If we want to promote comprehension we must strive to convey academic vocabulary in every subject area throughout the day, and at every grade level. The specific term academic word does not refer to domain-specific vocabulary like photosynthesis or decimal. An academic word is often the scholarly counterpart to a high-frequency common word. For example, the verb show is a common word but demonstrate is academic. Academic words are often abstract and slippery, not concrete. We encounter academic words less frequently but they are certainly not rare, and furthermore, they appear across subject areas, especially after third grade. Another example is shown in the picture to the left. The word find is academic as used here; students may know that find has the primary meaning of 'locate' but to carry out this task they must also understand its academic denotation. In daily conversation, educators can easily insert an academic word for a common word to help students become familiar with it. Slightly and gradually segue to an academic register when speaking and listening. This vocabulary transition might begin in kindergarten:
- You may
getobtain a pencil - It was a
badsevere storm - Let's
meetgather, assemble, convene or congregate in the library
Academic words abound in cross-curricular texts and assessments. If unknown, they present a tremendous obstacle to comprehension (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). Even if students understand the subject matter they can be confounded by scholarly language, as humorously depicted above. Academic words often create a lexical bar, separating the word-savvy from the word-weary and disenfranchised (Corson, 1984). Teachers can help at-risk learners surmount the bar if they persevere together. It's a worthy goal but not quickly met.
Academic Word List. Research in Applied Linguistics by Averil Coxhead led to the AWL (Academic Word List) of 570 words. These are the most frequently encountered academic words found in texts across disciplines of study in secondary and tertiary school. Each word represents a morphological family of words, so analysis includes analytical, analyze and analyst, for example. Conveying words in families clustered around the same root should promote morphological awareness as well as vocabulary. The AWL has ten sublists ordered by frequency; sublist 1 contains the academic words most frequently encountered. Word families from sublists 1- 5 should apply fairly well to grades 6-8 and sublists 6-10 should apply to high school and beyond. See the good doctor's tips for using the AWL. The AWL may be especially helpful for learning English as a second language because many of these words can be recognized as a Spanish-English cognate (sample cognates). Explore the Spanish Cognates Dictionary from Latin America Links or translate with the the multilingual Woxicon.
More AWL resources: Visit the University of Nottingham for Sandra Haywood's useful AWL resources, including the AWL Gapmaker, the AWL Highlighter, and the Concordance. These three tools have potential utility for developing and assessing academic vocabulary. From Harvard University, explore Catherine Snow's Word Generation resources for developing academic language. Finally, explore Gerry Luton's AWL exercises and assessments through the the University of Victoria. All of these resources can potentially be used to good effect in a learning atmosphere that includes vocabulary-pertinent peer discussions as well as practice in correctly articulating longer words as modeled by the teacher.
Again, wait not for high waters. Use academic words in primary grade conversations and instructions. Prepare the soil, so to speak. If the children can understand the concept behind the word, they can understand the word. If they can understand make they can understand generate, produce, and create. By all means, speak UP.
Finally, April Fool's Day is just around the corner, but don't let anyone capitalize on your credulity. Don't credit everything you hear! See derivations constructed with the Latin root cred meaning 'to trust, to believe' (more derivations here, see all four pages). I promise, this is no fool's errand; the root cred is worth teaching because most of its derivations are, in fact, (you guessed it) academic words! In fact, Butler et al. (2004) determined that many of the academic words in fifth-grade content-domain texts are derivations, especially with respect to science.
Academic Word List. Research in Applied Linguistics by Averil Coxhead led to the AWL (Academic Word List) of 570 words. These are the most frequently encountered academic words found in texts across disciplines of study in secondary and tertiary school. Each word represents a morphological family of words, so analysis includes analytical, analyze and analyst, for example. Conveying words in families clustered around the same root should promote morphological awareness as well as vocabulary. The AWL has ten sublists ordered by frequency; sublist 1 contains the academic words most frequently encountered. Word families from sublists 1- 5 should apply fairly well to grades 6-8 and sublists 6-10 should apply to high school and beyond. See the good doctor's tips for using the AWL. The AWL may be especially helpful for learning English as a second language because many of these words can be recognized as a Spanish-English cognate (sample cognates). Explore the Spanish Cognates Dictionary from Latin America Links or translate with the the multilingual Woxicon.
More AWL resources: Visit the University of Nottingham for Sandra Haywood's useful AWL resources, including the AWL Gapmaker, the AWL Highlighter, and the Concordance. These three tools have potential utility for developing and assessing academic vocabulary. From Harvard University, explore Catherine Snow's Word Generation resources for developing academic language. Finally, explore Gerry Luton's AWL exercises and assessments through the the University of Victoria. All of these resources can potentially be used to good effect in a learning atmosphere that includes vocabulary-pertinent peer discussions as well as practice in correctly articulating longer words as modeled by the teacher.
Again, wait not for high waters. Use academic words in primary grade conversations and instructions. Prepare the soil, so to speak. If the children can understand the concept behind the word, they can understand the word. If they can understand make they can understand generate, produce, and create. By all means, speak UP.
Finally, April Fool's Day is just around the corner, but don't let anyone capitalize on your credulity. Don't credit everything you hear! See derivations constructed with the Latin root cred meaning 'to trust, to believe' (more derivations here, see all four pages). I promise, this is no fool's errand; the root cred is worth teaching because most of its derivations are, in fact, (you guessed it) academic words! In fact, Butler et al. (2004) determined that many of the academic words in fifth-grade content-domain texts are derivations, especially with respect to science.
Click image 2x to enlarge.
PS. I have inserted page 59 from NTC's Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins (1997, pp. 59-60). NTC gives cred as the 'common root' of credere and spells it cred. At the bottom of the image I list additional sources naming cred as the root. Many sources, like NTC, include credo, creed, and credenza in the family of words denoting 'believe, trust.' However, perhaps the spelling should be crede (see comments).- Butler, F. A., Bailey, A. L., Stevens, R., Huang, B., & Lord, C. (2004). Academic English in fifth-grade mathematics, science, and social studies textbooks. CSE report 642. Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE)/National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Retrieved 7-2-09 from www.csa.com.
- Corson, D.J. (1984) The lexical bar: Lexical change from 12 to 15 years measured by social class, region and ethnicity. British Educational Research Journal 10(2), 115-133.
- RAND Reading Study Group. (2002). Reading for understanding: Towards an R & D program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
