Transcript Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary Instruction
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How We Learn New Words
Firsthand experience with the concept is directly
related to reading comprehension
 Experience is a better predictor of reading
comprehension ability than just knowing the
meaning of words and being able to do well on
vocabulary tests
 Experience helps to develop schema better than
just knowledge of a word
 Vocabulary aptitude is a trainable skill
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Principles for Effective
Vocabulary Instruction
Learned best through direct, hands-on experience
Both definitions and context should be offered
 teach basic definition or information that helps
determine the connections of the new word to
known words
 understand the importance of context for
knowing the correct and intended meaning of a
word (50 definitions for run)
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Principles for Effective
Vocabulary Instruction
3. Must include a depth of learning component as
well as a breadth of word knowledge
 Association processing—through synonyms
and word associations
 Comprehension processing—fitting a word into
a sentence blank, classifying the word with
other words, finding antonyms
 Generation processing—creating a new or
novel product such as restatement of the
definition, using in a novel sentence, relating it
to a personal experience
CAUTION: creating own sentences must be done with
care—students need to demonstrate real understanding of
the word and use it in its proper grammatical form
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Principles for Effective
Vocabulary Instruction
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4. Students need to have multiple
exposures to new reading vocabulary
words
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Some studies suggest as many as 6 exposures
necessary to be able to recognize and learn
any new words
Listening vocabulary exceeds reading
vocabulary for a long time
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Which words do we teach?
Language or Text Source
Number of “rare”
(uncommon) words per
1,000 words
Adult speech (such as expert
testimony)
28.4
Adult speech (college graduates to
friends)
17.3
Prime time adult television
22.7
Mister Rogers/Sesame Street
2.0
Children’s books--preschool
16.3
Children’s books--elementary
30.9
Comic books
53.5
Popular magazines
65.7
Newspapers
68.3
Adult books
52.7
Scientific article abstracts
128.0
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Words should have:
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High utility—usefulness
Facilitate concept development
Contribute to greater spelling and
orthographic knowledge
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Strategies for teaching vocabulary in
Chapter 7 worth knowing:
Predict-O-gram (p. 236)—using words from the
story to be read and placing them under the
appropriate story grammar part to work on
meaning and prediction
 Word Banks (p. 229) and Word Cards (p. 237)—to
review new words by writing them on cards with
various explanations, pictures, examples to assist
 Semantic Maps (p. 238) and Semantic Feature
Analysis (p. 239)—to assist in constructing new
schema by categorizing and establishing
relationships of words with their features
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Strategies for teaching vocabulary in Chapter
7 of Reutzel and Cooter worth knowing:
Making Words (p. 238-241)—to improve phonetic
understanding of words and increasing number of
words recognized in print
 Encouraging wide reading (p. 249)—one of the
best ways to increase vocabulary but not highly
valued in reading standards
 Studying different types of word functions (p.
253-257)—antonyms, synonyms, euphemisms,
onomatopoeia and other creative words
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