Making Words Stick: A Phonics-Plus Approach to Word Study

Unless they consider meaning, children are prone to forget the words they decoded last week--or indeed, only yesterday. As described further below, we must go beyond phonics to make words memorable. We might help children consider several aspects of a word:

Phonology: The sounds that make up the word. For example, cat has three sounds,  /k/  /a/  /t/ and catch has three sounds, /k/  /a/  /ch/, but brush has four sounds,  /b/  /r/  /u/  /sh/.

Orthography: The letters that represent the sounds and the word, how to spell it.

Morphology: The internal structure of words, including knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, roots and base words. This also includes knowledge of compound words like doghouse, swing set, and self-esteem and linguistic blends where words are smashed together, as in brunch and Vocabulogic.

Semantics: Word meaning, and meaning as a function of context, and also conveyed through a definition (a simple definition is best for children).

Syntax: The grammatical function of the word, how to use it in a sentence.

Berninger, Abbot, Nagy, and Carlisle (2010) argue that there are three types of linguistic insight at work in primary grades and that all three are essential for learning to read: phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA) and orthographic awareness (OA). In a longitudinal study that lasted several years, they measured growth in PA, OA, MA, and vocabulary knowledge across children in grades 1-6.  What did they discover? Their study showed that PA growth tends to taper off by the end of third grade for many children, OA continues to grow a bit beyond third grade, and MA grows rapidly from first grade through third grade, and then it continues to grow through sixth grade, at least. In measuring vocabulary growth, Berninger and her colleagues found that upper elementary students who have an understanding of derivational morphology are more likely to develop a larger vocabulary, compared to peers who do not, at least implicitly, understand how suffixes influence part of speech (e.g., words that end with the suffix -ness are usually abstract nouns, as in sadness, happiness, peacefulness).  Learn more about syntax at Derivations and Syntax.

Likewise, in their research with children in England, Bryant, Nunes, and Bindman (1997) determined that phonology is necessary but not sufficient for learning to read; morphology and orthography are also necessary. 

Along these lines, Wolf (2007) uses the acronym POSSM to suggest that if we help children integrate  phonology, orthography, semantics, syntax, and morphology, we make reading and writing more "possible" for students. We teach words in such a way that children integrate information from the various linguistic domains. Thus, the word is more likely to be established in memory.

Implications and Lesson Ideas for Teachers: 
What does this type of integrated word study look like? This blog is filled with ideas (especially see posts by Peter Bowers). Here are some brief examples:

If children try to decode tripod as trip + od, they could be prompted to look for a prefix. If the context includes a picture, the teacher could help the child see the three legs on the tripod. Children need to know the prefix tri- (and they eventually might learn that pod denotes 'foot', as in podiatrist).

If children spell the word dealt d-e-l-t, they may not explicitly realize that dealt "comes from" deal; it is the past tense of deal. This involves morphology and semantics, as well as syntax. Tell children that when they spell dealt, they should make sure it still contains the word deal, and the letters d-e-a-l, even though the vowel sound has shifted, from "long e" in deal to "short e" in dealt. (This within-word spelling applies also to heal--health and steal--stealth, BUT not to feel--felt or keep--kept.)

When teaching children to decode or "sound out" words that contain the er spelling pattern, as in sister and blister, also teach them that -er can be a suffix, and that it denotes 'one who' as in singer, or 'something that' as in toaster, or 'more'  as in faster.  Have children sort words, deciding whether a word contains the prefix -er or simply the meaningless spelling pattern er, as in sister, blister, her and butter. (For more ideas, see The Slippery Suffix -er.)

When teaching children to decode words that contain the "short u sound" as in fun, hug, puff, also teach them the prefix un-, and that it means 'not or opposite' as in unlock etc.  If they cannot read long words, such as unbreakable or unbelievable, deliver the lesson verbally. Also, teachers could read the picture book Fortunately, by Remy Charlip, to introduce the prefix un-. Here is an excerpt:

"Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.

Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.

Fortunately, he borrowed an airplane.

Unfortunately, the motor exploded."

Help children form morphological families. For example, help them brainstorm words that "come from" sun, such as sunny, sunnier, sunshine, suntan, etc. (but NOT sunken). If children are not yet ready to read these words, the lesson is conveyed orally. (Click image to enlarge or download.)


Play "Will the Real Prefix Please Stand Up!" For example, after teaching children  the prefix re-, say a word in context. Students stand up and shout the word if it contains the prefix re-. If not, they remain seated. Then, depending on the grade level and/or the level of literacy, they write the word in the appropriate column of a two-column chart, as shown below. This game can be played with a variety of prefixes and suffixes (e.g., un-, pre-, tri-, -er, -ish, -est, etc.).

     Will the Real Prefix Please Stand Up!

(Teacher says)	Prefix re-	No prefix
Retell. I will retell the story.	retell
Reheat. Did you reheat the soup?	reheat
Read. Let's read a book!		read
Replay. Watch the football replay.	replay
Rested. Six kittens rested on a rug.		rested

Phonology and phonics are not enough to make words "stick" in the mental lexicon. Meaning is needed. Help children examine words in terms of morphology, orthography, and phonology, along with context and semantics. This is especially needful for students who experience reading difficulties.

References:

• Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Nagy, W., & Carlisle, J. (2010).Growth in phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness in grades 1 to 6. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 141–163.
• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000).
  Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754).Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 
• Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Bindman, M. (1997). Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 637-649.
• Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New York: Harper

Supporting Early Vocabulary Development within an RTI Framework (Coyne)

This post is courtesy of Michael Coyne, associate professor in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut and a Research Scientist at the Center for Behavioral Education and Research. His research on beginning reading and early vocabulary instruction and intervention is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Michael is a former special educator in public schools. His publications include a useful guide for teachers:  Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate Diverse Learners.  

RTI Supports

Schools are increasingly implementing response to intervention (RTI) or tiered systems of support in an attempt to more effectively and efficiently meet the beginning reading needs of all students, especially those students who are at risk for experiencing learning difficulties. Although there are many different components associated with RTI supports, central features include a) consistent high quality classroom, or Tier I, instruction, b) universal screening of all students using measures that are predictive of response to Tier I instruction, and 3) small group intensive, or Tier II, intervention that supplements classroom instruction for students identified as at-risk by screening measures (National Center on Response to Intervention, 2010).

Tiered intervention approaches provide a powerful framework for supporting student learning and practices associated with RTI have evidence of accelerating student achievement (Gersten et al., 2009). To date, however, the vast majority of RTI efforts have focused on increasing students’ beginning reading skills (e.g., phonemic awareness, alphabetic knowledge, decoding). We believe, however, that the field needs to think beyond decoding to how we can support other areas of early literacy, such as vocabulary development, within an RTI approach (Coyne et al., 2010).

Over the last six years we have been engaged in a program of research dedicated to developing and evaluating instructional strategies to support kindergarteners’ vocabulary development. Our approach to instruction includes directly teaching target vocabulary within storybook reading activities (Coyne, McCoach, & Kapp, 2007; Coyne et al., 2009). Key features of our instructional approach include, (a) supporting vocabulary development within oral language experiences, (b) providing students with multiple exposures to target vocabulary across varied contexts, and (c) encouraging students to process words deeply through rich and extended discussions (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). As our research has progressed, we have learned a great deal about both the benefits of providing vocabulary instruction and intervention to young students as well as the challenges of supporting those students who are most at risk for language and literacy difficulties.

Classroom Vocabulary Instruction

In one of our initial studies we investigated the efficacy of providing extended classroom vocabulary instruction to kindergarten students within the context of storybook reading activities (Coyne et al., 2010). A total of 123 kindergarten students across three schools with high populations of at-risk learners participated in the 18-week study. In the extended instruction group, classroom teachers implemented vocabulary activities during whole class instruction. Each vocabulary word was introduced within the context of a storybook reading and reinforced in postreading activities that promoted extended dialogic interactions with the words. Our primary finding was that students who received the extended vocabulary instruction outperformed their peers who did not receive the instruction on both proximal measures of target word knowledge (assessing knowledge of the taught words) as well as transfer measures of generalized language and literacy.

Differential Response to Classroom Vocabulary Instruction

We were also interested in whether the classroom vocabulary instruction was more beneficial for some students than for others. We knew that many children enter school with limited experience with language and literacy (Hart & Risley, 1995) and that overall vocabulary knowledge measured prior to the start of instruction often predicts students’ response to instruction (e.g., Coyne et al., 2009; Penno Wilkinson, & Moore, 2002), so we examined the relationship between students’ initial receptive vocabulary and our outcome measures. We found that initial receptive vocabulary measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was strongly related to posttest performance on all of our measures. In other words, students with higher initial PPVT scores learned significantly more vocabulary from the classroom vocabulary instruction than those students with lower initial scores and the magnitude of this differential response was striking. Tier 1 vocabulary instruction by itself, therefore, seemed insufficient to close the vocabulary gap among students, and, in fact, may have helped to widen it.

Supplemental Vocabulary Intervention

These findings highlighted the limitations of implementing only whole class, or Tier 1, vocabulary instruction and motivated a new direction in our research. We began to recognize the need to conceptualize vocabulary supports within a multitier or RTI approach. We wanted to investigate the benefits of Tier 2 vocabulary intervention designed to supplement classroom-based vocabulary instruction for those students identified as most at risk for language and learning difficulties based on universal screening (Loftus et al., 2010). We were also interested in the feasibility of schools providing RTI vocabulary supports in authentic settings using existing resources and personnel.

In our most recent study (Coyne et al., 2011), a new group of 20 kindergarten classroom teachers across seven schools that served large numbers of students at risk for learning difficulties implemented Tier 1 vocabulary instruction using Elements of Reading: Vocabulary, a widely available evidence-based vocabulary program, based on the work of Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown (2007). We worked with all students during whole class instruction for 15–20 minutes per day, 5 days per week, over the course of the school year. All kindergarten students were screened in the fall with the PPVT to identify students who were most in need of supplemental vocabulary support (approximately 3–6 students per class). These students received Tier 2 small-group vocabulary intervention in addition to the classroom instruction for 15–20 minutes per day, 4 days per week. We designed the supplemental Tier 2 intervention to provide more explicit instruction with many opportunities for individual responses followed by immediate corrective feedback. The Tier 2 instruction was provided by school-based personnel (e.g., teachers, paraprofessionals, specialists).

We analyzed our data using a regression-discontinuity approach, which allowed us to estimate the benefit of the Tier 2 intervention for those students who were identified as at risk for not responding to the Tier 1 instruction by itself. Overall, we found that the at-risk students experienced statistically significantly greater vocabulary learning than would have been predicted if they had received only Tier 1 classroom support. Most importantly, the at-risk students who received Tier 2 intervention learned target vocabulary equally as well, on average, as their not-at-risk peers.

In summary, when we screened students on a measure that is predictive of the response to Tier 1 vocabulary instruction and provided at-risk students with supplemental supports, their word learning was comparable to their not-at-risk peers. At least for the target words, we were able to substantially counteract the vocabulary learning gap. However, these gains came as the result of a sizeable investment in instructional time and resources. Students received double the amount of instructional dosage (4 hours versus 2 hours per week) and received intervention in small groups of 3–4 that required allocating additional staff time.

Implications

The need for early intervention and prevention efforts in early literacy extends beyond supporting students’ code-based skills. We know that students enter kindergarten with “meaningful differences” in vocabulary knowledge (Hart & Risley, 1995), and these differences grow larger over time even as vocabulary knowledge becomes more and more critical to reading success (Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). Moreover, although there is growing evidence that classroom-based, vocabulary instruction that is direct and extended supports learning, it is not equally effective for all students. Therefore, we believe that schools should conceptualize vocabulary instruction and intervention within an RTI or multitier approach. It is only with supplemental intervention at high levels of intensity that students at risk of language and literacy difficulties will make progress that will allow them to begin to decrease, or even intercept, the vocabulary differences between them and their peers who are not at risk. 

A note from the editor: This post summarizes research findings and teaching tips reported in Coyne, Capozzoli, Ware, and Loftus (2010). For more details, read the entire article. In addition, several guest authors have discussed ways to help young children develop vocabulary. In the sidebar, under Posts by Guest Authors, see entries by Biemiller, Cavanaugh, Graves, and Paulson. For suggestions on how to help impoverished or undereducated parents become partners in early literacy development, read the post by Michele Berg.

References

• Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2007). Increasing young low-income children’s oral vocabulary repertoires through rich and focused instruction. Elementary School Journal, 107, 251–271.
• Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford.
• Biemiller, A., & Slonim, N. (2001). Estimating root word vocabulary growth in normative and advantaged populations: Evidence for a common sequence of vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 498–520.
•  Coyne, M. D., Capozzoli, A., Ware, S., & Loftus, S. (2010) Beyond RTI for Decoding: Supporting Early Vocabulary Development within a Multitier Approach to Instruction and Intervention. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 18-21.
• Coyne, M. D. (2011, July). Supporting early vocabulary development within a multi-tier approach to instruction and intervention: A regression discontinuity study. Paper accepted at the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading Annual Conference.
• Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., Loftus, S., Zipoli, R., Ruby, M., Crevecoeur, Y. & Kapp, S. (2010). Direct & Extended Vocabulary Instruction in Kindergarten: Investigating Transfer Effects. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3, 93-120.
• Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., Loftus, S., Zipoli, R., & Kapp, S. (2009). Direct vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: Teaching for breadth vs. depth. Elementary School Journal 110, 1–18.
• Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., & Kapp, S. (2007). Vocabulary intervention for kindergarten students:Comparing extended instruction with embedded instruction and incidental exposure. Learning Disabilities Quarterly, 30, 74–88.
• Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C. M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., et al. (2009). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to intervention and multi-tier intervention for reading in the primary grades. A practice guide (NCEE 2009-4045). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved March 31, 2011 from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/practiceguides/rti_reading_pg_021809.pdf
• Hart, B., & Risley, R. T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
• Loftus, S., Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., Zipoli, R., & Pullen, P. (2010). Effects of a supplemental vocabulary intervention on the word knowledge of kindergarten students at-risk for language and literacy difficulties. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 25, 124-136.
• National Center on Response to Intervention (March 2010). Essential Components of RTI – A Closer Look at Response to Intervention. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Response to Intervention.
• Penno, J. F., Wilkinson, I. A. G., & Moore, D. W. (2002). Vocabulary acquisition from teacher explanation and repeated listening to stories: Do they overcome the Matthew Effect? Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 23–33.