teaching vocabulary - teachinclusive€¦ · vocabulary instruction. solving problems in the...

Developing Vocabulary in the Classroom- Give Your Students Superpowers.

Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist, Jan 2015

Teaching Vocabulary

To cover:

Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist

  What is oral language development?   What is ‘knowing’vocabulary?   What’s so important about it?   What’s at risk without it?   How can I extend my students to access these benefits?   What does this mean for me?


  Learning to understand and use the words around us.   Becoming able to exchange ideas and information with

another communicator through speaking and understanding.   Mastering more complicated techniques and more specific

words for more accurate ideas.

Oral language acquisition:

When children are acquiring language they are developing five different aspects of language knowledge


semantic

phonetic

morphemic pragmatic

syntactic

Otto, B. (2014) Language Development in Early Childhood Education, Pearson, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.


Semantic knowledge: ‘Jam’

Semantic knowledge:


  Understanding word meanings   Understanding similarities, differences and relationships

between words   Gathering of words from your own collection   Choosing words for ideas

Significance?


I choose to read

I choose to interact, I choose to participate,

It makes sense to me, I can engage

I can follow: conversations, stories

and explanations

I understand words


  There are huge differences in vocabulary size amongst children at age 7yrs:

High performing students (upper quartile) know an average of 7100 root words.

Poor performing pupils (lower quartile) know 3000 words.

  Children with low vocabularies would have to learn words much faster than their peers, at a rate of three to four root words per day, if they were to catch up within five or six years.

Biemiller, A. (2003) ‘Vocabulary needed if children are to read well’ Reading Psychology, 24:323-335

What outcome?


  Vocabulary is a strong indicator of reading success (Biemiller, 2003)

  From age 8 onwards, declining reading comprehension is largely due to lack of vocabulary knowledge. (Becker, 1977)

  Low vocabulary can trap children in a cycle of non achievement as poorer readers miss out on opportunities to extend their vocabularies. (Fisher and Blachnowicz, 2005)

  Poor vocabulary is the primary cause of academic failure of disadvantaged students. (Becker 1977)

Known groups with low vocabulary


1.  Children with disabilities/ learning difficulties 2.  Economically disadvantaged students 3.  Children learning English as a second language

Background


  Typically, young children add 3,000-4,000 words a year to their vocabulary

  It’s estimated that preschoolers learn about 5 words a day   Children arrive in first grade with a lexicon of about 6000

words.   Most adults use the same 5-10,000 words for conversation

and instruction (but have up to 50,000 in the listening vocabulary)

Mapping is the name given to the process wherein the word is attached to the item or the experience.


  Fast Mapping: In early childhood (between 2 and 5yrs) children can learn words after only one or two exposures.

  Slow Mapping After the fast mapping period of early childhood, language learners need more encounters with a word before they know it. (12 encounters is a commonly acknowledged estimate)

In building semantics we need to know:


F

Form

Name

Function

Group

What do we teach? Recognising different word levels

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, l. (2002). Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. Solving problems in the Teaching of Literacy. New York: Guilford Press Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist

Lower frequency, specific domains, subject areas or locations.

(semantics, synaptic, mapping)

High frequency words for more mature users, may be used in academic courses and have multiple meanings

(gather, announce, glance, fragrant)

Basic words: Sight words, words in early readers, 5,000 words we use for every day conversation

(house, dog, friend, yellow)


Assign terms to specific grades.

Decide on final list of vocabulary terms for each academic area

Consider your word lists and assign ‘weighting’ to academic areas.

e.g. 30% maths, 30 % social studies, 20% science and 10% from each of language and health

For each content area create a rank ordered word list considering local standards and curriculum.

Use prepared word lists for your grade level.

Decide on number of target words per grade level/ subject

Marzano, R.J., & Pickering, D.J. (2005). Building Academic Vocabulary Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

What to teach? (The Masterplan)

Teaching New Vocabulary (Marzano and Pickering, 2005)


Provide a description, explanation or example

Ask students to restate this in their own words- describe in notebook

Ask students to construct a picture, symbol or graphic representing the new term- picture in notebook.

From time to time engage students in activities that help them add to their knowledge of their new vocabulary

Encourage students to discuss the terms with each other. Involve students in games that allow them to use the new vocabulary.

and into the classroom…


Meaning

Word

Connected Speech

Provide direct instruction of vocabulary words for a specific topic

Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important (enables ‘mapping’)

Target words that the learner will find useful in many contexts

Vocabulary tasks should be restructured as necessary

Learning a definition is not ‘knowing’ a word. Learning must involve full, broad knowledge and engagement

There is a role for computer technology in vocabulary teaching

Vocabulary is acquired through incidental learning, make all your interactions rich

Reliance on a single learning method is sub-optimal. Find variety and diversity in your methods, extend yourselves and your teaching.

Butler, S., Urrutia, K., Buenger, A., Gonzalez, N., Hunt, M. and Eisenhart, C. (2010). A Review of the Current Research on Vocabulary Instruction. National Reading Technical Assistance Center, RMC Research Corporation. Viewed January, 2, 2015. http://www2.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/support/rmcfinal1.pdf


Marzano and Pickering (2005)

References and Resources:


  Beck, I. L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, l. (2002). Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. Solving problems in the Teaching of Literacy. New York: Guilford Press

  Becker, W.C. (1977) ‘Teaching Reading and Language to the Disadvantaged-what we have learned from field research.’ Harvard Educational Review, 47:518-543

  Biemiller, ,A. (2003) ‘Vocabulary needed if children are to read well’ Reading Psychology, 24:323-335

  Blachnowicz, C., & Fisher, P. (2000) Teaching Vocabulary in all Classrooms. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.

  Carleton, L., & Marzano, R.J. (2010). Vocabulary Games for the Classroom. Bloomington,IN: Marzano Research Laboratory

  Fisher, P., & Blachnowicz, C. (2005) ‘Vocabulary Instruction in a Remedial Setting.’ Reading and Writing Quarterly,21:281-300

  Marzano, R.J., & Pickering, D.J. (2005). Building Academic Vocabulary Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

  Montgomery, J.K., (2007). The Bridge of Vocabulary. Minneapolis: Pearson.

teaching vocabulary - teachinclusive€¦ · vocabulary instruction. solving problems in the...

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