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.
