.

Word Sorts

Sort the words relating to reading standards into categories.

Graphic Organizers

Pictures / Objects / Videos

Vocabulary: A Powerful Connection to Comprehension Tamara Konrade tamarak@essdack.org.

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