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Green Belt: Lesson 7
Vocabulary for Teachers:
Raising the Level of
Conversation
School Certification
A Process of Discovery, Support and Mastery
The National Pathway
Conditions for Successful
Implementation
Curriculum
Mapping Implementation
Vision
+
Skills
+
Incentives
+
Resources
+
Plan
Action Plan
=
Sustainable
Change
Skills
+
Incentives
+
Resources
+
Plan
Action Plan
=
Confusion
Incentives
+
Resources
+
Plan
Action Plan
=
Anxiety
Resources
+
Plan
Action
Plan
= Resistance
Plan
Action
Plan
=
Frustration
=
Treadmill
Vision
+
Vision
+
Skills
+
Vision
+
Skills
+
Incentives
+
Vision
+
Skills
+
Incentives
+
Resources
Key
Questions:
Plan: Provides the direction to
Vision:
The “Why are we doing this?” to combat confusion.
Resources -- "Do we have tools, time, and training to map effectively?"
Vision
-"Why
are
we
doing
this?"
eliminate the treadmill effect.
Skills: The skill sets needed to combat anxiety.
Skills -- "How do we build effective maps?" Action Plan -- "Over the next three years, do we have attainable
Incentives: Reasons, perks, advantages to timelines
combat resistance
and goals? Who will be the responsible parties for
Incentives -- "How will mapping improve
Resources:
Tools
and
time
needed
to
combat
frustration.
implementations,
monitoring, and feedback?"
teaching and learning?"
Knoster, T., Villa, R., & Thousand, J. (2000)
Learner Objectives
• Identify the importance of increasing
vocabulary in the classroom
• Key conditions for vocabulary development
• Language rich environments
• Connections to real-life experiences
• Student opportunities to use the
language
• Identify rigorous grade level and/or content
vocabulary to use in the classroom
• Learn to use “College – talk”
Pre-Lesson Reflection
• How does your current classroom environment support
student vocabulary development?
• Think about a recent topic you covered with your class
and answer the following questions:
o What language did you use to introduce the topic?
Using a pen a paper, try to jot down statements you
remembered saying as close to your exact quotes as
possible.
o What percentage of time do you feel you talked
about the topic? What percentage of time do you
feel your students talked about or wrote about the
topic?
o How many words did you teach explicitly?
Part I: A Close Look
at Raising the Level
of Instructional
Vocabulary
The Gap
Research studies between 1941-1987 found that:
• First grade children from higher socioeconomic
(SES) groups knew about twice as many words as
lower SES children (Graves, Brunetti & Slater,
1982; Graves & Slater, 1987)
• High school seniors near the top of their class
knew about four times as many words as their
lower performing classmates (Smith, 1941)
• High- knowledge third graders had vocabularies
almost equal to lowest performing 12th graders
(Smith, 1941)
Hart and Risley
• Young children from poverty families have about 70
percent of the vocabulary of the same aged child in a
working-class family and about 45 percent of the
vocabulary of a child from a professional family.
3 Findings
1.The variation in children’s IQs and language abilities is
relative to the amount parents speak to their children.
2.Children’s academic successes at ages nine and ten are
attributable to the amount of talk they hear from birth to age
three.
3.Parents of advanced children talk significantly more to their
children than parents of children who are not as advanced.
What can be done?
•
All the available evidence
indicates that there is little
emphasis on the acquisition of
vocabulary in school curricula
• Biemiller, (2001)
•
The fact that early differences
in vocabulary remain through
the school years is
understandable if little is being
done to change that situation
during the school years.
• Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2002)
Facts about the Importance of
Vocabulary
• Vocabulary is a critical factor in the development of
reading skills.
• Vocabulary knowledge has long been identified as one
of the best predictors of reading comprehension (Davis,
1972; Thorndike, 1917), reading performance in
general, and school achievement (Beck, McKeown, &
Kucan, 2002, 2008).
• Receptive vocabulary is also a predictor of decoding
skills (Ouellette, 2006).
• The more words the reader knows, the easier it will be
to read and understand what is read (Blachowicz,
Fisher, Ogle, & Watts-Taffe, 2006; Kamil, 2004; National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development
[NICHD], 2000).
How Many Words?
• In school settings, students can be explicitly
taught a deep understanding of about 300
words each year.
• Divided by the range of content students need
to know (e.g., math, science, history,
literature), of these 300–350 words, roughly
60 words can be taught within one subject
area each year.
• It is reasonable to teach thoroughly about
eight to ten words per week. (Chall, 1996)
Key Conditions for
Vocabulary Development
•
•
•
•
Explicit teaching of vocabulary
Language rich environments
Connections to real-life experiences
Student opportunities to use the
language
Create Language Rich Classrooms by
Increasing Opportunities to Read and Write
• Read, read, read, and read more!
o
o
o
o
o
o
Read aloud books
Partner readings
Recorded online books
Silent reading of books
Picture books
Magazines, poetry, and novels
• Encourage writing as an opportunity for
students to expressively use new vocabulary,
o Vocabulary journals
o Interactive writing
Create Language Rich
Classrooms Environments
• Fill the physical space of your classroom with
words creating a print-rich environment where
the “walls are dripping with words.”
• Utilize drama and plays to have students learn
more language through the lines they
memorize and use when they perform.
Connections to Real Life
Experiences
• Use activities that focus on using vocabulary
in practical meaningful situations, repeating
items frequently and encouraging the use of
metalanguage and more formal synonyms
(Picard, 2006).
The teacher is clearly
using aTalk
lot of= academic
Teacher
94%
language
Student Talk for Class
as a Whole = 6%
One student at a
time isStudent
talking Talk
while
Individual
others
listen
Timethe
= 6%
Divided
byor
ignore
the class.in
Number
of Students
"The world in language is
half
someone
balance
talk
ClassThe
Who
SpokeofOnce
else's. It becomes 'one'sEach
own'
only
when
in=this
classroom
is
Much
Less
than
heavily
weighted
the speaker populates it1%
with
his own
toward the teacher.
intention, his own accent, when he
Half of the words
appropriates the word, adapting
tothe
his
spokenitby
students
were not
own semantic and expressive
intention"
academic
in nature.
Mikhail
Bakhtin
Guidelines for
Vocabulary Instruction
Instruction should help students relate new
vocabulary to their background knowledge.
• Instruction should help students develop
elaborated word knowledge
•
• Introducing new vocabulary and related concepts
together
• Examining relationships among new vocabulary,
• Introducing words in multiple contexts.
•
•
Instruction should provide for active student
involvement in learning new vocabulary.
Instruction should develop students'
strategies for acquiring new vocabulary
independently.
Activities for Encouraging Students
to Relate Vocabulary to Background
Knowledge
• Write down something a barbarian might do
at the dinner table
• Tell me about something you might want to
eavesdrop on.
• Describe the most melodious sound you can
think of.
Activities for Encouraging Students to Relate
Vocabulary to Background Knowledge
Activities for Elaborating Word
Knowledge
•
Semantic Categories:
o Example: Eating: obese, glutton, devour, appetite,
fast, nutrition
•
Compare features of two new words:
o Could a philanthropist be a miser?
•
Provide a Clue Word to Elicit a Word and its
Relationship
o What is a related word you think of when you think
of the word “crook”? The word means someone who
helps someone accomplish something. . . . Do you
know the word I am thinking of?
o That’s right – “accomplice”. Explain why you think the
words accomplice and crook are related.
Part II: Stepping into
the Classroom with
Vocabulary for
Teachers and Raising
the Level of
Conversation
What it looks like in
your classroom?
• Modeling of sophisticated vocabulary use
• Explicit instruction with targeted Tier 2 and
Tier 3 words
• Multiple opportunities for students to
encounter vocabulary words
• Multiple opportunities for students to explore
and use vocabulary words
• Higher percentage of student talk time as
compared to teacher talk time
• Environments that offer wide reading
materials and walls filled with words
Think about the instructional
vocabulary…
Versus saying:
What is the answer?
What do you think?
Modeling Sophisticated
Language for Students
• Pepper your speech with sophisticated language
throughout the day and throughout your lessons
• Make difficult words comprehensible to students
by placing them in obvious contexts or by
embedding synonyms in the same sentence
o Examples:
“Does anyone know an antonym for the
word ‘agree?’ – a word that means the
opposite of ‘agree’.”
“It looks like we might get some
precipitation today. It is very cloudy.”
Modeling Sophisticated
Language for Students
• Repeat the words within the context of
activities
• Embed the words in the student environment,
such as posting written activities using the
words
Third Grade ELL Student:
“Edward is a rabbit with penetrating blue eyes. . . .
“Edward was mortified when Amos and Martin took his clothes
off.”
Kindergarten Essential
Vocabulary
ELA – 60+
 Stanza
 Preference
 Punctuation
 Collaborate
 Illustrator
 Brainstorm
 Punctuation
 Non-fiction
Math – 60+
 Attribute
 Decompose
 Decomposition
 Composition
 Hexagon
 Dimensional
 Vertices
 Category
K
Included Math
Vocabulary
Graniteschools.org Teaching and Learning
services Curriculum Math –
K12 Math Vocab -
Word Wall Cards
SpellingCity.com
Interactive Word Wall
• Incorporate the Interactive Word Wall strategy
as part of the word study instructional routine.
• Select the display wall carefully, making sure
that it is at eye level and large enough to post
the words.
• Decide on how you wish to display the words,
such as alphabetically or organized by themes
or content areas.
• Write the words legibly on oak tag or paper,
demonstrating appropriate handwriting.
What it looks like in
your curriculum?
• Essential vocabulary that cross curricular
lines between academic subjects.
• Emphasis on what the student can do with
the vocabulary in tasks objectives
What it looks like in
your assessment?
• Assessment of students' vocabulary
development should focus on formative
assessment data collected throughout the
school year.
• Vocabulary instruction should be based on
data collected from formative assessments.
• Students should participate in assessing their
own progress.
• Multiple measures should be used to
determine vocabulary growth.
Assessment Example
Vocabulary Assessment
Assessment
Ideas for Formative
Assessment
•
•
•
•
Anecdotal records
Student work samples
Checklists
Portfolios that include
students' engaging in goalsetting and reflection on
their learning over time
Pre-Lesson Reflection
• How does your current classroom environment support
student vocabulary development?
• Think about a recent topic you covered with your class
and answer the following questions:
o What language did you use to introduce the topic?
Using a pen a paper, try to jot down statements you
remembered saying as close to your exact quotes as
possible.
o What percentage of time do you feel you talked
about the topic? What percentage of time do you
feel your students talked about or wrote about the
topic?
o How many words did you teach explicitly?
Knowledge Check
Question: The fact that there is a significant gap in
vocabulary among students in K-12 grades from
different socioeconomic statuses should help us
understand that:
a) Providing effective vocabulary instruction should be a
high priority for our educational systems
b)There are some things beyond our control as
educators
c) The vocabulary that K-12 classes have been
teaching is too hard for students
d) Vocabulary instruction gets too much attention in most
classes in the current model of instruction
Knowledge Check
Question: When using sophisticated language
in your speech with students, what were two
strategies suggested in this lesson for
making difficult language comprehensible to
students?
a)Place words in obvious contexts
b)Embed a synonym of the word in the same
sentence
c)Avoid putting the words in writing until students
have had many times to hear it
d)Ask students to write the words down that they
don’t know and look them up in a dictionary after
class
Homework
Assignments
Homework
Assignment
In your next lesson, preview the pre and post reflection questions that we used
in this lesson before you teach. If you do not teach a class of your own, try
to observe someone who is for this assignment. Then, after the lesson,
answer the questions again. Here are the questions:
•
•
How does your current classroom environment support student vocabulary
development?
Think about the topic you covered with your class and answer the following
questions:
o
o
o
•
•
•
•
What language did you use to introduce the topic? Using a pen a paper, try
to jot down statements you say as close to your exact quotes as possible.
What percentage of time do you feel you talked about the topic? What
percentage of time do you feel your students talked about or wrote about
the topic?
How many words did you teach explicitly?
How have the answers to these questions changed knowing what you know
now about vocabulary instruction? Post your answers on the discussion
board.
Print the rubric at the web address below and evaluate the same lesson:
http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/1145
THANK YOU!
References
• “Assessing Vocabulary Development.” University of Central Florida
•
•
•
•
•
and State College of Florida: 2011. Florida Department of Education.
http://faculty.scf.edu/sharric/lesson7/lesson7topic8.htm
Carr, Eileen, and Wixson, Karen.” Guidelines for Evaluating
Vocabulary Instruction”. Journal of Reading, Volume 29, No.
7..Special Issue on Vocabulary (April, 1986) Published by
:International Reading Association
http://www.appstate.edu/~koppenhaverd/rcoe/f10/6575/read/carr&
wixson86.pdf OR
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40029684?origin=JSTOR-pdf
“College Talk: Improving Students' Vocabulary”. Teaching Channel. 6
November 2012 https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/improvingstudent-vocabulary
Fischer, Douglas; Gray, Nancy, and Rothenberg, Carol. Content Area
Conversations. Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, (ASCD): 2008.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108035/chapters/Why-TalkIs-Important-in-Classrooms.aspx
References
•
•
•
•
Flanigan, Kevin. Words Their Way® with Struggling Readers: Word
Study for Reading, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, Grades 4–
12, Allyn & Bacon: 2011. Page 238-239.
http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780135135211/download
s/Chap-8-WTW-SR.pdf
Himmele, Pérsida and Himmele, William. “Increasing Exposure to
Academic Language by Speaking It”. The Language-Rich Classroom:
A Research-Based Framework for Teaching English Language
Learners (pp. 30–33), 2009, Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Copyright 2009
by ASCD. http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/505-himmele.aspx
Lane, Holly and Allen, Stephanie. “The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom:
Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness
and Vocabulary Growth”. The Reading Teacher Vol. 63, No. 5
February 2010.
http://www.glassboroschools.us/cms/lib/NJ01000249/Centricity/Dom
ain/14/Vocabulary_Rich_Classroom.pdf
SpellingCity.com http://www.spellingcity.com/
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
Stahl, Katherine A. Dougherty and Bravo, Marco A. “Contemporary
Classroom Vocabulary Assessment for Content Areas”. The Reading
Teacher Vol. 63, No. 7 April 2010
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/006/716/Stahl%20Voc
%20Assess%20RT.pdf
Stover, Elizabeth. “Five Activities for a Language Rich Classroom”.
Ehow http://www.ehow.com/info_7937371_five-activitieslanguagerich-classroom.html
“Teacher Self-Assessment: Using Vocabulary Strategies” Doing What
Works. http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/1145
Vaezi , Shahin and Nasser, Fallah. “A Rigorous and Multifaceted
Vocabulary Instructional Program”. European Journal of Social
Sciences, Volume 14, Number 2 (2010)
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejss_14_2_14.pdf
Rhodus, Kathy. “Vocabulary Instruction and the Common Core”.
Illinois State Board of Education
“Word Walls”. Math Techniques and Strategies. http://new-toteaching.blogspot.com/2012/07/word-walls.html