Reading - Vocabulary
Gary Obermeyer, Tue November 08, 2005, 07:39 AM
For this session we're going to do a jigsaw with the article "Promoting Vocabulary Development: Components of Effective Vocabulary Instruction."
You will read one of five sections:
As you read your section of the article, identify highlights and important points to share with your virtual colleagues. Post your report in the Group Space in the discussion thread titled: Readings - Vocabulary.
I read p. 16-20 on "Explicit Instruction of Specific Words". Some of the main ideas for teaching spelling was to include synonyms, antonyms, re-writing definitions, example sentences using the spelling word, and make up a story where the students use the vocabulary words. In the McGraw Hill book, it includes all of these activities for both spelling and vocabulary. The article also meantioned discussing differences between the new words and related words, also discussing how many words have multiple meanings and trying to create sentences that use different meanings. I think these two would be great to discuss in class!
Pages 3-9 focused on "Promoting Vocabulary Development". Learning word meanings is vital to vocabulary development. Students word knowledge is linked strongly to academeic success and is crucial for reading comprehension. Poor readers lack adaquate vocabulary to gian meaning from what they read. Some obstacles that children may face in learning vocabulary are the size of the task, the difference between spoken and written vocabulary, and limitations of sources that are available to learn the vocabulary. Pages 3-9 also focused on the complexities of word knowledge. To better explain, knowing a definition is not the same as knowing how to use words in speech or in writing. Understanding a words definition doesn't always help in learning the meaning of the word. To really know a word, students need to encounter it in text and see how the meaning relates to words around it.
Pages 10-15 focused on effective vocabulary instruction. ?The main topics mentioned were wide reading, high quality oral language, word consciousness, instruction on specific words, and independent word-learning strategies. a lot was said about wide reading and it stressed the importance to read, read, read!! The more a student reads the more words the students comes in contact with. Repeated contact of words will eventually stick with the student. Wide reading is very important and effective, but is not meant for immediate progress.I found the argument for wide reading on pg. 11 interesting. Starting on page 12 they talk about spoken and written language and how to teach students the difference. I found this interesting and helpful, especially since this is becoming more of a concern for our ELL learners. They stress making words fun to keep students motivated to learn about new words and to model, model, model any strategy used.
As a group we (Sarah Harrison, Heather Stood, & Terra Olson)read and discussed the section was titiled "Explicit Instruction of Specific Words." It's main focus was how to use both definitional and contextual information of word meanings. As of most vocabulary instruction it suggests having the students be actively involved and to use discussion of the words being taught. The article suggests that when using definitional information one should make use of activities that work with synonyms, antonyms, example sentences, nonexamples, differences with related words, and students should rewrite the definition in their own words. When using the strategy of contextual information the teacher should encourage the students to write sentences that show understanding, to use more than 1 vocab word in a sentence, produce scenerios, and ask silly questions with their vocab words.
I found the portion about synonyms and antoyms especially interesting as I constantly use them in teaching ESL students. Most often the students are just looking for some way to figure out the meanings of words. Most times a synonym can help the students in discovering meaning. Example sentences would be a good thing for me to try with my ESL students as described in the article.
I read pages 16-20, Explicit Instruction of Specific Words. I really liked the suggestions to help teach vocabulary words. I think this rich, deep learning can really help students' vocabulary. I especially liked the ideas of including synonyms and antonyms when discussing a vocabulary word. Another strategy I would like to try out is having my students use two vocabulary words in the same sentence.
I read pages 27-32, What parts to teach? It focused on teaching most commonly used suffixes and prefixes, and how to teach root words. It discussed making the students aware of the different elements within a word, and focusing on how the parts fit together to affect the words meaning. I found this very interesting, especially when it said to teach a prefix and have students create their own silly word using the prefix. I thought this would be a great engaging activity, and I would like to try it out with my students. This was really an easy to read informative couple of pages and I recommend it to everyone.
I read pages 21-26, Teaching Word Meanings as Concepts. The techniques that were suggested in the article were Definition Map, Semantic Mapping, Semantic Feature Analysis, Possible Sentences, Teaching Word Parts, and Comparing and Contrasting. I thought that Definition Mapping and Semantic mapping were good ideas but far too advanced for primary grades. I thought these would be a great opportunity for interactive writing. That way these activities could be modeled and demostrate fluency at the same time during a re-read of the activity. I have tried possible sentences with my students and found it to be very successful in partners. It gives students a chance to model and build vocabulary together and then whole group decide if each group's sentence is truth or myth. Comparing and contrasting seems like a good idea, but students need to already have more advanced vocabulary under their belt to complete this activity successfully. I do not know how it would go with ELL students. This article presented activities that could be used in the classroom. I feel this article was more applicable to intermediate grades, not so much primary. I thought it was a very interesting article to read and would like to read some of the others.
I read pp 1-7 which addressed promoting vocabulary development. The passage that interested me most discussed how spoken language and daily conversations often represent a much less rich use of vocabulary than written language. It was cited that a conversation among college-educated adults often contains less varied vocabulary than a children's book. This lack of richness in spoken language was attributed to the fact that when speaking people use other resources such as facial expressions and voice to communicate thier meaning. The article went on to discuss how the differences between spoken and written language can pose problems for learners, ELL in particular. Good thing to be more aware of.
I read pp 10 - 15 which talked about the first three components of effective vocabulary instruction. The first is ecouraging wide reading, which is giving students opportunities to read at a variety of levels. They should read for enjoyment, and some that challenges them. The second is exposing students to high-quality oral language. In this component, it is very important to let them hear spoken English that incorporates more vocab. and sytax than written, especially for ELL. The third component is promoting word consciousness. This component means that students need to develop a feel for how written language is different than everyday conversation.
I read pgs. 10-15 and was glad to read that good ol' storytelling and the read aloud is still considered to be a most effective way to expose children to a literate vocabulary, as we read to them from storybooks, especially when the reading is accompanied with discussion. Most childrens books have rich high level vocabulary that engages the childrens interest. Audio books can be used in centers. Even when no text is involved storytelling "exposes children to richer language than does normal conversation". T What a wonderfull, fun way to expose my ESL children to the English language!
I read pages 3-9 and was surprised to find out that being proficient in spoken vocabulary did not mean that one is proficient in literate vocabulary. Learning roots, suffixes, and prefixes and getting meaning from context can help a person's vocabulary but are not the only things a person needs to improve his/her literate vocabulary.
I read pages 21-26 on "Teaching Word Meanings as Concepts". Specific techniques were discussed for creating concepts in vocabulary. There techniques are Concept of Definition Maps, Semantic Mapping, Semantic Feature Analysis, Possible Sentences, Comparing and Contrasting, and Teaching Word Parts. Concept of Definition Maps has students refer to context, own prior knowledge, and dictionaries to fill out the maps. Semantic Mapping and Semantic Feature Analysis are similar in drawing on students' prior knowledge and using DISCUSSION to create information on word meaning. The Analysis uses a grid rather than a web-like graphic display. Possible sentences creates connections between familiar words and new vocabulary within key concepts for a reading selection. Comparing and Contrasting makes connections among concepts with using vocabulary. A Venn Diagram is used for this. Plus, Teaching Word Parts is more of a technique that can be easily used while a student is reading a text. They can have a pretty good idea of what a word means if they understand the meaning of affixes and base words being used, along with the context.
I read pages 3 - 9 and I wish that there was more explanation about the number of vocubulary words to give to your students. I struggle with this daily. My students are resource. The regular teacher gives their students 20 vocabulary words/week. I was told to cut that list in half however I have found with extensive work, the students are able to learn these words. I hate to have them miss out on an educational opportunity because they are "resource kids".
Anyway it was interested to learn about all of the different methods of learning vocabulary.
I read the components of effective vocabulary instruction article and found it to be especially enlightening. It reinforced the importance of promoting vocabulary development through teacher modeling and exposing students to high-quality oral language. We need to make sure that we are motivating students at an early age to read and learn new vocabulary words. They should feel comfortable about reading by focusing on books that are at an independent level, as well as work on books that are instructional. Keep in mind that students should never find themselves frustrated in their reading, because this will negatively effect them later on. Having students do dictations with the teacher is a very effective way for students to become more familiar with text and vocabulary. Students will undoubtedly become better learners by being exposed to word use from their dictations. They can learn the words by repeating what was dictated to the teacher and then they can learn to read from that. We love to read riddles to the young students and find them to be very effective with their learning of oral language and vocabulary. I don't feel that dictionary use at the K level would be useful, but modeling to students how to find meaning in words through context and use can be effective for them. I think it is great to tell students that they will become "language detectives." Constant exposure to words is key to the success of students at an early age.
This section starts by discussing "wide reading." The more a student reads or is read to, the more vocabulary knowledge is improved. I found it interesting that students actually need to learn "at a rate of 2,000-3,000 words per year." Reading at all levels is esential for vocabulary growth. High quality oral language is also essential for vocabulary growth. Good quality literature should be used in read aloud activities. To promote word conciousness, teachers need to make learning new words fun by allowing students to engage in word play. Teaching independent word learning strategies help students figure out meanings of words on their own. Using dictionaries, word parts, and context clues are important strategies.
This section discussed the importance of using explicit instruction of specific words. This section gave me a lot of great ideas to use in the classroom. I would like to have my students rewrite definitions of vocabulary words and provide example sentences using more than one new word to relate the two new words. The article also discussed the importance of discussion when learning new vocabulary words. I have found this piece to be extrememly important, especially when a vocabulary word has more than one meaning. The article also expressed the importance of only teaching vocabulary words that are important to understanding the text so that the students do not focus on the meaning of words that do not contribute to their comprehension of the story. This is a good reminder when deciding which vocabulary words to teach students.
This section gave me some good ideas to use in the classroom. I'm so glad the learn and test doesn't work - how boring is that for the teacher and the students. A couple of weeks ago our Lit Coordinator did an activity with our new vocab words and I'm going to incorporate that this week. I am going to try to incorporate some more activities for our low-readers who are ELL too.
Many interesting studies to emphasize the importance of building vocabulary for ELL students to become better readers. I am using vocab as a priority daily with my ESL students...I expound on their current spelling words for the week. The Matthew Effect is a good reminder....Obstacles to vocab development guides us to remember that a child learns a word by context, meanings and how the word relates to words around it...continual exposure.".Linguistic poverty "really affected me.
Please see our summations/reflections attached. Thanks
Vocabulary Development Reflections.doc
Mary, that's a very extensive review of the vocabulary article. I can see that you and your team mates invested a lot of time in this review. However, it doesn't tell us about the implications for your respective classrooms. Just a friendly reminder, in the future, please post individual reviews so we can see how it informs/affects your practice. knowhatimean?
I read pages 27 through 32. The focus of this portion of the article was on the parts of words that we should teach. It listed the most commonly used prefixes and suffixes and mentioned the importance of teaching students to break words into parts. This is particularly important for poor readers who are often overwhelmed by longer words. We constantly tell our second graders to look for word parts they know when they come to unfamiliar words. In addition to identifying the roots, knowing the meanings of some common prefixes and suffixes can help them determine the meanings of new words.
I read pages 16-20. It was interesting and informative; although I did feel very comfortable with the information. Throughout my education I have been taught not to teach vocabulary through rote memorization so I really liked all of the ideas given within the article. What I have found to work the best in terms of student understanding of vocabulary is to have them first try to figure out the meaning of a word after hearing it in context and then rewrite the definition in their own words.
My part of the jigsaw was to read pages 3-9 regarding promoting the developement of vocabulary. This portion of the article discussed the importance of vocabulary to reading comprehension and how good readers become better readers while poor readers become worse over time, if there is not proper intervention. This article was designed to make the teacher aware of the importance of vocabulary instruction. My part focused on the obstacles to vocabulary instruction such as the size of the task and the differences between spoken English and written English and how daily conversation with English Language Learners can appear fluent but it takes longer for these ELLs to become proficient at the written aspect of English. It was very interesing to see all of the challenges associated with learning vocabulary, given the fact the English is so complicated.
It is important that all children hear books and read to enrich their vocabulary. It is essential that our ELL learners are read to and hear the much needed vocabulary to help learn the English language. The more students are read to, the more they will learn the vocabulary. It is the same for adults. The adults that read know more as well as their vocabulary is greater.
The article brought up an important point about the differences in word knowledge being impacted by the range of words that they are exposed to in their homes and in their communities. The socioeconomic status of the family can have a huge impact on what the child experiences. This is one reason why it is so important to know our students and what they need.
I read pages 3-9 of the article. I highlighted "words are tools we use to access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn about new concepts." As I think about that sentence what comes to mind is the improtance of background knowledge. So many students are not exposed to enriching opportunites. It is very difficult for a someone to grasp the concept of the sound an ocean makes, if they have never been to the ocean, or seen anything about an ocean anywhere in their lives. Some things have to be experienced to become understood.It doesn't mean that one can never conceptualize the ocean without actually standing on the sand and hearing the waves breaking, but it does help. That goes back to the article and the "Matthew Effects", good readers get better, and poor readers read less. It is the exposure to print that allows a student to gain vocabulary. I remember observing a third grade student who loved to read Bernstein Bear books.We were in the middle of the year, and all I ever saw him read was Bernstein Bears. I remember taking him aside and conferencing with about his book selection. He told me that he liked Bernstein Bears. I asked him if he would be willing to stretch a bit next time he went to the library. What I observed was a child who did not consider himself to be a strong reader, and felt comfortable with this type of book because he was familiar with the plot line and characters, however, his book selection was not exposing him to vocabulary that would progress his reading level forward. Background knowledge and the ability to make connections as we are reading is imperative in becoming better readers. As a teacher from Texas, I worked in schools that were 100% free and reduce lunch. Students in my classroom came from Spanish speaking households, most of their parents did not speak English. Language acquisition for this type of student was crucial. Students were exposed to wide range of print, and given multiple opportunities to read, and discuss what they read. The more they read, the better they got.I knew that my students were not being exposed to books at home, so I made sure that a school it was all about books.I think that it is important for childrent to feel safe when they are reading, that it should not be a threatening time, therefore I promote students writing new words down on post its, and asking questions about what they are uncovering. This type of reading environment promotes the development of vocabulary and leads to students seeing themselves as readers.
I read the whole article, but my response covers only pages 21 - 32:"Teaching Word Meanings as Concepts" and "What Parts to Teach?" This section of the article says that the most effective instruction to increase students' knowledge of specific words is to teach word meanings as concepts. This approach presents a variety of techniques to connect the words being taught to context and their prior knowledge. I particularly like "Concept of Definition Maps" and the "Four Square" Activity. These activities are suitable for my ELL students who certainly benefit from scaffolding to derive the definition and at the same time gain a broader concept of the word. "Semantic Mapping" is not suitable for my pull out EL students who will really struggle with it. I had used Semantic Feature Analysis successfully in teaching geometric (quadrilaterals) features when I was a middle school math teacher. "Possible Sentences" is a new technique for me. However, I wonder how easy/difficult it will be for my high EL students. "Compare & Contrast" using Vann Diagram and "Teaching Word Parts" are tried and tested techniques that many teachers have used successfully. In regard to "Which Parts to Teach?" it is gratifying to learn that teaching at least 9 of the 20 most common prefixes helps middle schoolers increase their vocabulary learning. Suffixes such as word endings are learned and used daily with little difficulty. Specifically teaching the meaning of derivational suffixes is more relevant for upper grades which are more likely to come across infrequently used words. While students need to know the roots of many modern day English words, there is no clear consensus whether explicitly teaching them, Latin or Greek derived, will benefit the students. However, it is agreed that it is useful to teach students how to break down new, long affixed words to help them understand the meanings. Students need to learn how the word parts function together to affect word meaning.
Pages 21 - 26 of this article focused on Teaching Word Meaning as Concepts using Conept of Definition Maps, Semantic Mapping, Semantic Feature Analysis, Possible Sentnces, Comparing and Contrasting and Teaching Word Parts. Many of the ideas in this section are excellent for vocabulary development in the upper grades, especially for ELLs who need a concept on which to "hook" a new word. In the primary grades a word splash might be easier but use the same idea as semantic mapping. Book Bits, where you take sentences from a read aloud and put them on strips and pass them out prior to reading, could stand in for Possible Sentences. I've seen trees developed from root words that would be very appropriate for 2nd and up that also teaches word parts. I love this part of vocabulary when the students can make a conceptual connection with new vocabulary and I think if we as teachers are excited about it, the students are as well.
This section talks about how and what to teach regarding prefixes, suffixes, and roots. You can also find tables that contain the most frequent affixes in printed school English, common Greek and Latin roots, as well as an example of a word-part web. Teaching at least nine of the twenty most frequently occurring prefixes (un-, re-, dis-, non-, over-, mis-, etc. ) can increase vocabulary learning. Derivational suffixes comprehension can be aided with knowledge of meaning. Teaching roots may make new words more memorable by adding a story to their definition or knowing the story or the history of the word. Practice adding and removing prefixes and suffixes from root words as a strategy for independent reading or a word-study tool. For content-area reading, making a list of words specific to that area. The article uses biology as an example with the prefixes bio-, chromo-, eco-, and soma-. This is a great idea especially if you need to refer to them often. To teach word parts, emphasis should be on how the parts function together to affect word meaning, use non-examples (silly words), definitions, models, and having students read sentences containing the target parts. A word-part web has the prefix or suffix in the middle and the words created usind them branch out from it.
Since I am working alone I started with the first section. My section was on obstacles to vocabulary development. It talks about the four obstacles: size of the task, differences between spoken English and written English, limitations of sources, complexity of word knowledge. These sections were very interesting to me as an adult who has had years of studying the language versus a child's point of view. I also teach adult ESL and have seen how difficult our language really is.
I read pages 3-9 of the article. The first part of this article focused on the reason why the authors felt that is was important to write about vocabulary development. The article stated that vocabulary and words are the "tools we use to access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn about new concepts." The beginning of this article also states that the knowledge students have of words and the meaning of words is directly linked to their reading success. I have found that this is very true. The article then goes on to talk about the "Matthew Effect" and how it can relate to readers. What this article suggests is that if a student enters school with limited vocabulary as they progress in school this gap in vocabulary knowledge only worsens. The good readers continue to grow while the poor readers continue to fall further and further behind. The article goes on to describe some obstacles to vocabulary development. One of these obstacles is students' limited exposure to "literate English" outside of the classroom. Both English language learners and students whose first language is English may experience this limited exposure since spoken English and written English are so different. The authors do go on to state that even children who have not been adequately prepared for the various forms of English they will need to succeed in reading can succeed through "well-designed school expereinces." The article also states that a child's vocabulary difficulties may be well masked by their "conversational fluency". I have noticed this in my own classroom. One of my students has excellent conversational vocabulary but she has difficulty with reading vocabulary. The authors of the article then begin to explore the usefulness of various kinds of "vocabulary building" activities, or at least activities that many people believe build vocabulary. The article states that dictionary activities are often useless especially since most students don't even know how to properly use a dictionary. The article also states that a student's knowledge and ability to use word parts can help them expand their vocabulary but that this too can be unreliable.
I read pages 3-9 and I agree stongly that WORDS are the key to communicating and understanding meaning in verbal and written language. If a student doesn't know what the word means, even if he can read it, it will be meaningless and they will lose other content from what they are reading. They mention the "Matthew Effect" where the good readers in school go ahead and the gap gets bigger and bigger each year for the poor readers. I found this to be so true, even when being a Reading Recovery Teacher for 4 years. Our job was to try and bring them up to grade level so the gap isn't there anymore. Tough job. We had some great tools to use and I think all of the things we did in Reading Recovery was good, but I still have not found a "program" that will do this for every child. I strongly believe that language is not a program and it cannot be packaged into one. Like the article states, most low readers/ and English language learners are not exposed to "proper English" outside the school and in my opinion some times in school. So I find that to be one of the biggest challenges for todays teachers. How do we "teach" language? We can do things that will help but language is so complex and you cannot isolate it to just a "language block" and say "I taught language today". Language is everything, in everything, every subject!
I read the pages 3-15. I think the most important parts are that 1.students increase their vocabulary by reading, 2.students should read a variety of levels, 3. that we need to teach them comprehension strategies, 4. we need to be giving them more time to read during and outstide of class. 5. we need to model the value of reading.
I read pages 16-20. I thought that using both the definition and context clues to help with the word meaning made sense. I often just use the contextual information and have the students try to come up with a word meaning. It is important to involve students actively in the word learning. If I just told them the definition and there was no discussion, my students would not internalize the words. I did like the idea about using synonyms and antonyms for the word meanings. I have used synonyms but not antonyms. For my ELL students the synonyms have helped them understand the word meanings even better. They can relate the word to another word that they know. I will try to use the idea of putting two or more words in one sentence. The other idea that I will definitely try is to create a scenerio or make up a story (or just a picture) to represent the word. Again the ELL students would definitely benefit from this.
I read the part of the article that talks about how important it is to understand more than just the meaning of the word. To porperly understnd the meaning of the word a student must be able to use and understand the word in different contexts. Just knowing the dictionary definition does not guarentee that the student can correctly use it in a sentence or understand it when they come across it in their reading.
My comment posted on the Vocabulary Reading dealt with how interesting vocabulary development was and I hadn't realized there was such a large discrepancy between reading vocabulary and oral vocabulary. We are trying to expose our students at Greenbrae to a wider range of vocabulary because so many of them are ELL students and really need to hear it, but I think we need to find more opportunities for vocab development.
I also read pages 3-9 of the article. The beginning of this article states that the knowledge students have of words and the meaning of words is directly linked to their reading success. I could not agree more. The richer the vocabulary the better we are to express ourselves. The article also mentioned the Matthew Effect and how it can relate to readers. Basically, if a student enters school with a limited vocab their gap in vocab worsens even if they progress. where as good readers continue to grow while lower readers continue to fall further behind. One of these obstacles that prevent students from growth is their lack of exposure to "literate English" outside of the classroom. Both ELL students and those whos first language is English can be limited to such exposure beacuse written and spoken enlgish are different. The article also states that a child's vocab difficulties may be well masked by their ability to speak well. I have a few students that have a nice vobaulary for first graders, but have a hard time with written vocabulary.