Developing Usable
Vocabulary Knowledge
William Nagy
January 2008
Getting started:
Some assumptions
 Vocabulary
knowledge is extremely
important
 Promoting vocabulary growth is a
demanding task
 Our goal is developing usable
vocabulary knowledge
Vocabulary is important
A
large vocabulary is essential for
academic success
– Reading comprehension
– Writing
– Content area learning
 Smaller
vocabularies are associated
with academic risk
– ELLs
– Students from low-income families
Promoting vocabulary growth
is a demanding task
 The
number of words students need
to learn is immense
 Traditional vocabulary instruction can
be ineffective and boring
 Effective vocabulary instruction can
be time- and labor-intensive
We need to help students develop
usable vocabulary knowledge
Not all vocabulary knowledge is
‘usable’:
 Almost any kind of vocabulary
instruction can improve students’
performance on vocabulary tests
 But many commonly-used methods
of vocabulary instruction do not
reliably increase reading
comprehension
We need to help students develop
usable vocabulary knowledge
Usable vocabulary knowledge
 Includes competence in the academic
register
 Involves procedural as well as
declarative knowledge - learning a
word is like learning to use a tool
 Is generative – it supports the
learning of additional words
Developing
usable vocabulary knowledge
A
theme question for the day: How
does it change your approach to
vocabulary instruction to think of
word knowledge as procedural /
strategic knowledge rather than only
as declarative knowledge?
 See handout “Elements of Effective
Strategy Instruction”
Overview of the day: Four sections
 Learning
to understand and use
vocabulary-rich language
 Learning words well enough to use
them
 Learning to cope with new words
 Putting it all together, with special
attention to diversity
Learning to understand and use
vocabulary-rich language
 Understanding
the differences
between conversational and
academic language
 Providing students with rich and
varied oral and written language
experiences
Number of rare words
per thousand words of text
 Conversation
(college educated) 17
 Prime-time television shows
23
 Preschool books
 Children’s books
 Comic books
 Adult books
 Popular magazines
 Newspapers
Number of rare words
per thousand words of text
 Conversation
(college educated)
 Prime-time television shows
 Preschool books
 Children’s books
 Comic books
 Adult books
 Popular magazines
 Newspapers
17
23
16
31
54
53
66
68
Why is the Vocabulary of
Conversation so Impoverished?
 Different
communicative purposes
and demands
(Explanation can be at odds with
solidarity – “Do I have to explain it to
you?”)
 Processing
demands on production
and comprehension
(It takes too much time to think of ‘just
the right word’ while you’re talking)
Conversational vs. Academic Language
Conversation
Academic
Purpose
Maintain
relationship
Convey
information
Topic
Here-andnow/ shared
experience
Much shared
knowledge
assumed
Non-present /
non-shared
experience
Less shared
knowledge
assumed
Relationship
Conversational vs. Academic Language
Conversation
Academic
Processing
constraints
Time constraints
No time
constraints
Feedback
Continual
feedback
Feedback not
available
Additional
channels
Gesture,
intonation
Often no
channels besides
language
Physical
environment
Can refer to
shared physical
environment
At a distance in
both space &
time
It’s not just oral vs. written language
 Some
uses of written language (e.g.,
text messaging, informal emails)
have communicative purposes more
like those of conversation
 Some uses of oral language (e.g.,
storytelling) have communicative
purposes more like those of
academic language
Contextualized oral language
(4-Year-Old & Adult Playing with Legos)
Child: This is me and that’s you.
Adult: Okay
Child: No, This is me and that’s you
and that’s me.
Adult: No, No. That’s me. Wait.
That’s me?
Child: Yeah.
Adult: All right.
Less-Contextualized Oral Language
(Same Participants)
Adult: Where did you find out about Star
Wars?
Child: I dreamed that I was in Star Wars
and I saw this strange pack of ooie and I
saw mud.
Adult: You saw a strange pack of ooie?
Child: I saw a big pack of stinky, ooie
garbage. He lives in there, in a stinking
pack of garbage.
Adult: Who does?
Child: Jabba!
Providing students with rich and varied
oral and written language experiences
 Using
and evoking richer oral
language
 Increasing students’ exposure to
written language
 Calling students’ attention to the
differences between written and oral
language
Using and evoking richer oral language
What works


Wasik, B., Bond, M., & Hindman, A.
(2006). The effects of a language and
literacy intervention on Head Start
children and teachers. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 98(1), 63-74.
Jordan, G., Snow, C., & Porche, M. (2000).
Project EASE: The effect of a family
literacy product on kindergarten students’
early literacy skills. Reading Research
Quarterly, 35(4), 524-546.
Using and evoking richer oral language
Why a preschool intervention is relevant for
older students
1) Well-documented principles of language
development are unlikely to change
completely as children get older
2) Patterns of teacher language use
recommended in the preschool
intervention have also been suggested on
other grounds for improving the quality of
classroom discussion for older students
Using and evoking richer oral language
 Use
more descriptive language when
speaking
 Elaborate on student language
 Ask open-ended questions
Using More Descriptive Language
When Speaking
“Teachers were trained to expand their
use of vocabulary and to provide elaborate
explanations and descriptions of common
activities and events. A simple comment
of ‘good job’ was encouraged to become ‘I
like the way you use the color blue to
draw the sky.’ Similarly, ‘the glue is on the
table’ becomes ‘The glue is on the round
table next to the scissors.’”
(Wasik et al., 2006, p. 67)
Elaborating on Student Language
“The teacher acknowledged what the child
said and tried to extend the child’s
language about the concept about which
the child was talking…. For example, if a
child said, ‘I made a house,’ the teacher
would respond with ‘Yes, you built a house
with the 10 blocks,’ repeating or recasting
what the child said using a more detailed
explanation and vocabulary words” (Wasik
et al., 2006, p. 67).
Asking Open-Ended Questions
 “‘Why’
questions are the essence of
inquiry.... Aside from being the basis
of at least one side of science and of
logic, ‘why’ questions also develop
children’s persuasion and
argumentation abilities, and logical
thinking” (Johnston, 2004, p. 37).
Asking Open-Ended Questions
“Teachers were trained to use
various questioning starters such as,
‘Tell me about it!’ ‘I wonder how…?’
‘How did that happen?’ and “What
if..?’ in their everyday conversations
with children, thus encouraging the
use of vocabulary words and
facilitating children’s use of
language” (Wasik et al., 2007, p.
67).
Increasing students’ exposure to
written language
 Increase
the amount of time
students spend reading text at the
appropriate level
 Read aloud to students
 Discuss what you have read aloud
Calling students’ attention to the differences
between written and oral language
Model appreciation for well-crafted
phrases and sentences
 Have students collect and share examples
of well-crafted writing

– “Write down a line you wish you had written”
(Johnston, 2004, p. 16)
Post examples of well-crafted writing in
the classroom
 Use these examples as models for writing

Additional Resources




Beck, I., & McKeown, M. (2001). Text Talk:
Capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences
for young children. The Reading Teacher, 55(1),
10-20.
Beck, I., & McKeown, M. (2006). Improving
Comprehension with Questioning the Author.
New York: Scholastic.
Johnston, P. (2004). Choice Words: How Our
Language Affects Children’s Learning. Portland,
ME: Stenhouse.
van Kleeck, A., Stahl, S., & Bauer, E. (Eds.)
(2003). On reading books to children. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Section Wrap-up
See Questions on Discussion handout:
Learning to understand and use
vocabulary-rich language
Learning words
well enough to use them
 Why
to teach words thoroughly
 How to teach words thoroughly
 Which words to teach thoroughly
Why to teach words thoroughly
Learning words well enough to use
them
To understand text containing that word
 To use that word in writing
 To answer vocabulary items on new
contextualized tests
 The need for fluency of word knowledge

Understanding Text Containing
Instructed Words
 Definition-based
vocabulary
instruction does not reliably increase
comprehension of texts containing
the instructed words (McKeown,
Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985;
Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986)
Using Words in Writing
 Knowing
the definition of a word
does not provide students enough
information to produce meaningful,
well-formed sentences using that
word (McKeown, 1993; Miller &
Gildea, 1987; Scott & Nagy, 1997)
Answering vocabulary items on
new contextualized tests
“Vocabulary items will function both
as a measure of passage
comprehension and as a test of
readers’ specific knowledge of the
word’s meaning as intended by the
passage author.” (National
Assessment Governing Board, 2005,
p. iv)
Contextualized vocabulary item
The citizens consumed their supply of
gravel through wanton development.
a) ate or drank
b) used up
c) spent wastefully
d) destroyed
(Pearson, Hiebert, & Kamil, 2007, p. 287)
The need for fluency
of word knowledge
Fluent reading requires efficiency in
retrieving word meanings as well as
efficiency in word recognition
 Fluency in retrieving word meanings is
associated with depth of vocabulary
knowledge
 ELLs are likely to have less depth as well
as less breadth of word knowledge
 L2 fluency promotes transfer of L1
knowledge to L2 reading (Proctor et al.,
2006)

How to teach words thoroughly
 Three
traits of effective vocabulary
instruction
 Providing sufficient scaffolding
Three traits of
effective vocabulary instruction
For students to learn words well enough to
use them, instruction must include:
 Both definitional and contextual
information (what it means, and how it is
used)
 Activities that require depth of processing
(meaningful use)
 Multiple encounters
(Stahl, 1986; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986;
Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002)
Providing sufficient scaffolding
For students to learn words well
enough to use them, instruction
must include activities that:
 Require students to actually use the
words (i.e., understand or produce
language that uses them)
 Are sufficiently scaffolded that
students who didn’t already know
the words can be successful
Learning words
well enough to use them
 Activity
that doesn’t involve using
the word meaningfully: Matching
words with their definitions
 Activity which could be meaningful
but which isn’t sufficiently
scaffolded: Asking students to write
a sentence for a word for which they
have been given the definition
Learning words
well enough to use them
Activities that involve using the word
meaningfully, and are sufficiently
scaffolded:
 Asking students to answer questions that
require using their knowledge of the
word’s definition (“What is something you
might need to confine?”)
 Asking students to complete a sentence
stem (“The two explorers decided they
were not compatible because….”)
Learning words
well enough to use them
More activities that involve meaningful use
of instructed words
 Asking questions that involve pairs of
instructed words (“If you assist some new
students, will they appreciate it?”)
 Encouraging and rewarding reports of
seeing, hearing, or using instructed words
outside of the classroom
Learning words
well enough to use them
More activities that involve meaningful use
of instructed words
 Asking students to choose which of two
scenarios better fits a word, and to defend
their choice (“Which is a better example of
a strategy – thinking about whether to do
your homework before or after you go to
the movies, or thinking about what it
would be like to have lived 100 years
ago?)
Possible limitations of intensive
vocabulary instruction
Time- and labor-intensive
 Teacher-directed
 Focuses on content (meanings and uses of
specific words) rather than on strategies
 Recommendations for activities and word
selection may be biased towards
narratives
 Extent of transfer to uninstructed words is
not known

Which words to teach thoroughly
Teachers must be strategic in
choosing:
 which words to teach
 what level of instruction is
appropriate for words that are taught
Levels of intensity in vocabulary instruction
 Providing
exposure to rich language
 Explaining a word in passing
 Explaining what a specific instance of
a word contributes to a specific text
 Teaching a word so that students can
use it flexibly and effectively in a
variety of contexts
Choosing words for instruction /
choosing level of intensity of instruction





Frequency: Does this word occur often enough in
written language to make it worth spending time
on?
Productive control: Do I want my students to be
able to use this word?
Distribution: Does this word occur in a variety of
genres and subject areas?
Role in the lesson / curriculum: Is this word
important for what we are learning about?
Role in the text: Do I need to know this word to
understand the main point of the text?
Why frequency is an important
criterion for word selection
There are many words which seem like
high utility (“Tier 2”) words, but which in
fact occur so rarely that they are unlikely
to warrant intensive instruction
 Examples of words that occur less than
once in a million words of text: anthem,
assert, bribe, conjecture, crumple, doze,
fraud, inquire, lease, oblong, parody,
pounce, pretense, sedate, synonymous

Cumulative Frequency by Word Rank
Cum u lativ e Freq uenc y
800000.00
600000.00
400000.00
200000.00
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10000.00
20000.00
Rank
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Limitations of frequency as a (sole)
basis for word selection
 Frequency
lists usually give
frequency for the word form, not for
specific meanings
 High frequency words are more likely
to have multiple meanings
 High frequency words are more likely
to already be known by many
students
Information about Frequency
Wordlists easy to locate on the Internet
 General Service List – 2,000 most
frequent words in English (West, 1953)
 Academic Word List – 570 high-utility
words not on the General Service List
(Coxhead, 2000)
 Dale-Chall Word list – 3,000 common
words likely to be known by fourth graders
Additional resources




Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002).
Bringing words to life. NY: Guilford.
McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., Omanson, R. C., &
Pople, M. T. (1985). Some effects of the nature
and frequency of vocabulary instruction on the
knowledge and use of words. Reading Research
Quarterly, 20, 522-535.
Stahl, S. (1986). Three principles of effective
vocabulary instruction. Journal of Reading 29(7),
662-668.
Stahl, S., & Fairbanks, M. (1986). The effects of
vocabulary instruction: A model-based metaanalysis. Review of Educational Research, 56,
72-110.
Section Wrap-up
See Questions on Discussion handout:
Learning words well enough to use
them
Learning to cope with new words
 Why
students need to have wordlearning strategies
 What we know from research
 Word-learning strategies as
comprehension strategies
 Metacognitive / metalinguistic
foundations of word-learning
strategies
Why students need to have
word-learning strategies
There are too many words to teach them
all
 Encountering new words in text is the
norm, not the exception
 Familiar words are often used with
figurative or other less-familiar meanings
 Students should take increasing
responsibility for all aspects of their
learning, including vocabulary growth

There are too many words
for you to teach them all
Too many words in the English
language
– Number of main entries in Webster’s
Third, unabridged: 200,000
– Number of different words in printed
school materials, grades 3-9: 88,000
There are too many words
for you to teach them all
 Too
many words in average children’s
vocabularies
– Conservative published estimates of school
children’s annual vocabulary growth: 1,000
root words
– Other widely-cited estimates of school
children’s annual vocabulary growth: 2,000 –
3,000 words
– If students with smaller vocabularies are to
catch up, they have to learn words at a faster
rate than average students
Learning to cope with new words
What we know from the research:
 Teaching students to use context clues improves
their use of context (Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998)
 Teaching students about word parts improves
their use of word parts (Nunes & Bryant, 2006)
 Students can be taught to use word parts and
context in combination (Baumann et al. 2003)
 Comprehension instruction that includes
strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words can
improve comprehension (Palincsar & Brown,
1984; Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Klingner &
Vaughn, 1999)
Learning to cope with new words
Some things we know about effective
strategy instruction (see handout
“Elements of Effective Strategy
Instruction”)
 Explain why, when, how to use strategy
 Model
 Gradual transfer of responsibility to
students
 Prompt and encourage application across
the curriculum
Word-learning strategies as
comprehension strategies
Wordlearning
strategies
Word-level
comprehension
strategies
Comprehension
strategies
Some word-level
comprehension strategies
 Context
 Morphology
(word parts)
 Dictionary use
 Polysemy (figurative and other
secondary meanings of words)
Implications of understanding word learning
strategies as comprehension strategies

Lower expectations (about word learning)
– The goal is not to learn what the word means,
but to see if one can get enough information
about the word to proceed with an acceptable
level of comprehension

Higher cognitive demands (relating to
comprehension)
– The goal is not just to learn something about
what the word means, but to integrate what
one can learn about the word with the rest of
the text to construct a coherent meaning
Implications of understanding word learning
strategies as comprehension strategies
Two foundations of word learning
 Strategic knowledge: What do you
do when you encounter an unfamiliar
word while reading?
 Metalinguistic foundations: What do
you need to know about language
and about text to apply strategies
effectively?
Example of strategic knowledge
 When
you come to an unfamiliar
word, look for familiar meaningful
parts
 Make a hypothesis about what the
word might mean on the basis of its
parts
 Check to see whether this hypothesis
makes sense given the context
Example of metalinguistic knowledge
 Certain
suffixes (e.g., -al, -ity) can
change the pronunciation of the word
to which they are added
 Derivational suffixes signal a change
in part of speech
 Greek roots tend to have consistent
meanings in scientific words; Latin
roots tend to shift in meaning
Developing strategic and
metalinguistic knowledge
 Developing
strategic knowledge will
tend to rely more heavily on
‘simulated’ and ‘integrated’ activities
 Developing metalinguistic knowledge
is likely to require ‘separated’ as well
as ‘simulated’ activities, in which
attention can be given to
relationships among words not in a
text
The complexity of word-learning strategies
Strategic word learners know
 How to use context, word parts, &
dictionaries
 The limitations of context, word
parts, & dictionaries
 How to integrate information from
multiple sources (context, word parts
& dictionaries)
The complexity of word-learning strategies
Strategic word learners also know
 When they don’t know the meaning of a
word
 How much they need to know about a
word in order to understand a text well
enough
 Whether the resources at hand give them
enough information (for example, when
context only gives partial information
about a word’s meaning, whether that
partial information is enough to go on
Context and ELLs
 English
Language Learners, even
those with high levels of oral
proficiency in English, may be less
sensitive to certain types of
information supplied by context,
especially syntax
Word-learning strategies for
informational text
 How
might word learning strategies
look different for informational text?
 What are some word learning
strategies that might be especially
important for informational text?
How might word learning strategies look
different for informational text?
 The
hard words are more likely to be
central to the point of the text
 The text is likely to provide more
explicit information about the
meanings of new words
 The hard words are more likely to be
conceptually complex and difficult
What are some word learning strategies that might
be especially important for informational text?
 Attention
to informational text
features and structures used to
highlight and explain key terms
 Using morphology as a mnemonic
rather than as a means for inferring
word meanings
 Graphic organizers, e.g., “concept of
definition”
http://www.readingquest.org/strat/cdmap.html
Additional Resources





Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E. M., Olejnik, S., &
Kame’enui, E. (2003). Vocabulary tricks: Effects of
instruction in morphology and context on fifth-grade
students’ ability to derive and infer word meanings.
American Educational Research Journal, 40(2), 447-494.
Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F.
(2008). Words Their Way: Word study for phonics,
vocabulary and spelling instruction (fourth edition). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Johnston, F., Bear, D., & Invernizzi, M.(2006). Words Their
Way: Word sorts for derivational relations spellers. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Nunes, T., & Bryant, P. (2006). Improving Literacy by
Teaching Morphemes. New York: Routledge.
White, T., Sowell, J., & Yanagihara, A. (1989). Teaching
elementary students to use word-part clues. The Reading
Teacher, 42, 302-308.
Section Wrap-up
See Questions on Discussion handout:
Learning to cope with new words
Putting it all together,
with special attention to diversity
A
multi-faceted approach to
promoting vocabulary growth
 Carlo et al. (2004) as an example of
a vocabulary intervention
 Promoting word consciousness
 Awareness of register, dialectal, and
home language differences
A multi-faceted approach to
promoting vocabulary growth
Four components of a vocabulary
curriculum (Graves, 2006)
 Providing rich and varied language
experiences
 Fostering word consciousness
 Teaching word-learning strategies
 Teaching individual words
A multi-faceted approach to
promoting vocabulary growth
Resources for a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to promoting
vocabulary growth
Graves, M. (2006). The Vocabulary Book.
Newark, DE: International Reading
Association
 Stahl, S., & Nagy, W. (2006). Teaching
Word Meanings. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

Carlo et al. (2004) as an example
of a vocabulary intervention
 Carlo,
M., August, D., McLaughlin, B.,
Snow, c., Dressler, C., Lippman, D.,
Lively, T., & White, C. (2004).
Closing the gap: Addressing the
vocabulary needs of Englishlanguage learners in bilingual and
mainstream classrooms. Reading
Research Quarterly, 39(2), 188-215
Carlo et al. (2004)
 The
participants
– 254 bilingual & monolingual 5th graders
– 9 classrooms, four schools in California,
Virginia, & Massachusetts
 The
intervention
– 15 weeks
– Four days a week
– 10-12 new words per week
– 30-45 minutes per day
Carlo et al. (2004)
Instruction
 Monday: Spanish speaking students get
text in Spanish
 Tuesday: Introduction of texts and words
in English; using context to infer meanings
of some of the words
 Wednesday: cloze tasks with target words
 Thursday: depth of word knowledge –
word association tasks, synonyms &
antonyms, semantic feature analysis
 Friday: word awareness – root words,
affixes, polysemy, cognates
Carlo et al. (2004)
Results
 Significant gains on four out of five
outcome measures
 Learning to be word learners:
Students who participated in the
program in fourth and fifth grades
learned more in fifth grade than
those who didn’t participate in fourth
grade
Promoting word consciousness as a
pervasive attribute of your classroom
Model being an appreciator of effective
use of words
 Model being a word learner
 Students should feel safe asking about
word meanings, without fear that they will
just be sent to the dictionary by
themselves

(By all means, send students to the dictionary –
but go with them, or at least send them in
groups)

Make talk about words and language part
of the everyday life of your classroom
Awareness of register, dialectal,
and home language differences
 Non-judgmental
discussion of
language variation
– Contrastive analysis as an aid to
learning conventions of school language
Awareness of register, dialectal,
and home language differences
 Bilingualism
resource
/ bidialectalism as a
– Metalinguistic benefits of bilingualism
– Cognates as a resource
– Translation/paraphrase as a
comprehension strategy
Additional Resources



Graves, M., & Watts-Taffe, S. The place of word
consciousness in a research-based vocabulary
program. In A. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.),
What Research Has to Say About Reading
Instruction, third edition (pp. 140-165). Newark,
DE: International Reading Association.
Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in
Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Scott, J. A., & Nagy, W. (2004). Developing
word consciousness. In J. Baumann & E.
Kame’enui (Eds.). Vocabulary instruction:
Research to practice (pp. 201-217). New York:
Guilford.
Section Wrap-up
See Questions on Discussion handout:
Putting it all together, with special
attention to diversity