Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (#3)
““Teachers immersed students in rich literature and encouraged them to examine authors’ use of words. The notion was that such a process would help students to value the power of words in writing, leading to wider vocabulary use and improved writing by the students. Students were encouraged to “gather Gifts of Words” from literature””
I enjoyed the examples this chapter gave. As I am looking deeper into more engaging ways to have my learners gain new vocabulary, this could be one task I can ask of them as we continue through short stories and novels this year. I would like to, instead of giving my learners a word or phrase to ponder upon, have them seek out one themselves. This will then urge them to think more meaningfully about the text, while having some connection to the ownership of their word or phrase chosen.
As I am beginning their writer’s notebooks this trimester (in blog form!) I think this would be a great entry for them to add as we reflect and respond to texts. I also am partnering up with their science teacher on their blogging for some cross-curriculum experiences, and could also have them apply this activity to their science work. We have been talking about some essential questions and vocabulary words that may cross paths in each of our content areas, and this might be the right starting point!
““Another way to provide more intensive instruction for at-risk students is to bolster initial instruction with modeling and more explicit questioning within activities that require reasoning about words and word relationships. An important aspect of robust instruction is having students explore relationships among words and between words and the contexts in which they appear. This kind of thinking is a complex mental task, and can be challenging for some students. Yet it is precisely this type of reasoning that will serve students well in reading complex text and encountering unfamiliar words or words used in novel ways””
This year, I have many at-risk learners. I have gotten into the habit of knowing that I must exemplify every activity, and give explicit questions on nearly everything in order to see results.
Due to their low literacy abilities, I have had to tap into activities I used to do with my 6th graders. We have to cover Greek and Latin roots this year, and I have been wondering if mindmaps for this would be too “immature.” However, when looking at word relationships and contexts, I think this would actually be a very engaging activity that they would understand. They are very visual kids, and getting to create things how they envision helps build their confidence. This confidence opportunity mixed with some word relationships, contexts, and challenges, I think will be the right thing to do!
““Sophisticated words should be a natural part of the classroom conversation… An important aspect of developing the verbal environment is that teachers themselves ought to become very sensitive to words. Teachers should strive to bring forth their own curiosity about words, taking time to share with students their ‘favorite’ words””
I loved this chapter. Words have always been something I have had incredible focus on. It was L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” that got me hooked on sophisticated words, and that has translated over into every piece of my life from the time I was very young.
I love the idea that sophisticated words should be natural. It is most certainly a part of my classroom culture, but I want to make it more intentional for this specific group of learners this year. One item I have given my learners is a word wheel for different adjectives and emotions. In their writing, upon asking them for more vibrancy and better description skills, giving them that wheel is one of their favorite items to use. The wheel consists of basic, easy words at the center, such as “happy” or “nice”, and then branch out to more complex, sophisticated words for them to learn and use. They have held onto it, and it makes me quite happy when they pull it out when we are writing.
My student teacher earlier this year asked me if I ever “water down” my vocabulary when talking to my learners. I replied no, but that I would always explain the complex vocabulary I would use until my learners felt confident with them. It is so wonderful to get to show a student teacher how resilient a child can be. They have grown in the short time he has been with us. His ideals of a middle school classroom looked more elementary in his mind. This chapter in the Beck (2013) text is one I shared with him for this purpose.
““Since the focus here is about creating a verbal environment with an abundant variety of words, it is not necessary to explicitly introduce the meaning of every word that you ‘seed’ in that environment. The answer here is to focus on just a few words at a time that are kind of ‘kept around.’ A bulletin board display, word wall, or simply a word list on the board is sufficient””
I have been meaning to do something more visual for my learners’ records of vocabulary words. They have their Personal Thesauruses, but I would like for them to witness those words every time they enter our classroom. I think I will start a word wall. At the moment, I keep a wall that has quotes from when my learners and I have discussions on big ideas and essential questions. They appreciate getting to read those and be brought back to those meaningful lessons throughout the year. I bet they would benefit from seeing those complex words that they once were challenged with but now are more and more confident with!
I am very excited for this. I wonder if it would also benefit my learners if I put up the skills terms we also use, such as “citing textual evidence” or “figures of speech.” I would like to be thoughtful about this word wall… I wonder if phrases would also find their way up onto the wall.
““The benefit of focusing on familiar words has been suggested by research into the depth of word knowledge. Studies have demonstrated that people with more extensive vocabularies not only know more words but also know more about the words that they know, and that people with high and lower vocabularies differ as to their depth of knowledge about even fairly common words””
This was an intriguing portion of the chapter because I have often felt as though teaching Greek and Latin root words has no depth. There is a list of words that the learners should learn about, yet there is no context, authenticity, or connection to create the depth. The particular standard in question is in regards to multiple-meaning words, and can be practiced in a multitude of ways. One of those strategies is using Greek and Latin roots. Although roots are important, teaching them in an isolated mini-lesson where they cut out a picture and glue it into a notebook does not hold retention whatsoever. Rather, it is a chore (although chores have life lessons and skills attached to them). I truly enjoy reading a text, the background of the text, and essential questions and big ideas within a text, all the while using the vocabulary words my learners pulled out as being new or unknown to them.
From now on, I plan on adding those identified words and tossing them on the word wall. I want depth, and the only way we can create depth with vocabulary is to allow as many opportunities to utilize the words themselves across multiple contexts.
Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.