SSILTT 2012Teaching Vocabulary

Teaching Vocabulary

• Supports content area learning--concepts, ideas, connections, domain-specific vocabulary

• Supports literacy in general

• Mississippi has a history of low vocabulary achievement

Vocabulary differs across income groups (Hart and Risley)

Less effective instruction:

• Memorizing definitions for 10 or 20 words a week (or a word of the week)– These words don’t reappear in student talk

or writing– Copying definitions

Through incidental learning in a language rich environment, students can learn 17-20 words/day, 3000 words/year

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

Me and my parents correlate because without them I wouldn’t be here.

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

Me and my parents correlate because without them I wouldn’t be here.

Meticulous. Very careful or too particular about small details

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

Me and my parents correlate because without them I wouldn’t be here.

Meticulous. Very careful or too particular about small details

I was meticulous about falling off the cliff.

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

Me and my parents correlate because without them I wouldn’t be here.

Meticulous. Very careful or too particular about small details

I was meticulous about falling off the cliff.

Redress. 1. Set right; repair; remedy: King Arthur tried to redress wrongs in his kingdom.

DefinitionsDictionary Definitions Students’ SentencesCorrelate. 1. Be related one to the other: The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate. 2. Put into relation

Me and my parents correlate because without them I wouldn’t be here.

Meticulous. Very careful or too particular about small details

I was meticulous about falling off the cliff.

Redress. 1. Set right; repair; remedy: King Arthur tried to redress wrongs in his kingdom.

The redress for getting well when you’re sick is to stay in bed.

What does work: Reading

• Wide reading is THE most important way to foster vocabulary development–Wide reading

–Wide reading

–Wide reading

Create a Language-Rich Environment

• Use interesting words yourself• Play with words• Word of the day

Return their language to them with more interesting vocab

• I’m thirsty! I’m _________

• It’s raining! It’s _________

• What are we having for lunch?

• This homework stinks!

Explicit Instruction in Using Morphemes for Structural Analysis

• Morphemes--meaningful chunks of words

• Morphology--study of the meaningful chunks of words

• Roots, affixes (suffixes and prefixes)

• How many morphemes in shoes, celery, polysyllabic?

Ways to teach the meanings of morphemes

• Word sorts (in-, un-) • Word chains (sort polyhedron words)• Root word/Vocabulary Trees (def is “roots”,

branches are words that use root, twigs are where you heard it)

• Think of a sort you could do that focuses on the meanings of word parts (morphemes) important in your discipline (e.g., in math: graph means picture vs. graph means word)

• Share

Model Using Morphemes to Figure Out Words

• Discuss handout/procedures for a think-aloud

• Think out loud about how you used morphemes to figure out the meaning of a word

• Devon model• Groups practice and share• Discuss

Using morphemes to figure out words

Sometimes morphemes are all you need:

• indefatigable

What are some key morphemes in your

content area?

Adding in context

• Sometimes not so helpfulShe was a sartorial nightmare.

• Sometimes helpful.His sartorial style runs toward jeans,

Hawaiian shirts and cowboy boots.

The doctor prescribed me an antipruritic for my poison ivy.

Explicit Instruction in Using Context

• Model, model, model

• Demonstrate using more and more context

Using Context

• How could I be such a mensa?

Using Context

• How could I be such a mensa? She scolded herself as she sat cross-legged, the telephone cradled in one hand and a cookie in the other.

Using Context

• How could I be such a mensa? She scolded herself as she sat cross-legged, the telephone cradled in one hand and a cookie in the other. She blamed her biology teacher for her problem.

Using Context

• How could I be such a mensa? She scolded herself as she sat cross-legged, the telephone cradled in one hand and a cookie in the other. She blamed her biology teacher for her problem. If he hadn’t made them dissect frogs, she wouldn’t have been so absentminded. (from Gary Soto’s The Challenge)

Kinds of Context Clues

• Definition: . . . Then the predator, an animal that hunts and eats other animals, entered

• Synonym: He walked with alacrity, hurrying to his destination

• Antonym: He walked slothfully, you could never get him to hurry

• Example: Predators like lions, tigers, bears, sharks, eagles, even bats . . . .

• Gist: vaguely somewhere in the text (mensa)

Teach with a think-aloud

•Think out loud. Explain your thinking to students to model how to use context clues to figure out the word.

•Practice it in groups. Find a difficult or likely unfamiliar word in your text, think aloud about how you used context to figure it out. Name the “kind” of context clue you used. •Share.

Look in your framework

• What morphemes are there?

• What’s a sort or other activity you could do to teach the meaning of one of those?

When morphemes and context won’t work: Using Reference Tools

• Must be a sophisticated user and know the first definition won’t always work

• Which definition fits the meaning of the sentence:– “Cell phones are polluting our most sacred family

traditions such as the evening meal.”

• What “text features” do you need to know to use this reference tool?

• Other reference tools?

Explicit Study of Words:Selecting Words for Study

• Function words - glue sentences together (the, because, is)

• Tier 1 words - already known (school, baby)• Tier 2 words - worth studying, multiple

meanings, important to content, key morphemes, etc.

• Tier 3 words - exceedingly rare and specialized (antipruritic)

Triple-Entry Vocab Journal

• Select words for journals or let students record words as they write (see handout)

• After, let students compare responsesWord in context of sentence in text, underlined

Look up, choose right def, write in own words

Picture, memory aid, or phrase

Word Sorts• Conceptual word sorts:

– Conceptually (e.g., related to nervous vs. digestive system, spiders vs. insects, etc.)

– Open word sorts--students decide how to sort them

• There’s value in the debating• Sort words before, during, and after

reading/thematic study• Think of other ways to sort words• Sort the same set of words multiple ways

Word Chains

• Sort words according to a scale or quality– Synonyms for hunger, most to least– Put words in order according to a chemical

process or mathematical procedure– Environmental consequences of different ways of

getting energy (solar, coal, nuclear), from least to most harmful

• Come up with a word chain to teach words in your content area

Possible Sentences

• Teacher selects a few words before study

• Students analyze them, then create a “possible sentence”

• After study, students rewrite possible sentences based on new knowledge of words

» Janet Allen

Interactive Word Wall

• Select words for content/concept study

• List on word wall before/during/after

• Sort words according to concepts or put in alphabetical order--so they’re easy to find and useful

• USE the words throughout study

Using Interactive Word Wall Words

• Sort the words• Use the words to write summaries• Write narratives or poems using the words

together• Use the words in a Venn diagram• Hold students accountable for spelling these

words correctly in writing• Word 20-questions or charades• Use the words in a persuasive letter etc.• Other ideas?

Portable Word Wall

• Individualized word walls

Other Graphic Organizers

• Word Web/Spider Map

• Word Scroll

• Folded flash cards-fold like a note card, word on front, def on top inside, examples on bottom inside, illustration on the back

• Others?

Words Across Contexts: Homographs

• Encourages thinking about the content-specific meanings of words and the concepts in the text

• What would the word surf mean to:

A. A kid on the beach?

B. A techie?

C. Someone watching TV?• What would the word current mean to:

A. An electrician

B. A boat captain

C. A newspaper writer

Do one of your own!

Word Knowledge Rating Scale

Word Know it well Have seen or heard it

Have no idea

Word Detective

Frayer Model

Definition in your own words

A quadrilateral is a shape with 4 sides.

Facts/Characteristics

* 4 sides * May or may not be * equal length * Sides may or may not be parallel

Examples

•Square•Rectangle•Trapezoid•rhombus

Nonexamples

•Circle•Triangle•Pentagon•dodecahdron

Quadrilateral

Verbal and Visual Word Association (VVWA)

Wrap-UpRe-sort words

List all strategies so far/use notecards. Go through

framework and discuss which could be used for the

benchmarks in Competencies 1 and 2.