Post on 28-Dec-2015
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Vocabulary Instruction
Timothy Shanahan
University of Illinois at Chicago
The Vocabulary Challenge
Vocabulary matters Vocabulary correlates to comprehension .66 to
.75 (Just & Carpenter, 1975) The close correlation between vocabulary
development at age 3 and reading comprehension in 11th grade (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997)
Comprehension comprises two “skills”: vocabulary and reasoning (Davis, 1942, National Reading Panel, 2000).
The Vocabulary Challenge
There are lots of words to learn
Oxford English Dictionary 290,500 entries attempt to cover every
word in use in the English language from the middle of the 12th century to present. Counting variant spellings, obsolete forms, combinations and derivatives the OED includes over 616,500 words
The Vocabulary Challenge
More “need to know” words all the time
English is the language of science and technology. It is adding more words, more rapidly than any other language.
Big discrepancies in vocabulary
Hart & Risley (2003): Home observations of 42 families with for 2.5 years
Children were 7 mos. old at beginning of study
Welfare, working class, and average/upper class families
Monthly hour long observations (1300 hours of observations)
Findings…
Hart & Risley (cont.)
Children used words their parents usedChildren used amounts of words that
were related to their parents’ language use
Children’s vocabulary learning at age 3 predicted their 4th grade school learning
Huge differences…
Weak school response
Low vocabulary learning in school evidenced during the primary grade years (Biemiller, 2004); emphasis on decoding and “sight vocabulary” rather than word meaning and texts with lots of singletons (Hiebert, 2000)
Studies show that children are slow to learn words by inference alone before the age of 10 (Robbins & Ehri, 1994)
But low vocabulary children learn vocabulary as quickly as high vocabulary children (in school)
Inadequacy of oral experience
Printed Text
Abstracts
Newspapers
Popular Magazines
Adult books
Comic Books
Children’s Books
Preschool Books
Rare Words per 1,000
128.0
68.3
65.7
52.7
53.5
30.9
16.3
Television Texts
Popular adult shows
Popular children’s shows
Cartoons
Mr. Rogers & Sesame Street
22.7
20.2
30.8
2.0
Adult Speech
Expert eyewitness testimony
College graduates to friends
28.4
17.3
16.9
The tragedy
Children from low income families who make strong initial gains in reading, slump in reading in the intermediate grades
This slump does not affect math (so this isn’t IQ)
Low readers generally know fewer words than good readers, but learn new words at a similar rate to good readers
Which words do we teach?
Tier One –high frequency words that rarely require instruction in school at least for children who are native speakers of English.
Examples: cat, dog, clock, baby, shoe, floor,
Which words do we teach?
Tier Two – words that occur so infrequently that they require teaching, but so often that they are useful in a variety of contexts.
Examples: ordinary, reluctant, insist, pleasant, scrumptious, famished, dazzling, gloomy, strange, exhausted, amusing, nuisance, etc.
Which words do we teach?
Tier Three – low frequency words that are used primarily in particular domains and must be taught by content teachers.
Examples: phoneme, coarticulation, isotope, rhombus, trapezoid, etc.
Vocabulary in reading
Vocabulary teaching principles
1. Deep definitions
2. Intensive and varied repetition
3. Connections among words
4. All modes of language
5. Personal connections
6. Review over time
7. Teach word-learning strategies
1. Deep definitions
DefinitionSynonymAntonymCategoryPicture (or symbol)ComparisonExampleAct it out
Learning math vocabulary
1. Word______________________________
2. Illustration
3. Math Definition_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*4. General Definition______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Synonym_____________________6. Antonym_____________________7. Group it belongs to_____________________________________________8. Example______________________________________________________9. Comparison Contrast: _______________________ is like ____________________, but is different because______________________10. Analogy: _____________________ is to ___________________ as_________________________ is to _________________________.
Freyer Model
Definition Equation
Diagram What it’s not
Four-square concept chart
Citizenship
Essential Features Example
Yes Carrying out actions that show awareness of how personal actions affect others in the community.
Following rules and laws.
Taking care of the environment.
No Being popular. Getting other people to think
just like you do.
Not letting other people express their ideas.
Speeding or littering.
Concept of definition
______________________
What is it? What is it like? What are some examples?
2. Intensive and varied repetition
Four repetitions has no impact on learning
12 repetitions improve learning
3. Teach connections
Semantic maps and feature analysisTeaching sets of wordsBuilding connectionsComparisons
Semantic Map
Semantic Feature Analysis
Long Look
Rude Incom-plete
Angry Sneaky
Glance +
Stare + +
Gape + +
Glare + + +
Gaze +
Beck’s Word Lines
How much energy does it take to . . .
1. meander down the hall?
2. vault over a car?
3. banter with your best friend for an hour?
4. berate someone at the top of your voice?
5. stalk a turtle?
Least ------------------------------------------Most
Energy Energy
4. All modes of language
ReadingWritingSpeakingListeningPictorialKinesthetic
5. Personal connections
Personal examplesWord wizardsWord consciousness
6. Review over time
Review scheduleRetesting
7. Teach word-learning strategies
Dictionaries and reference booksContext cluesMorphological analysis
Prefixes
un- (not) 26% re- (again) 40% in- im- ir- il- (not) 51% dis- (apart, negative) 58% en- em- (put into or on) 62% non- (not) 66% in- im- (in) 69% over- (over, more) 72% mis- (wrong, bad) 75%
Suffixes
-s –es plural 31%-ed past tense 51%-ing 65%-ly 72%-er –or agent 76%
Vocabulary Schedule
Monday: Introduce wordsTuesday: Teach deep meanings and
connectionsWednesday: Teach deep meanings and
connectionsThursday: Drill and practiceFriday: Assessment
Second-language learners
Explicit vocabulary teaching is even more important
Tier 1 words may need to be taughtStudents are more likely to know the
concept, but not the wordPictures more usefulSame kinds of techniques, but with
adjustments
Vocabulary Instruction
Timothy Shanahan
University of Illinois at Chicago