Teaching Vocabulary Vocabulary Knowledge What is it Learning

Teaching Vocabulary

Vocabulary Knowledge What is it? . . . Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge. Learners must have access to the meanings of words that teachers, or their surrogates (e. g. , other adults, books, films, etc. ) use to guide them into contemplating known concepts in novel ways (i. e. , to learn something new). (Baker, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998) 2

Why is Vocabulary Knowledge Important? • Importance of vocabulary knowledge to school success, in general, and reading comprehension, in particular, is widely documented (Becker, 1977; Anderson & Nagy, 1991). • The National Research Council (1998) recently concluded that vocabulary development is a fundamental goal for students in the early grades. 3

Importance of Vocabulary • There is a strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. • Vocabulary knowledge is so strongly related to intelligence that Klouis Terman, creator of modern IQ tests, stated that if he could use only one factor to determine a person’s intelligence, it would be vocabulary.

What the Research Says about Vocabulary Development • The relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge is strong and unequivocal (Baumann & Kame’enui, 1991; Stanovich, 1986). • Even weak readers’ vocabulary knowledge is strongly correlated with the amount of reading they do (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). 5

What the Research Says about Vocabulary Development Vocabulary instruction should include: • Intensive study of some words involving multiple exposures in a range of meaningful contexts • Direct teaching and modeling • Opportunities to use new vocabulary in discussions about books and related activities 6

What the Research Says about Vocabulary Development Vocabulary and comprehension instruction § Is a high priority, but secondary to learning to read words independently. § Is most effective taught in the context of readalouds in narrative and expository text selections. Chard & Kame'enui © 2003 7

Teaching Vocabulary • Teaching Tips: – Step One: presenting new words – Step Two: helping students remember new words – Step Three: making sure students make the new words their own

Using visual images Other techniques Using gestures and actions Step One: presenting new words Words in context Guessing/predicting Showing lexicial relations

using visual images • • • realia pictures masking drawing scales

using gestures and actions • • mime gesture facial expression action

showing lexical relations • • synonyms antonyms collocation prefixes and suffixes

words in context • • dialogues role play drama stories songs rhymes & poems videos

Other techniques • • • Using a dictionary Explaining Describing Defining the context Translating

Using memorizing games & activities Step Two: helping students remember new words Learning with friends Using review games

usinge memorizing games and activities • • • giving directions picture dictation matching words labeling words searching words sequencing words guessing words eliminating words classifying words

Review Games • • • wordsearch games picture labeling crosswords Bingo dominoes puzzles charts or survey for their peers Example 1 Example 2

Socio-affectively, students can • • practice words with a classmate or in a group teach a word to a member of the family or peer make and play word game with friends peer test

Vocabulary record system Step Three: making sure students make the new words their own Personalizing the new words

Vocabulary record system-1 • Vocabulary books – in an alphabetical order – by topic or situation – by grammatical groups – by color sets – by story features

Vocabulary record system -2 • personal dictionary (word notebooks) – marking word stress – adding pictures – putting an L 1 translation – putting the word into context – adding a synonym – mapping a word family – Example

personalize the new words • Keeping a learning log (blogs) • Keeping a diary (blogs) • Creative writing by using newly-learned words or phrases • Looking for recently learned words in storybooks, the Internet, the newspapers, etc. , and noticing how they are used.

Meta-cognitively, learners learn how to • self-test • look for patterns in words • plan and organize a vocabulary record keeping system • Learn words in their preferred ways • reflect on learning and reviewing regularly • monitor vocabulary learning

Seven Principles of Developing Vocabulary: • Relate Vocabulary to Background: Relate new words to experiences that students may have had. Give examples that may associate with their interaction in the classroom. Such as using the word… evaporation, relating it to how Ms. Gonzalez’s steam from her hot coffee evaporates into the air.

• Building relationships: Show words are related to each other. Establishing relationships between words, such as Mountains, altitude, incline, hills, discuss their differences and similarities.

• Developing Depth of Meaning: Words may have subtle shades of meaning that dictionary definitions may not quite capture. Have students model or demonstrategy of what they would do in a certain situation such as pretending they are stranded on an island they have to form their own government.

• Present several exposures: Frequent exposure and repetition of vocabulary is essential. Have students create a sentence of the word of the week. Or students who can come up use the word of the week gets a star and the one with the most stars for the grade period gets something special. Encourage them to use new word knowledge. I think its important to have students practice that word for it to become background knowledge.

• Creating Interest in Words: Generate interest in New Words. Motivate them to READ and find new words!

• Teach Students how to learn new words: Encourage independent word-learning skills Tell your students when reading and they don’t know a word, look it up, and write it and the definition down three or four times, let it sink in and go back to it.