Vocabulary Instruction

1
Vocabulary Instruction

• Timothy Shanahan
• University of Illinois at Chicago

2
The Vocabulary Challenge

• Vocabulary matters
• Vocabulary correlates to comprehension .66 to .75
  (Just Carpenter, 1975)
• The close correlation between vocabulary
  development at age 3 and reading comprehension in
  11th grade (Cunningham Stanovich, 1997)
• Comprehension comprises two skills vocabulary
  and reasoning (Davis, 1942, National Reading
  Panel, 2000).

3
The Vocabulary Challenge

• There are lots of words to learn
• Oxford English Dictionary
• 290,500 entries attempt to cover every word in
  use in the English language from the middle of
  the 12th century to present. Counting variant
  spellings, obsolete forms, combinations and
  derivatives the OED includes over 616,500 words

4
The Vocabulary Challenge

• More need to know words all the time
• English is the language of science and
  technology. It is adding more words, more rapidly
  than any other language.

5
Big discrepancies in vocabulary

• Hart Risley (2003) Home observations of 42
  families with for 2.5 years
• Children were 7 mos. old at beginning of study
• Welfare, working class, and average/upper class
  families
• Monthly hour long observations (1300 hours of
  observations)
• Findings

6
Hart Risley (cont.)

• Children used words their parents used
• Children used amounts of words that were related
  to their parents language use
• Childrens vocabulary learning at age 3 predicted
  their 4th grade school learning
• Huge differences

7
(No Transcript)
8
Weak school response

• Low vocabulary learning in school evidenced
  during the primary grade years (Biemiller, 2004)
  emphasis on decoding and sight vocabulary
  rather than word meaning and texts with lots of
  singletons (Hiebert, 2000)
• Studies show that children are slow to learn
  words by inference alone before the age of 10
  (Robbins Ehri, 1994)
• But low vocabulary children learn vocabulary as
  quickly as high vocabulary children (in school)

9
Inadequacy of oral experience
10
The tragedy

• Children from low income families who make strong
  initial gains in reading, slump in reading in the
  intermediate grades
• This slump does not affect math (so this isnt
  IQ)
• Low readers generally know fewer words than good
  readers, but learn new words at a similar rate to
  good readers

11
Which words do we teach?

• Tier One high frequency words that rarely
  require instruction in school at least for
  children who are native speakers of English.
• Examples cat, dog, clock, baby, shoe, floor,

12
Which words do we teach?

• Tier Two words that occur so infrequently that
  they require teaching, but so often that they are
  useful in a variety of contexts.
• Examples ordinary, reluctant, insist, pleasant,
  scrumptious, famished, dazzling, gloomy, strange,
  exhausted, amusing, nuisance, etc.

13
Which words do we teach?

• Tier Three low frequency words that are used
  primarily in particular domains and must be
  taught by content teachers.
• Examples phoneme, coarticulation, isotope,
  rhombus, trapezoid, etc.

14
Vocabulary in reading
15
Vocabulary teaching principles

• Deep definitions
• Intensive and varied repetition
• Connections among words
• All modes of language
• Personal connections
• Review over time
• Teach word-learning strategies

16
1. Deep definitions

• Definition
• Synonym
• Antonym
• Category
• Picture (or symbol)
• Comparison
• Example
• Act it out

17
Learning math vocabulary

• Word______________________________
• Illustration
• 3. Math Definition_______________________________
  __________________
• __________________________________________________
  ______________
• 4. General Definition___________________________
  ___________________
• __________________________________________________
  ______________
• 5. Synonym_____________________
• 6. Antonym_____________________
• 7. Group it belongs to___________________________
  __________________
• 8. Example_______________________________________
  _______________
• 9. Comparison Contrast _______________________
  is like
• ____________________, but is different
  because______________________
• 10. Analogy _____________________ is to
  ___________________ as
• _________________________ is to
  _________________________.

18
Freyer Model
19
Four-square concept chart
20
Concept of definition
21
2. Intensive and varied repetition

• Four repetitions has no impact on learning
• 12 repetitions improve learning

22
3. Teach connections

• Semantic maps and feature analysis
• Teaching sets of words
• Building connections
• Comparisons

23
Semantic Map
24
Semantic Feature Analysis
25
Becks Word Lines

• How much energy does it take to . . .
• 1. meander down the hall?
• 2. vault over a car?
• 3. banter with your best friend for an hour?
• 4. berate someone at the top of your voice?
• 5. stalk a turtle?
• Least ------------------------------------------Mo
  st
• Energy
  Energy

26
4. All modes of language

• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking
• Listening
• Pictorial
• Kinesthetic

27
5. Personal connections

• Personal examples
• Word wizards
• Word consciousness

28
6. Review over time

• Review schedule
• Retesting

29
7. Teach word-learning strategies

• Dictionaries and reference books
• Context clues
• Morphological analysis

30
Prefixes

• un- (not) 26
• re- (again) 40
• in- im- ir- il- (not) 51
• dis- (apart, negative) 58
• en- em- (put into or on) 62
• non- (not) 66
• in- im- (in) 69
• over- (over, more) 72
• mis- (wrong, bad) 75

31
Suffixes

• -s es plural 31
• -ed past tense 51
• -ing 65
• -ly 72
• -er or agent 76

32
Vocabulary Schedule

• Monday Introduce words
• Tuesday Teach deep meanings and connections
• Wednesday Teach deep meanings and connections
• Thursday Drill and practice
• Friday Assessment

33
Second-language learners

• Explicit vocabulary teaching is even more
  important
• Tier 1 words may need to be taught
• Students are more likely to know the concept, but
  not the word
• Pictures more useful
• Same kinds of techniques, but with adjustments

34
Vocabulary Instruction

• Timothy Shanahan
• University of Illinois at Chicago