Transcript Document

The Power of Words
A Case for Vocabulary Development
What is word knowledge?
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Phonological (sounds/syllables)
Morphological (meaningful parts)
Orthographical (spelling patterns)
Meanings and Meaning networks
Syntactic roles
Etymological (linguistic history)
What we know from research
 Vocabulary knowledge is strongly
related to reading comprehension.
 If a word is decoded and pronounced,
but the meaning is not recognized,
comprehension is impared.
 Knowledge of a word’s meaning
facilitates accurate word recognition.
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(From the research of John Carroll, Jean CHall, et all 1970’s)
 Vocabulary is the best single measure
of verbal intelligence on the StanfordBinet or Wechler IQ tests.
 Teaching vocabulary improves both
verbal IQ and reading
comprehension.
 School age children learn, on average 3000
to 4000 word per year (Nagy/Anderson 1984,
Nagy/Herman 1987)
 In 4th and 5th grades, one million words of
running text contains 40,000 words which
will appear only once or twice, yet are
crucial to the passage meaning.
 Students will learn aproximately 2000-3000
of these word by learning them in context.
(Mary Bigler EMU)
 High knowledge 3rd graders have the
vocabulary about equal to the lowest
performing 12th graders.
 Literate high school graduates need
to know at least 60,000 words.
 The average student begins school with
only 5000 words. (Children of poverty begin
with THOUSANDS LESS oral vocabularies.)
 They need to learn about 4000 words a
year or 70 words a week to hit 60,000 by
12th grade.
 (That is 15 new words per day!)
 For the average student, it takes 14
exposures to learn and apply a word!!!
 Vocabulary workbooks expose children to
words out of context where re-exposure is
limited and words tend to stay in the short
term memory and are lost.
 So….how can students get the word base
knowledge? READ!
 If a child were to read a book a week, from
K to 12th grade, 1-1.5 million words would
be encountered through multiple exposures
to equal 40,000 words without explicit
instruction.
 Those 40,000 words, plus the 5000
the child entered school with, leaves
teachers with 15,000 words to teach.
 So reading large amounts of narrative
and informational text is the best
strategy to increasing vocabulary.
 One of the longest, most clearly
articulated lines of research concludes
a strong connection between the
vocabulary knowledge of the reader
and his/her ability to understand
what was read.
 So..it appears that the “best bang for
the buck” in vocabulary growth is to
spend time reading daily.
However, that said….
 Before the middle grades, children read
fewer words than they comprehend through
listening. (Their oral vocabulary outpace
their written vocabulary)
 After the middle grades, vocabulary
knowledge expands as a function of reading
itself, so more words are learned from
reading than from listening.
The widening gap..
 So it isn’t ironic that the middle
grades are where the struggling
reader falls grossly behind the
average reader.
 They are still struggling to read words
in their oral vocabulary when the
curriculum vocabulary expands
exponentially beyond.
 What can be done?
EXPOSURE TO RICH LANGUAGE
 Rich words provided in read-alouds
naturally expand vocabulary. (Even if
read by parent or teacher.)
 Children’s books have more varied
vocabulary than TV and adult
conversation.
 Adult reading matter contain 2-3
times RARER words than heard on TV.
Robert Marzano’s work
 There is a connection (Marzano’s calls them
synonymous) between background
knowledge and vocabulary development.
 Influence one and the other is also
influenced.
 This is very powerful since lack of
background knowledge is the number one
indicator of school success with children of
poverty.
Students also need:
 Multiple exposures to concepts and
their vocabularies assure the ideas
are not just one time episodes and
will get to long term memory.
 This can be done through Field trips
backed by reading and virtual trips
found on websites and educational
film.
Get away from the dictionary!
 Reading a definition does not tell us
how a word is actually used.
 Examples from context are needed to
infer the connotation and denotation
of the word.
 Dictionary definitions can be
truncated and incomplete.
 Being able to define a word is an end
result of knowing the word internally.
Consciously connect the new to the
known
 This is MAKING CONNECTIONS, the
comprehension skill, showing up once
again!
 When a child can connect new to
prior knowledge, information is
added, enlarged, changed. Meaning
is enhanced.
Consciously develop the vocabulary
with a CONCEPT.
 If a word doesn’t have a concept, then the
word doesn’t exist in that student’s mind.
The word is not public and knowledge
cannot be unveiled.
 Marzano’s 6 Step Process (follows) is based
on the understanding that a school or
district have consensus on academic
vocabulary necessary to complete concepts
taught.
1. Describe, explain, or give
example of term.
 First assess for prior knowledge. What do
your students know…or think they know
about term?
 Provide initial information on term via story,
experience, video, computer, investigation,
current event, picture….etc.
 KEY: YOU ARE NOT DEFINING TERM,
you are providing background
knowledge.
2. Ask for restatement of what you
just did in student’s own words.
 KEY: DO NOT LET THEM COPY
what you said. They must
internalize it with their own
words.
 If they are not showing
understanding , review Step 1.
 Ask them to write their restatement
in a journal (if they can’t write, ask
them to restate to a friend.)
3. Ask for a picture, symbol, or
graphic representing the term.
 Sometimes they can draw the actual
item, but more often they will need to
create a graphic picture or series of
pictures.
4. Engage students in activities
with term (periodic step).
 Look for its antonym, synonym,
prefix/suffix
 Language if origin….or the term in
another language.
 Related terms….etc.
5. Have students discuss terms
with one another. (periodic step)
 The act of speaking activates the
learning to deepen. It also engages
students in thinking about the term.
6. Engage students in games using
the terms (periodic step).
 Play helps students keep terms at the
forefront of their thinking and helps
they re-evaluate their thinking on the
meanings.
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Building Academic Vocabulary, Marzano, ASCD, 2005