Vocabulary - Part Four

Vocabulary – Part Four

            An increasing number of students come from homes in which English is not their primary language.  There are several strategies that appear to be especially valuable for building the vocabularies of ELs (August, et all 2005).  These strategies include taking advantage of students’ first language if the language shares cognates with English, teaching the meaning of basic words and providing sufficient review and reinforcement.  English and Spanish share a large number of cognate pairs, this first instructional strategy is especially useful for Spanish – speaking ELs.  A second instructional strategy for ELs is learning the meaning of basic words – words that most EO students already know.  A third instructional strategy that ELs particularly benefit from is review and reinforcement.

Vocabulary - Part Three

              It is recommended to use a variety of direct and indirect methods of vocabulary instruction (National Reading Panel 2000).

            Rich and rigorous vocabulary instruction goes beyond definition knowledge; it gets students actively engaged in using and thinking about word meanings and in creating relationships among words.  Word – learning strategies include dictionary use, morphemic analysis and contextual analysis.  For ELs whose language shares cognates with English, cognate awareness is also important strategy (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006). 

            When children know a word, they not only know the word’s definition and its logical relationship with other words, they also know how the word functions in different contexts (Stahl and Kapinus 2001).  A more general way to help students develop vocabulary is by fostering word consciousness, an awareness of and interest in words.  It can be developed at all times and in several ways: through encouraging adept diction, through word play and through research on word origins and histories.

            It is important that vocabulary instruction provide students with opportunities to encounter words repeatedly and in more than one context (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006).

            It is often the case that students do not understand the instructional task involved (National Reading Panel 2000).  The restructuring of learning materials or strategies in various ways often can lead to increased vocabulary acquisition especially for low – achieving or at – risk students (National Reading Panel 2000).

            The scientific research on vocabulary instruction reveals that most vocabulary is acquired incidentally through indirect exposure to words.  Providing structured read – aloud and discussion sessions and extending independent reading experiences outside of school hours to encourage vocabulary growth in students (Cunningham 2005).  

Vocabulary - Part Two

          Estimates of student vocabulary size vary dramatically (Anderson and Freebody 1981).  Using a body of words gathered from school materials and textbooks (Carroll, Davies and Richman 1971), they grouped related words into families by judging whether a student who knew the meaning of only one of the words in a family and could infer the meanings of other words in the family.  A word family is a group of words related in meaning.  From this analysis it was determined that there are about 88,500 distinct word families in printed school English and that an average 12^th grader probably knows about 40,000 of them (Nagy and Anderson 1984).  A root word is a single word that cannot be broken into smaller words or parts.  There are about 17,500 root words known by students in Grade 12.  Of these root words, they estimate that about 15,000 words are known well by a majority of students (Dale and O’Rourke 1981).

            Children through Grade 6 typically acquire about 800 to 1,000 root-word meanings per year.  By the end of Grade 2, students know an average of about 6,000 root word meanings (Biemiller 2005).

            In Grade 1 the number of derived words that students acquire is three times the number of root words (Anglin 1993).

            About 2 words per day, or 10 per week can be taught directly (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006).

            Profound differences exist in vocabulary knowledge among learners.  Focusing vocabulary instruction on acquiring root words is an effective way to address the large number of words that students must learn each year (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006).

            Vocabulary seems to occupy an important middle ground in learning to read (National Reading Panel 2000).  Vocabulary occupies an important position both in learning to read and in comprehending text: readers cannot understand text without knowing what most of the words mean (National Reading Panel 2000).  To comprehend text, students require both fluent word recognition skills and an average or greater than vocabulary. 

Vocabulary - Part One

          Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings.  Vocabulary is not something that can ever be fully mastered; it is something that expands and deepens over the course of a lifetime.  Vocabulary is acquired incidentally through indirect exposure to words and intentionally through explicit instruction in specific words and word-learning strategies.  There are four components of an effective vocabulary instruction: 1) wide or extensive independent reading to expand word knowledge, 2) instruction in specific words to enhance comprehension of texts containing those words, 3) instruction in independent word-learning strategies and 4) word consciousness and word-play activities to motivate and enhance learning (Graves 2000).

            Individuals have various types of vocabulary that they use for different purposes (Kamil & Hiebert 2005).  Words themselves are encountered in two forms: oral and print.  Oral vocabulary is the set of words for which students know the meanings when others speak or read aloud to them, or when they speak to others.  Print vocabulary is the set of words for which students know the meanings when they read or write silently.  Ultimately print vocabulary is much more extensive and diverse than oral vocabulary (Hayes, Wolfer, and Wolf 1996).  The knowledge of word meanings, or vocabulary, can also be divided according to whether it is receptive or productive.  Receptive vocabulary is the set of words to which a student can assign some meaning when listening or reading.  Productive vocabulary is the set of words students use frequently in their speaking and writing.  Receptive vocabulary (listening or reading) is generally larger than productive vocabulary (speaking or writing) because people usually recognize more words than they regularly use (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006).

            Word learning is incremental; that is, it proceeds in a series of steps (Graves and Watts-Taffe 2002).  Four levels can be used to describe the extent of a person’s word knowledge: 1) have never seen or heard the word before, 2) have seen or heard the word before, but don’t know what it means, 3) vaguely know the meaning of the word; can associate it with a concept or context, and 4) know the word well; can explain it and use it (Diamond and Gutlohn 2006).

Interactive Read Aloud

       When read-alouds are understood as powerful tools for teaching literary elements, building analytical ability, and addressing the standards, they can bring both joy and accelerated learning into the lives of our students.” Linda Hoyt

Interactive read-aloud consists of expressively reading a book (usually a picture book) aloud to children and stopping at points along the way to engage in dialogue about different aspects of the story/text. This is a three-way conversation between the teacher, students, and text. The teacher models comprehension strategies through think-alouds.   Interactive Read-Aloud provides students with a venue in which to actively engage in instructional conversation about a text (genre, title, author; literary elements such as illustrations, characters, setting, plot, themes, and use of language; building knowledge and understanding of concepts and ideas, nonfiction text features and structures, etc.) and provides students support with academic language by providing sentences frames for discourse.  Interactive read-aloud gives children in the elementary years a chance to practice text analysis with the support of a teacher but without the struggles of decoding. Its positive effects are well-documented for all students and for ELs in particular.

The components of Interactive Read-Aloud are:

• ·        Text Selection: Choose books appropriate to students’ interests and matched to their developmental, emotional, and social levels. You’ll want to be selective. Not all books are appropriate for Interactive Read-Aloud. Ask yourself if the text is going to provide a chance for deep thinking. Are there multiple layers of meaning? Does the author use a complex structure? Is it within the complexity band or Lexile level for your grade?
• ·        Previewed and Practiced: Preview the text and plan the read-aloud ahead of time. Think about the vocabulary and use of language. Consider when you want students to turn and talk with a partner. What sentence frames will they use?
• ·        Clear Purpose Established: Establish a clear purpose of reading for the students.
• ·        Fluent Reading Modeled: Model fluent oral reading when reading the text.
• ·        Animation and Expression: Be animated and use expression.
• ·        Discussing the Text: Stop periodically and question the students to focus them on specifics of the text.
• ·        Independent Reading and Writing: Make explicit connections to independent reading and writing.

Comprehending Informational Text – Part Three

          This strategy is called Nonfiction Readers Stop and Jot. With this strategy, students stop reading periodically and jot down new information, questions, and/or unknown words. Writing about nonfiction will help students remember information and ideas as they read. 

              Some prompts that you can use with students to help them as they utilize this strategy are:

·        After reading that section, are you thinking anything?

·        What do you think you can jot that will help you hold on to the information?

·        Let’s stop and jot.

·        Show me what you’ll write after that part.

·        I noticed you thought about what you help you when you stopped to jot that.

Remember, it will take lots of modeling and practice before students will internalize these strategies.

            It might be beneficial to work with EL students in a small group or your students who are on grade level with support before or after a whole group lesson or demonstration.  Meeting with them prior to the lesson will give them an edge on understanding what you’re demonstrating; meeting after the lesson will give them time to discuss and process more thoroughly.  This could be done during your small group instruction time.  Provide graphic organizers to help students discuss and record information as they read. 

“Students at any grade level often need support in the form of strategies.  One study found that although readers are sometimes able to automatically determine the main idea, expert readers often need to think through a process and apply strategies in order to construct a main idea” (Afflerbach 1990).

Comprehending Informational Text – Part Two

Another strategy is called Notice What Repeats. This strategy helps students identify the main topic of a book. Beginning level books often don’t have a main “idea” but rather a “main topic” – it’s the difference between saying the book is about “baseball” (topic) and the book is about how “baseball is an important part of American culture” (topic + idea).  For younger readers asking them to determine a main idea may be too challenging of a task considering the complexity of the text.  As a note, as you are selecting texts, you will need to consider this when planning for strategies that support the standard and text you are utilizing with students.

Prompting can be used to support students with this strategy. Some prompts you may want to use are:

·        What repeats on each page in the concepts or ideas?

·        What repeats on each page in the pictures?

·        What is the book mostly about?

·        State the main topic.

·        Look for what’s the same.

·        Put a finger on any words that are the same on these couple of pages.

·        You found a repeating word!  Now, what’s the topic?

Remember, it will take lots of modeling and practice before students will internalize these strategies.  Anchor charts are helpful tools for students to use to remind them how and when to use a strategy.

Comprehending Informational Text – Part One

“Children are more likely to learn and remember the information when they can create mental files, storing and organizing the information inside larger categories.” Jennifer Serravallo

          Jennifer Serravallo, the author of The Reading Strategies Book, begins her discussion on informational text by saying that children, when asked to talk about a book, will say back wow-worthy facts like “did you know that the hippo population in the Congo decreased from 22,000 to 400 in less than twenty years?!” When asked to say more, many students can’t.  She continues, “the thing is, as cool as it is to know some stand-out facts, children are more likely to learn and remember the information when they can create mental files, storing and organizing the information inside larger categories.”

Learning how to understand what a text is about is critical to comprehension.

         

Labels Teach

          Text features are a large part of reading, navigating, and understanding nonfiction. They help support the main information in the text, add to it, and/or help us navigate it. The types of features are limitless.  Researchers have found that teaching text features in isolation may not be effective. We need to shift our thinking and instruction needs to be more than identifying the feature. We need to help students use these features to get more information from a text.  At primary reading levels, photographs and illustrations provide more facts and details than the text itself. With that in mind, we are going to discuss a strategy called Labels Teach. In this strategy, students are focused on labels and the information they provide.

          Possible steps for Labels Teach are:

·        Read the text.

·        Look at the picture.

·        See what the label is labeling.

·        Think about how the picture, text, and label all fit together.

A possible sentence stem that you may choose to use might be: In the book _____, the author uses a lot of labels.  On the pages with the heading _____, we learned about _____.

          Prompts may be useful to check for understanding.  These could be used with a turn and talk procedure to engage all students. It will take lots of modeling and practice before students will internalize these strategies, so using prompts with them will guide them through the process.  Some prompts may include:  

·        Where do you see a label?

·        Tell me how the facts you learned and the label connect.

·        How does the label help you?

·        Now that you read the label and saw the picture, go back and read the rest of the page.  How does it connect?

          It might be beneficial to work with EL students and/or students working on grade level with support in a small group before or after a whole group lesson or demonstration.  Meeting with them prior to the lesson will give them an edge on understanding what you’re demonstrating; meeting after the lesson will give them a chance to discuss and process more thoroughly.  This could be done during your small group instruction time. 

          You may want to provide graphic organizers to help students discuss and record information as they read.  Also, focus on text features such as bold words, pictures, and graphs that can clue the students in to how the text is organized.

Centers and Independent Work – Part Eight

Reading Centers – Part Two

Fantastic Facts is just one idea of a word work center.  Other word work centers might include:

·                     ·        Independent Reading/Read to Self – Students read quietly on their own using a book of their choice.  Students could write a response to a prompt or question stem in a reading journal.

·                     ·        Buddy Read – Students read together or take turns reading a page at a time.  Students could take turns asking and answering questions about the text.

·                     ·        Read and Respond – Students will select a book from the classroom library/reading center.  Students will select a quiet place to read independently.  Students will complete a graphic organizer once they have finished reading.

·                     ·        Comic Strip Story – Students will select and read a fiction book of their choice.  While reading they will visualize what is happening in the story as they read it.  They will then select the six most important parts of the story.  Using the six parts/events they will create a comic strip.  Students will create speech bubbles to show what each character is thinking or saying during each section.

·                     ·        Compare and Contrast – Teacher will preselect books that have a related theme, topic or main idea.  Students will read both books.  Students will then complete a Venn Diagram based on the two stories that they just read.

·                     ·        Read the Room – Students may be instructed to search for sight words, contractions, quotation marks, punctuation, compound words, etc.  Students can wear special “Reading Glasses” and use pointers as they walk around the room.

·                     ·        Poetry Mix – Up – Teacher will write a previously taught poem on sentence strips.  Teacher will place them out of order in a pocket chart.  Students will place the poem back in order and then practice reading it with pointers.  Students may then locate sight words and tally how many times they locate a specific site word.

Centers and Independent Work – Part Seven

Reading Centers – Part One

          We want to help reinforce their reading skills and foster a love of reading through independent reading. I will use the term “independent reading” to mean reading done independently of the teacher. Students may be buddy reading, depending on the purpose and the text. All independent reading should be tied to a purpose and the students should know their purpose for reading. The purpose could be to make connections, to identify narrative elements, to use text features, or to use context clues to define unknown words.

There are several ways the reading center can be set up.  One way is that the teacher can collect several activities with a binder ring. There can be an independent reading rubric, an annotation rubric, and question stems.  Depending on the purpose for reading each day, the teacher can direct which activities the students need to do. Remember, students would need to be familiar with these activities and how to do them.  Some materials you may want to include in the reading center might include: books from all genres, bookmarks, student made books, pillows, bean bags, chairs, pointers, special “reading glasses”, pocket charts, sentence strips, theme related books, magazines, newspapers, whisper phones, highlighter tape and wikki stixs.

Fantastic Facts

          One center idea for reading is called Fantastic Facts. In this center, students read a non-fiction book.  Then they create a fact poster listing four facts that they learned from the text.

To make the foldable together:

·        First, fold the paper in half (hamburger style).

·        Then fold it in half again (hamburger style).

·        Take the middle corner, and fold a triangle.

·        When you open your paper, you have a space in the middle and four boxes to write in.

The possible steps students could do at this center are:

1.     Choose a non-fiction book to read.

2.     When you are done reading, fold your paper.

3.     Write the title and author in the center.

4.     Label each box: Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, Fact 4.

5.     Record a fact from the text in each box.

6.     Share your poster with a partner.

This is just one way Fantastic Facts could look like. It’s just one idea. If you want to use Dig into the Dictionary in your classroom, you’ll need to tailor it to fit your students’ needs.  Some other considerations might be:

• ·        Are students doing this activity in pairs or independently?  Depending on the students and the text, you may want students to work on this center as a group. Each student could contribute a fact.
• ·        What might this center look like?  You might have a tub of non-fiction books, a stack of blank paper, and an example sitting on a bookshelf. Students could take the materials and sit on the carpet to read and work. Or students could be taking this book from small group to independent work with this book to continue working.
• ·        What skills would my students need to have in order to do this center? Depending on the text, students may need to know the difference between a fact and an opinion. Students would also need to know how to create the foldable.