BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

BRINGING

WORDS TO LIFE

Isabel L. Beck

Robust Vocabulary Instruction by

Margaret G. McKeown

Linda Kucan

THE SSIF2 SLE GROUP

Emma Arnott Ruth Bond Roy Dipple Lucinda Foster Fiona Milward Sue Smye Jayne Welsh Alex Wheeler Faye Woodley

Greet Teaching School Alliance Colmore Junior School Colmore Infant School West Heath Primary School Whitehouse Common Primary School Arden Primary School Ark St. Alban's School Coppice Primary School Yardley Primary School

INDEX

Page

3

Chapter 1: Rationale for Robust Vocabulary Instruction

5

Chapter 2: Choosing Words to Teach

7

Chapter 3: Introducing Word Meanings

8

Chapter 4: Bringing Vocabulary into The Earliest Grades

9

Chapter 5: Instructional Sequences for Later Grades

11

Chapter 6: Assessing and Maintaining New Vocabulary

13

Chapter 7: Working with Instructional and Natural Contexts

14

Chapter 8: Vocabulary and Writing

16

Chapter 9: Differentiating Vocabulary Instruction

18

Chapter 10: Energising the Verbal Environment

Chapter summaries by SSIF2 SLE group

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Chapter 1: Rationale for Robust Vocabulary Instruction

This chapter starts by reflecting on the roles of vocabulary in people's lives, highlighting that a large and rich vocabulary is not only the hallmark of an educated individual, but also facilitates one in becoming an educated person. The tight link between vocabulary and reading comprehension is also emphasised. Beck et al then go on to outline the stark differences in vocabulary knowledge among learners from different ability or socioeconomic groups ? differences which, once established, remain from early years into adult life ? as a clear rationale for the need for vocabulary instruction in schools. They comment that much vocabulary teaching in schools tends to comprise dictionary definitions and short exercises such as cloze passages or matching words with definitions and synonyms, whereas they are advocating robust vocabulary instruction which "involves directly explaining the meanings of words along with thought-provoking, playful and interactive follow-up". The approach can be used with all children and young people, from the earliest years upwards.

The role of context in word acquisition Whilst words are learnt from context, one of the problems is that later vocabulary learning shifts from oral to written contexts. It is more difficult to learn word meanings from written context as it lacks many of the features of oral language that support learning new word meanings (intonation, shared physical surroundings etc.). So, whilst learning new words in the course of reading does occur, in order to truly learn them, students must read widely enough to encounter a lot of unfamiliar words, read texts complex enough to contain a number of unfamiliar words, have the skills to infer word meaning information from the context and encounter the word(s) a number of times. Therefore, relying on wide reading for vocabulary learning adds to the inequities in individual differences in vocabulary knowledge.

Additionally, natural contexts are not necessarily informative for deriving word meanings, they may be:

Misdirective ? unhelpful context, which seems to direct the student to an incorrect meaning; Nondirective ? provides no assistance in directing the reader towards any particular meaning; General context ? provides only enough information for the reader to place the word in a general category; Directive ? leads the student to a specific, correct meaning for a word.

We are then introduced to the writers' framework for choosing the words to be taught through robust vocabulary instruction: the three tiers framework.

Tier 1: most basic words which typically appear in oral conversations, e.g. warm, cat, girl, swim. Children are exposed to these words a lot, from a very young age, so readily become familiar with them. Tier 3: words rarely used, which are limited to specific topics and domains, e.g. photosynthesis, machicolations. These words are probably best learnt when a specific need arises. Tier 2: words which are of high utility for mature language users and are found across a variety of domains, e.g. precede, auspicious, retrospect. As these words are characteristic of written text, and used more rarely in conversation, students are less likely to learn the words independently. This is why the writers recommend instruction directed towards Tier 2 words as being the most productive approach, with an aim of teaching around 400 new words per year.

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This chapter also explores the fact that knowing the meaning of a word is not a case of `all or nothing', firstly through referencing Dale's (1965) four stages of word knowledge: Stage 1: Never saw it before. Stage 2: Heard it, but don't know what it means. Stage 3: Recognise it in context as having something to do with... Stage 4: Know it well. Page 18 includes a `your turn' activity exploring this in more detail. The writers then go on to look at other dimensions of in-depth word knowledge, such as pronunciation, understanding of the kind of context in which the word is usually found, register, morphology and syntax. Making words come to life through robust instruction In the final part of the chapter, the writers highlight that rich and lively vocabulary instruction will encourage students to become interested and enthusiastic about words, keen to explore relationships among words and use them in a way that they come to `own' the words. The writers finish the chapter by giving some examples of how they have "enhanced" traditional classroom activities for teaching vocabulary, which are explored further in later chapters and the appendices of the book.

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Chapter 2: Choosing Words to Teach

This chapter looks at the importance of looking for the right words to teach. It focuses on the principles that might be used for selecting the words to teach.

Which words to teach....?

The writers categorise words into three Tiers:

Tier One ? these are words typically found in oral language.

Tier Two ? words that are wide-ranging and of high utility for literate language users.

Tier Three ? words that tend to be limited to specific domains or rare words.

Vocabulary Researchers ? those who describe the criteria for choosing words to teach ( Nation, 2001, Stahl & Nagy, 2006) and those who have developed procedures for identifying specific words (Biemiller, 2001, 2005; Hiebert, 2005).

Biemiller ? Living Word Vocabulary. This investigates actual word knowledge and found that most of the words known by 80% of fourth grade students were actually known already by second grade students. It was identified that those words that 30-70% of children knew seemed likely to be learned next. Biemiller and Slonim noted that words were learnt in sequential order and thus concluded that word learning was a developmental matter and that teaching words in the order they would be acquired would be beneficial. The order of word learning must go through sequenced stages (the comparison is made with not running before you can walk). The order of learning words is dependent upon children's environments and experiences i.e. what they hear, see, are told, read and like. However, the writers highlight that words are not related in a hierarchical way, so adhering to a sequence for learning words is not necessary.

Hiebert's approach focuses upon frequency, although there is problem here with words with more than one meaning e.g. bank (financial institution), bank (the side of a river). Hiebert goal was to identify words from School Grades 1 ? 4 but which also appear beyond. It is recommended that we do not simply rely upon word frequency as a main criteria for choosing words to teach, as it does not necessarily mean that the words are easy/difficult to learn or indicate how useful they may be in a student's repertoire.

Stahl and Nagy (2006) assert that the categories of words that merit significant attention are high frequency ? the bulk of words spoken - (similar to Tier 1 words) and high utility general vocabulary words (similar to Tier 2).

Nation (2001) identifies four kinds of vocabulary when designing instruction: high frequency (likely to be learned from everyday experiences), academic (common across texts), technical and low frequency.

Identifying Tier Two Words:

These are words that are most likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users. These could be words that students have no other way of expressing, or that give them a more mature/precise way of expressing concepts. E.g. merchant ? salesperson / clerk. The boundaries between the tiers of words is not precise but instead a starting point.

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