Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (#2)
““Indeed, learning to read is learning a new representation for the language young children know from speech. As such, the early text materials are not good sources for adding new words to children’s vocabulary repertoires. Emphatically, however, this does not mean that adding to and enriching children’s vocabulary repertoires should be put on hold; it only means that enriching young children’s vocabulary cannot be best developed through the words in the materials that young children read themselves””
Direct instruction, as was found throughout the studies in “Bringing Words to Life” (Beck et al., 2013), is key to helping learners gain a wider and deeper understanding of vocabulary words. As an 8th grade teacher, I have struggled with best practices of vocabulary development. Upon asking all the Language arts teachers in my school, all of them had different approaches. Is one better over another? I cringe when seeing vocabulary worksheets, asking learners to place the correct word in the correct blank space or identified definition. Asking my learners to place words in their Personal Thesauruses cannot be the end-game I want for myself or most importantly, for THEM. I discussed this road block with my colleagues, to which they inevitably replied, “The kids need more opportunities to read and experience the wide variety of words.” *With what time?!*
After getting over my minor pity party, I realized that they are right. The kids get no time whatsoever to just enjoy reading in school. I often think about my ways of differentiating for my wide range of levels I have in my classes. Literacy circles? Book clubs? I am trying them out this next trimester. I have optional book clubs right now in my classes, and the kids are completely enthralled. I am asking all of my kids to do little activities while reading their books, as I am giving them one day a week to focus on their novels. The activities have ranged from identifying elements of literature, to vocabulary development. This is a pilot test in what I have created, but I am having some really good feelings about it.
““So, suddenly this student saw the words not as straight, closed roads but as intersecting paths from which more complex ideas could be created.
Relationships are also important because of the way individuals’ word knowledge is stored in networks of connected ideas. Thus, the more connections that can be built, the more opportunities there are for an individual to ‘get to’ the knowledge of a word when it is encountered in a new context””
I will be beginning my interventions this upcoming week with an 8th grade cohort of 12 learners. They all are extremely low, reading at a group average of 4th grade. This time with me will need to be extremely intentional, meaningful, and hopefully authentic. I want for them to create relationships between words, contexts, and their own lives. At this point, they are with me to learn to read. I am determined to make them feel confident and successful in their reading and comprehension skills. They are wonderful kids who have many ideas and wonderments to contribute to our classroom community. Many times, I feel their voices are not strong enough because their tentativeness overpowers them.
An interesting discussion came about this last week regarding learners reading at their level versus at grade level. A teacher became curious at the idea that I would allow a learner to read at their 4th grade level, rather than giving them an 8th grade level text. This curiosity came from the idea that, “all students need to be meeting 8th grade standards.” A bit taken aback at how quickly she came to this state of alert, I began to explain key points learned from this program so far in regards to learners and their literacy skills, finding confidence and success in texts in order to be challenged further, etc. Maybe we will have to agree to disagree.
““But the synonym approach, although handy for providing a quick anchor point for a word, is a bankrupt way to teach word meaning. Building understanding of language comes through developing knowledge of both the similarities and the differences among words and the precise role they can play. A focus here is on exploration of complex dimensions of a word’s meaning and the relationships that exist to other words along some of those dimensions- how the word may be related to others through some components but not others””
“D’oh!” (Homer Simpson, 1989)
This section of the chapter hit home in a good and uncomfortable way. I use Personal Thesauruses (PT) for my learners to add new vocabulary words to, along with synonyms and antonyms. The words added are words we will be coming across in texts we will be reading. I wonder if there is a way that I could implement more of an exploration, relationship piece into their Personal Thesauruses. Rather than the monotonous “chore” of adding a word, finding the synonyms and antonyms, and calling it a day, I want for them to understand the word.
I suppose I could add another component into their PTs, such as using the word in a sentence in the correct context. Maybe they need to write the definition of the word along with those items. I feel like I need to continue to revamp my practices in vocabulary development!
““An ongoing vocabulary program should include some kind of record of the words being learned that includes the word meanings and sample uses for the words. This might be realized as a classroom dictionary or a set of index cards with one card per word…. Students’ personal records should include each word that is taught, its meaning, and example sentences. Students can add to it as the year progresses noting similarities between words, interesting uses they come upon, and so on””
This brings me back to the use of a Personal Thesaurus (PT), and this being their record keeper of words. I know my learners would benefit from index cards, as they are easily accessible, and available for quick study sessions alone and with peers. I have used the website Quizlet (2010) before with my kids, which is just a technological version of index cards to study from. It also provides study sessions in game-like forms for them to play around with as well.
This has me thinking that I may have my learners use Quizlet as their record keeper for this next trimester, to see if they would access their vocabulary more often due to the ease and “fun” it provides. I will have to look into their abilities to have a membership with Quizlet and cards to keep. However, I am getting really excited about this right now!
““The recommendation from McKeown’s (1985) study was that instructional strategies needed to focus on the process of deriving word meanings, in contrast to the product of coming up with the right meaning of an unknown word””
This quote and whole entire chapter was incredibly relevant to the district meeting I facilitated this last week. I asked that every teacher write down what they do with their learners with text understandings, what tools and technology they use to support the learners, and how they know whether their learners are comprehending the text or not.
I opened the meeting with the idea that the content, basils, and supplemental materials continue to change, yet our practices and strategies do not. I pulled data from the last 5 years in the district and showed a dip in our scores. Though I am not a fan of standardized tests, I am a fan of revamping our literacy program, extend it to K-12, and demanding more preservice and staff development.
As a group, we all shared out our different strategies and practices of instruction and assessments in regards to text comprehension and how they know whether their learners can comprehend (and meet the standard). It was very eye-opening for everyone to see that although we all are teaching skills, we are not necessarily using common language, nor are we focused on the process. Nearly all focused on the end product of what their learners were doing. This then makes me think about what formative assessments are taking place in classrooms, and how I can support my colleagues and district with that. I am very excited to continue working with my colleagues on these matters.
““The instruction we designed for our context research was to take students through the process of deriving word meaning and to allow them to see that different contexts offered different levels of information about word meaning. The instructional model started with an investigator modeling the process and then scaffolding it as responsibility was gradually released to the student. The instructional sequence included five components that started with the text being read and paraphrased, then moved to requiring the student to explain what the text was about and to provide an initial notion of the word’s meaning. The sequence also required the students to consider whether the context would allow other potential meanings, and finally the information that had been established through the dialogue was summarized””
Read/Paraphrase
Establish meaning of the context
Initial identification/Rationale
Consider further possibilities
Summarize
Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.