Thursday, February 14, 2013

Vocabulary Blog Post (insert better title here)


Hello readers. My sincerest apologies for abandoning you last week. Between a wedding, a blizzard, and an upcoming trip to warmer climates, I neglected to share my educational thoughts with you. So, this week, I have something super exciting planned. Brace yourselves!

(You might be asking, “If this post is so super exciting, why doesn’t it have a better title?” Well, sorry readers. Title-writing was not my strength this week. I suppose an alternative title could be: “Beware Shameless Plugs.” Keep reading. You’ll get it.)

In my work as an instructional coach, I’ve been collaborating with a couple teachers who are interested in vocabulary instruction. This interest sent me running to all my vocabulary goodies (namely Janet Allen’s Words, Words, Words and Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey’s Word Wise & Content Rich, among others). I have since worked to synthesize all this great information into one handy dandy resource that I hope is very practical and easy to use. Since I can’t share the entire resource with you, I thought I’d share with you some of the ideas about vocabulary instruction the resource is centered around. And -- as a former ELA teacher I feel I must say this – these ideas are for ALL teachers, of any content area, in any grade pretty much 4 through 12. We all want our students to understand, know, and use the terminology of our content areas. So, here goes:

Why Vocabulary Instruction?
and What Should Vocabulary Instruction Look Like?

Many teachers have come to the same realization that Janet Allen, author of Words, Words, Words (1999) describes having come to after having used traditional vocabulary instruction methods (see – look up this word and copy down the definition) for years: “Students seldom [or never] gained enough in-depth word knowledge from this practice to integrate the words into their spoken or written language” (p. 2).

Although many of us have recognized this as a reality, we are still left with questions, such as the following:
If I don’t teach vocabulary in the “traditional” ways, what do I do instead?
If I don’t do the traditional “assign, define, and test,” what do I do instead?
If I do something different, how can I prove it’s working? (Allen, p. 2).

[SHAMELESS PLUG #1: The answers to these questions can be found in the afore-mentioned resource I’ve put together, and come primarily from Janet Allen’s Words, Words, Words (1999) and from Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey’s Word Wise & Content Rich (2008), among other sources.]

The first step is to ensure that our classes are “language-rich environment[s] with lots of reading, talking, and writing in which varying levels of direct instruction occur” (Allen, p. 6).

Ample opportunity for students to read is the key starting place for vocabulary instruction. As Allen (p. 14) states, “from this reading, extensive knowledge of words and opportunities for mediated and explicit instruction emerge.” The theory follows that students will primarily only learn new words if they experience them (i.e., in their reading), versus being handed them in isolation.

[SHAMELESS PLUG #2: Luckily, the resource I’ve put together contains plenty of ideas that ensure “that vocabulary development become[s] a natural part of classroom instruction. In other words, intentional instruction of vocabulary doesn’t stand apart from the content – it is a necessary factor in content mastery” (Fisher & Frey, p. 34).]

Fisher and Frey (p. 5) sum up our collective goal regarding vocabulary instruction: it is to “help students become self-regulating, independent word learners. We want to move the profession’s thinking hundreds of miles away from the view of vocabulary instruction as disembodied lists for students to memorize and toward a stance where word learning in the content areas is fun for students, is an excuse to interact with peers, and gives them the intellectual and social currency of being able to think, speak, read, and write with greater facility.”

[SHAMELESS PLUG #3: Hopefully, the suggested ideas and activities in the resource I’ve put together will help us reach that goal!]

BEFORE READING

The following are important reasons why we should provide our students with some unfamiliar words at the start of the reading of a new text or at the start of a unit:
·      To pre-assess students’ knowledge of pre-determined vocabulary words for the upcoming reading/unit
·      To inform the teacher which words will require explicit vocabulary instruction
·      To assist teachers in forming differentiated student groups based on students’ current word knowledge

Clearly, this means that we need to select important words from the upcoming reading/unit ahead of time. Below are some recommendations in making these selections:
·      Choose words that are the most important to understanding the text (with many texts, it would be overwhelming to present students with each and every unknown word about to be encountered, so Allen recommends narrowing it down to the “need to know” [vs. “nice to know”] words).
·      Choose words that may be encountered frequently in the text.
·      Choose words centered around a significant concept of the text.
·      Choose words that you want students to be able to use in discussions or in writing about the text.
·      Some words you choose may not appear in the text itself, but may be strong words in relation to the significant concept of the text (i.e., if students are about to read a book that takes place during the Civil Rights movement, the teacher could choose to select “integration” as an important vocabulary word for the unit of study, even if this word is not used directly in the text itself).

CAUTION: Providing students with a list of words before beginning to read a new text or studying a new topic does NOT mean that students should be expected to learn the definitions of these words ahead of time. Allen (pp. 8-9) warns us that “teaching words ahead makes children unwilling to face the hazard of a new book: in short, teaching words ahead produces dependent rather than independent readers.” Instead, use the time at the beginning of a new text or unit to pre-assess, to form groups, and to plan direct vocabulary instruction for later on in the unit.

[SHAMELESS PLUG #4: Lessons and activities that can help you pre-assess, form groups, and plan direct vocabulary instruction can be found in the handy dandy resource I put together!]

DURING READING

Once the reading of the new text (or the study of the new topic) has begun, it’s time for explicit, in-depth instruction and word study to occur. Remember that if we try to teach students an entire list of words and their meanings before they even begin a new piece of reading or the study of a new topic, the chances that they become overwhelmed and shut down are high.

[SHAMELESS PLUG #5: Whew! Thank goodness there’s a resource out there that can provide you with lessons and activities you can use with your students to conduct such in-depth word study. I bet there’s even some tips in that resource for differentiating vocabulary instruction if lots of your students are at different vocabulary readiness levels… (hint – there are some tips for that in the resource I’ve put together).]

 Did you happen to notice all those SHAMELESS PLUGS throughout this post? Well, here’s the last one (I promise).

SHAMELESS PLUG #6: If all of the above sounds interesting to you, and you want to change or improve the way vocabulary instruction functions in your classroom (and, of course, if you teach in the same district as me!), then contact me. I would love to make you a copy of a handy dandy vocabulary instruction resource (did I mention I’ve put one together recently???) and I would love to meet with you and discuss the ideas therein and work with you to put some of them in place in your classroom.



Friday, February 1, 2013

Carol Ann Tomlinson is my Substitute

    Hello readers! My apologies in advance -- I am muy distracted today because . . . drum roll, please . . . I am getting MARRIED tomorrow! Since my mind is currently a blur of to-do lists, vows, wedding shoes, and manicures, I am feeling less than my blogging best. So, I've arranged for none other than Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson, guru of differentiated instruction, to fill in for me for this week's blog post.

     Below are two video clips from a presentation Tomlinson delivered as the introduction to a 3-day seminar on DI (which stands for differentiated instruction, for those of you not already familiar with my intense need to abbreviate that term).

Got 5 minutes??

Then check out the following portion of the presentation. Here, Carol Tomlinson makes the case for proactive differentiated instruction, for pre-planning our DI instead of just improvising our DI on the spot:


Got 30 minutes? 
Then watch the entire presentation from Tomlinson. Spoiler alert – a lot of what she discusses here is the philosophy and mindset of DI….you may find yourself very interested, but wondering about the specific activities you can incorporate into your classes in order to achieve what she’s talking about. If so, and you’re a teacher in the district in which I’m an instructional coach, then contact me – we can work together on the details! 

Heads up:  You might want to start at minute 3:30 and skip the lovely piano overture!



I hope you enjoy!