Teach New Word Meanings

Tools for Instruction

Teach New Word Meanings

A rich knowledge of word meanings plays a critical role in reading development after students have mastered decoding. Targeted, explicit vocabulary instruction is one of the most effective ways of improving comprehension and supporting students' growth as readers. Teach new vocabulary by providing a simple explanation of a word's meaning that reflects the way it appears in context. Provide students with many opportunities to use new words both orally and in writing, and help them to connect new meanings to words and concepts they already know. Additionally, provide various ways of seeing the nuances of a word's meaning, including synonyms, antonyms, and examples.

Three Ways to Teach

Explore a Word's Meaning 10?15 minutes

Explain to students that to know a word means more than being able to recite its definition. Say, One way to demonstrate that you truly know a word is to show that you can use it in different contexts.

? Distribute copies of Word Journal Chart (page 4), and explain that a helpful way to learn the meaning of a new word is by thinking about it in many different ways.

? Select a target word from a current text. Read aloud a sentence containing the word. Then define the word in student-friendly language.

Let's reread the sentence from the text: "The instructions for building this model airplane are bewildering." What does bewildering mean? Something that is bewildering is very confusing. It's hard to understand or do.

? Guide students to name a synonym, an antonym, an example, and a nonexample for the target word. Ask questions such as, What is another word we could use for confusing? What is a word that names the opposite of something that's really confusing?

? Model completing the word journal chart for this word.

Word Explanation Synonym Antonym Example Nonexample

bewildering extremely confusing puzzling straightforward an advanced math problem counting to ten

? Have students repeat this activity independently with additional target words. Encourage them to keep these charts in their notebooks for future reference.

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Map Relationships Between Content-Area Words 35?40 minutes

Mapping the connections between related words helps students develop a deeper understanding of word meanings. This approach can be particularly effective in content-area texts, where important words tend to be strongly related.

? Select a chapter or a lesson in a content-area text that students have read at least once. Choose four to five related words that are explained in the text.

volcano crater erupt lava ash

? Display the target words. Read them aloud, and have students repeat after you. ? Review the explanations provided for each word in the text, and discuss illustrations, diagrams, or

photographs that help explain the word. ? After you have discussed each word's meaning, guide students in mapping the relationships between the

words. Explain that students will draw their own maps for each group of words.

We are reading about volcanoes. So I will write the word volcano and then draw a box around it. We read that a crater is the circular area inside the volcano. So I will write the word crater in a box and draw a line connecting it to volcano.

Volcano

Crater

? Continue to model exploring the relationship between each word.

I can add the word erupt. How is erupt connected to volcano and crater? A crater is often created when a volcano erupts. So I will draw a line between the word crater and the word erupt. Lava and ash happen when a volcano erupts, so I will connect them to the word erupt.

Volcano

Crater

Erupt

Lava

Ash

? For independent practice, have partners work together to map related words in other content-area lessons or chapters.

Support Special Education Students Consider modifying this activity to be used with a short video clip that targets science or other content-area knowledge. Select target words in advance from the video's narration.

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Explain New Vocabulary 20?30 minutes

Connect to Writing An effective way to measure students' understanding of new vocabulary is to assess whether they can explain new words on their own.

? Choose four target words that are semantically related to one topic, such as those in the previous activity. These should be words that students have recently learned.

? Have students write one to two paragraphs about the topic to a younger student. They should use and explain the target words in simple, accessible language. Encourage them to use examples to illustrate the words' meanings.

Check for Understanding

If you observe... confusion about the meaning of a word in a passage

difficulty thinking of examples to illustrate a word

Then try...

assessing whether the other words in the sentence are causing confusion. Ask questions to determine whether students understand the context surrounding the target word. Then quickly explain any words students may not know.

scaffolding the task by having students think of an example of a simpler synonym.

?Bewildering means "confusing." What is something you find confusing?

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Word Journal Chart

Word Explanation Synonym Antonym Example Nonexample

Word Explanation Synonym Antonym Example Nonexample

Word Explanation Synonym Antonym Example Nonexample

Word Explanation Synonym Antonym Example Nonexample

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