Academic Vocabulary
Athena MS
March 19, 2013
Our Agenda:
• Understand the tiering of words
• Distinguish between Tier 2 and 3 words
• Explore Tier 2 words in greater depth
• Activity
Some Food for Thought…
• Most children enter first grade with 6,000
words in spoken vocabulary
• Students will learn 3,000 more words per year
through third grade
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
Some Food for Thought…
•Socioeconomic status has a huge impact on
vocabulary:
• First grade students from higher-SES groups have twice as
many words as lower-SES children
• High school seniors near the top of their class know 4 times
as many words as lower-performing students
• High-knowledge third graders have vocabularies equal to
lowest-performing 12th graders
With so many words to learn, and such a huge vocabulary
gap, how do we know which words to teach???
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
Tiers of Words
Helpful lens through which to consider
words for instructional attention
3
2
1
From: Bringing Words to Life (2002) by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, & Linda Kucan
Tier 1
•Most basic words
•Rarely require instructional attention
(baby, happy, clock)
From: Bringing Words to Life (2002) by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, & Linda Kucan
Tier 3
•Low frequency
•Content-specific
(isotope, peninsula)
From: Bringing Words to Life (2002) by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, & Linda Kucan
Tier 2
•High frequency for mature language users
•Found across a variety of domains
•Have a powerful impact on verbal functioning
•Mostly found in written language
(Coincidence, absurd, industrious, fortunate)
**Instruction of Tier II words can be most productive.**
From: Bringing Words to Life (2002) by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, & Linda Kucan
For example…
“Stuart Little, the small mouse with big parents, had
nothing on baby marsupials. Marsupials (“mar-SOUPee-ulz”) are special kinds of mammals. Even the biggest
ones give birth to babies that are incredibly small. A
two-hundred-pound six-foot mother kangaroo, for
instance, gives birth to a baby as small as a lima bean.
That’s what makes marsupials marsupials. Their babies
are born so tiny that in order to survive they must live in
a pouch on the mother’s tummy. The pouch is called a
marsupium. (Don’t you wish you had one?)”
From: Montgomery, Sy. Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New
Guinea. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
For example…
“Stuart Little, the small mouse with big parents, had
nothing on baby marsupials. Marsupials (“mar-SOUPee-ulz”) are special kinds of mammals. Even the biggest
ones give birth to babies that are incredibly small. A
two-hundred-pound six-foot mother kangaroo, for
instance, gives birth to a baby as small as a lima bean.
That’s what makes marsupials marsupials. Their babies
are born so tiny that in order to survive they must live in
a pouch on the mother’s tummy. The pouch is called a
marsupium. (Don’t you wish you had one?)”
From: Montgomery, Sy. Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New
Guinea. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
For example…
“Stuart Little, the small mouse with big parents, had
nothing on baby marsupials. Marsupials (“mar-SOUPee-ulz”) are special kinds of mammals. Even the biggest
ones give birth to babies that are incredibly small. A
two-hundred-pound six-foot mother kangaroo, for
instance, gives birth to a baby as small as a lima bean.
That’s what makes marsupials marsupials. Their babies
are born so tiny that in order to survive they must live in
a pouch on the mother’s tummy. The pouch is called a
marsupium. (Don’t you wish you had one?)”
From: Montgomery, Sy. Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New
Guinea. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Tier 3 vs. Tier 2 Words
•Marsupials
•Incredibly
•Mammals
•For instance
•Lima bean
•Survive
•Marsupium
Which words
will give you the
biggest bang for
your buck???
Criteria for Selecting Tier 2
Words
 Importance & utility
 Instructional potential
 Conceptual understanding
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
“The final decisions about which words to teach may
not be as important as thoughtful consideration
about why to teach certain words and not others.”
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
Building Academic Vocabulary
Where do I begin???
Trade books
Text books
Complex text
Building Academic Vocabulary
When do I infuse this type of instruction?
During reading
•
On the spot, brief explanations to avoid
comprehension barriers
•
After reading
•
•
(Beck, 2003)
Direct, rich, lively instruction of several story words
• Direct=explain meaning
• Rich=requires processing
• Lively=“not boring”
For more information…
• Bringing Words to Life
• Building Academic Vocabulary, Teacher’s
Manual
• Monroe 2 BOCESlive binder:
http://www.monroe2boces.org/professionalD
ev.cfm?subpage=2388
Activity