Nonlinguistic Representations

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Using
Nonlinguistic Representations
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Background knowledge Direct instruction Group
practice Application
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Vocabulary Development
Essential for Comprehension
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Why Teach Vocabulary?
Prepare students to read and understand
text. Develop understanding of concepts.
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Students encounter 85,000 different words in
print during their school years.
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How do students acquire vocabulary?
Systematic vocabulary instruction
Vocabulary acquisition through reading
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Systematic Vocabulary Instruction
If you teach 10 words a week, you have taught
about 400 words a year. Students may actually
learn 200-300 of those words. 13 years of school
equals 2600-3900 words learned.
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Vocabulary Acquisition Through Reading
If you read 200 words per minute for 25 minutes
each day for 200 days a year, you will encounter
just over a million words. Approximately 15,000
to 30,000 of these will be unknown. If you learn
1 out of every 20 or 30, you will learn 750-1500
words per year. If you began reading at 200
words per minute in 4th grade, this would equate
to 6750-13,500 words learned. Out of the million
words you read in one year, up to 90 of those
new words may only occur one time.
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Chances of Learning New Words in
Context
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Generalizations

• Students must encounter words in context more
  than once to learn them.

• Instruction in new words enhances learning
  those words in context.

• One of the best ways to learn a new word is to
  associate an image with it.

• Direct vocabulary instruction works.

• Direct instruction on words that are critical
  to new content produces that most powerful
  learning.

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Types of Words
Important Words Useful Words Difficult Words
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What does this mean?
When planning vocabulary instruction, identify
terms and phrases that are critical to a topic
and provide direct instruction on those terms and
phrases.
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Vocabulary instruction should present multiple
exposures of words to students in a multiple of
ways.
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Instructional Sequence
Step 1. Present students with a brief
explanation or description of the new term or
phrase. Step 2. Present students with a
nonlinguistic representation of the new term or
phrase. Step 3. Ask students to generate their
own explanations or descriptions of the term or
phrase. Step 4. Ask students to create their own
nonlinguistic representation of the term or
phrase. Step 5. Periodically ask students to
review the accuracy of their explanations and
representations.
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Step 1
dromedary
Present students with a brief explanation or
description of the new term or phrase.
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Step 2
Characteristics
Definition (in own words)
one hump heavy eyebrow
a camel with one hump
Dromedary
Example (Synonym)
Image
camel
Present students with a nonlinguistic
representation of the new term or phrase.
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Step 3
The Phoenix Zoo .. Dora the Explorer rode a
dromedary as she crossed the desert in last
Saturdays show. Animal Planet. I rode one in
Quartzite.
Ask students to generate their own explanations
or descriptions of the term or phrase.
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Step 4
Brainstorming web Mind mapping Desert
picture Word map Word pyramid Semantic map
Ask students to create their own nonlinguistic
representation of the term or phrase.
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Word Pyramid
Dromedary
Word
Antonyms
Synonyms
Adjectives describing the word
Write a sentence using the word.
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Step 5
Periodically ask students to review the accuracy
of their explanations and representations.
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Physical Characteristics
Habitat
one hump up to 7 feet tall
thick eyebrows
desert
Dromedary
Uses
Relatives
travel hair makes cloth
racing
Bactrian camel alpaca llama
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Definition
Sentence
Word
Antonym
Synonym
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What is it?
Comparisons
Properties
Word
Examples
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Vocabulary Development and the Implications for
Reading Instruction
Vocabulary should be taught both directly and
indirectly. Repetition and multiple exposures to
vocabulary items are important. Learning in rich
contexts is valuable for vocabulary
learning. Vocabulary tasks should be restructured
when necessary. Vocabulary learning should entail
active engagement in learning tasks. Computer
technology can be used to help teach
vocabulary. Vocabulary can be acquired through
incidental learning. How vocabulary is assessed
and evaluated can have differential effects on
instruction. Dependence on a single vocabulary
instruction method will not result in optimal
learning. National Reading Panel
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WARNING
Visual tools are not working in your classroom if

• You find yourself running to the copy machine
  throughout the year with blackline masters that
  students could create on their own.

• You find yourself handing out the same graphic
  organizer without the students ever going outside
  the lines, or if most of the organizers are of
  one type.

• You find that there is no coordination of
  organizers, then your students may never see how
  different patterns work together.

• You find that students have been given too many
  organizers in too many different content areas
  they will begin to see that these are not their
  tools to learn in depth but templates to fill in.

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Visual tools are not working in your classroom if

• Your students continuously have to go back to
  the organizer for instructions, it may be that
  there are too many actions required for making
  sense of the information (break it down).

• You find that the instructions for the graphics
  are that students fill in the information and
  turn it in as part of their assignment without
  discussion or if you lead a classroom discussion
  and there is one right answer.

• Students are not being asked How did this
  graphic help or hinder your performance? How
  could you have created a different graphic to
  meet your needs? Did this graphic constrain your
  thinking?