Best Practices and Related Research Regarding the Teaching ...



Best Practices and Related Research Regarding the Teaching of Vocabulary

1. Teaching vocabulary raises achievement. (Thompson)

2. Vocabulary acquisition is crucial to academic development. Not only do students need a rich body of word knowledge to succeed in basic skill areas, they also need a specialized vocabulary to learn content area material. (Kameenui)

3. Teaching words in context is more effective than teaching them out of context. Two equal students get 10-12 new words a week. Student who gets words in context at the end of a year scores 83rd percentile compared to 62nd percentile of the student who got them out of context. (Thompson)

4. For most students, finding definitions and writing those words in sentences have had little apparent impact on their word knowledge and language use. (Kameenui)

5. The connection between reading comprehension and word knowledge is unequivocal. (Davis)

6. In a study of children in grades 2-5, the amount of time spent reading was the best predictor of vocabulary growth. (Anderson et al) What is needed to produce vocabulary growth is not more vocabulary instruction, but more reading. (Nagy)

7. Word knowledge is not an all or nothing proposition. Words may be known at different levels. (Beck)

8. Levels of word knowledge (unknown, acquainted, and established) dictate instructional strategies. (Beck, McCaslin, and McKeown) We need to teach words at different levels depending on their importance, frequency, and applicability in other contexts.

9. Drill and practice methods that involve multiple repetitions of definitional information about a target word do not appear to have reliable effects on comprehension. It takes more than definitional knowledge to know a word, and we must know words in order to identify them in multiple reading and listening contexts and use them in our speaking and writing. (Stahl and Fairbanks)

10. If students do even a modest amount of reading, they will encounter 10,000 different unknown words a year. (Nagy et. al.)

11. From 25 to 50% of annual vocabulary growth can be attributed to incidental learning from context while reading. (Nagy et al.)

12. Many encounters with a new word are necessary if vocabulary instruction is to have a measurable effect on reading comprehension. (McKeown et. al.)

13. The most effective ways to improve comprehension is to go beyond providing definitions and contexts. Students are more likely to use words they have recorded and worked with in graphic organizers.

14. Extensive reading of longer texts, multiple exposures to the same word, and instruction in learning from context lead to increased comprehension.

(Allen)

15. Single most important factor in increased word knowledge is reading.

(Anderson and Nagy, Baumann and Kameenui)

16. An effective way to reach individual learners is to relate each new word to the students’ background knowledge and experiences.

17. When a learner is introduced to a new word, he places it in short-term memory. By using, applying, and adapting the word to units and lessons in the content areas, the learner puts the word in long-term memory. If the experience is meaningful, useful, and purposeful for the reader, he is more apt to retain the word. To own a word, the student needs a personal connection with the word and its meaning. (Chapman and King)

18. If a student is expected to learn and retain a word, the teacher must introduce and teach the word in a variety of ways.

19. Students don’t need to know all the definitions of a word in order to use it successfully. They just need to know the meanings that parallel the expected usage. (Baker, Simmons, Kameenui)

20. Effective teachers make conscious decisions about which words can be best learned by which activity; certain words are best learned in specific ways.

21. Students must not only learn the meaning of words but must have opportunity to use them frequently. Students must use a word in meaningful context 10-15 times for mastery. (Baker, Simmons, Kameenui)

22. Students need to use their background knowledge to develop a deeper understanding of words and concepts.

23. Vocabulary learning strategies fall into four broad categories: building concept knowledge, activating and extending background knowledge, word analysis, and making personal and academic connections.

24. A good practice is to ask students to refine and synthesize their understanding of a concept based on examples and nonexamples and from that to form a definition built by the entire class; this allows students to construct their own meaning.

25. Creating a personal connection prompts students to consider a word in terms of how it can be used in their own speaking and writing.

26. You cannot teach hundreds of words intensely with graphic organizers.

Intense strategies such as graphic organizers should be reserved for words that are critical to a concept being studied. We don’t want the students to get so weighted down with graphic organizers that they won’t read.

27. Vocabulary word walls are essential tools for increasing vocabulary.

28. Whatever assessment we choose, allowing students to recognize words, think about the ways words could be used in multiple contexts, and write about personal connections to the words will help them become independent word learners.

29. Although word definitions may be easily regurgitated, that is not learning.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download