Building Vocabulary Knowledge for Academic Achievement

1
Building Vocabulary Knowledge for Academic
Achievement

• Scott King-Owen
• January 25th, 2006

2
Welcome

• Make sure you sign the roster.
• Pick up the handouts from the front.
• Introduction

3
Is Knowledge Power?

• Take the quiz.
• Answers
• 1. True 7. True 13. True
• 2. True 8. True 14. False
• 3. True 9. True 15. True
• 4. False 10. True
• 5. True 11. True
• 6. True 12. True

4
Important Terms

• Academic background knowledge
• Indirect versus direct approaches to background
  knowledge
• Vocabulary
• Nonlinguistic representation
• Indirect versus direct vocabulary instruction

5
Vocabulary and Achievement
6
Poverty and Academic Success
7
Poverty and Ethnicity

• 11.7 of US citizens live in poverty
• 22.7 of blacks live in poverty
• 21.4 of hispanics live in poverty
• 9.9 of whites live in poverty
• 1 out of every 5 American children comes from a
  home touched by poverty

8
Increasing Background Knowledge

• Direct Approaches
• Field trips and travel opportunities
• Establishing mentoring relationships between the
  community and children
• Indirect Approaches
• Reading
• Television and movies
• Interactions with adults and peers
• websites

9
Why is background knowledge important?

• It is an important predictor of comprehension
  (correlation .66)
• Knowledge begets knowledge
• Vocabulary represents our experiencesour
  background knowledge
• It helps create interest and meaning for
  otherwise dull activities

10
Read this Story

• Scintilla in casa laborat fessa est. Horatia in
  casam intrat ieiuna est. Sed cena non parata
  est. Scintilla festinat et mox cena est parata.
• Ecce!, inquit, cena est parata. puella laeta
  est ad mensam festinat et avide cenat.
• Postridie Scintilla ad tabernas ambulat. Horatia
  in casa laborat. Mox Scintilla redit in casam
  intrat.

11
Quiz

• Who was tired?
• Who was hungry?
• Who fixed a meal?
• Why did the puella avide cenat?
• Where did Scintilla go?
• Where did Horatia work?

12
A Schwarz Lemma For Multivalued Functions and
Distortion Theorems for Bloch Functions with
Branch Points

• We give a version of the Schwarz lemma for
  multivalued mappings between hyperbolic plane
  regions. As in the original work of Nehari on
  this subject, the derivative must remain bounded
  near the branch points. Our version of the
  distance-decreasing principle represents a
  considerable strengthening of previous results.
  We apply it to the study of Bloch functions with
  the branch points of specified order. We obtain
  upper and lower estimates for f, an upper
  estimate for f, and a lower estimate for the
  radius of the largest schlicht disk in the image
  of f centered at f (0).

13
The Point?

• Reading comprehension is all about vocabulary and
  vocabulary is all about the background knowledge
  you have of the words before you read!

14
How is information stored?

• Background information is stored in networks
  associations of vocabulary tied together
• Information storage can be enhanced when visual
  materials are linked to language materials
  (pictures words) because it creates two paths
  to two different parts of the brain

15
Vocabulary and Intelligence

• Our experience is coded in the vocabulary we use
  to describe our world
• There is a strong relationship between our
  intelligence ability and our vocabulary

16
Vocabulary and Intelligence

• Did you know?
• Students taught by teachers with greater verbal
  ability learn more than those taught by teachers
  with lower verbal ability.
• (James Stronge, Qualities of Effective Teachers,
  2002)

17
Can we teach all the vocabulary?

• Students must learn many words from wide reading
  experiences (like Sustained Silent Reading) and
  teachers should be teaching context reading
  skills
• But teachers must teach specific and important
  words because context is not necessarily the best
  teacher of word meaning.

18
Learning New Words
19
Learning New Words

• floccinaucinihilipilification
• "I loved him for nothing so much as his
  floccinaucinihilipilification of money".
• floccinaucinal
• floccinaucity

20
Direct Vocabulary Instruction

• Teachers who utilize direct vocabulary
  instruction teach selected words which will have
  the greatest impact on learning the content.
• Direct vocabulary instruction utilizes six steps.

21
Step 1

• Teacher provides a description, example, or
  explanation of a new term.
• Descriptions are better than definitions
• Teaching word parts helps students

22
Step 2

• Students restate the description or explanation
  in their own words
• Word meanings are shaped by repeated exposures to
  the word over time

23
Step 3

• Students create a nonlinguistic representation of
  the term
• A pictorial (or kinesthetic, etc.) representation
  of the word creates another connection in the
  brain

24
Step 4

• Students do activities periodically to add to
  their knowledge of words
• Comparing vocabulary
• Classifying vocabulary
• Generating metaphors
• or analogies
• Revising descriptions of
• words over time
• Exploring roots, suffixes, and prefixes

25
Step 5

• Students must use the vocabulary in conversation
  with each other
• Discussion
• Shared writing activities

26
Step 6

• Students use the vocabulary terms in games
• Pictionary
• Charades
• Wheel-of-Fortune

27
Activity

• Create a list of words for a unit (real or
  imaginary)
• Write the descriptions of the words
• Make a nonlinguistic representation of each word
• Devise an activity for students to use the words
  in conversation
• Devise a game for students to use the words in
  play

28
Terms in Subject Areas
29
chaotic
confusing
dangerous
anarchy
lawless
unsafe
unruly
30
Vocabulary Circle Map
Word parts
Context
Section alism
East-west divisions in North Carolina represent
sectionalism.
Illustration
Regionalism Territorialism parochial
Sectionalism
Section Sectional Part segment
Strong loyalty to a region or section
Synonyms
Dictionary
Related Words