Five-Day Plan for Developing Breadth of Vocabulary via Storybook Reading

This post builds on the prior post, which described how to use storybook reading to build depth of word knowledge. The upcoming third -- and final-- post in the storybook-reading series will describe how to use a method called "Dialogic Reading" to promote language, knowledge, and vocabulary (see published post by Jaci Urbani, Ph.D.).

Today, I describe a research-tested method for using storybooks to develop breadth of word knowledge so young children might learn many meanings relatively quickly, but not deeply. At the least, children need to be able to recognize a word when they hear it and understand its most common and least abstract meaning. Learning many meanings quickly but fairly superficially is an important goal, especially when the students know drastically fewer words than their peers. Children must rapidly develop a broad vocabulary, learning many meanings partially, yet well enough to get the gist of a variety of texts. (Sounds awfully tricky, but the brain was born for this! Language comes naturally to most of us and will flourish if carefully fostered in a word-rich learning environment.)

To learn more about the difference between partial knowledge and more complete mastery of word meanings in elementary grades, see Words Worth Teaching: Closing the Vocabulary Gap (Biemiller, 2010). This book is also an excellent resource when considering which words to teach (and see Fisher and Frey’s post on word selection).

Five-day plan for teaching vocabulary via storybook reading: This plan is based on Biemiller and Boote (2006) and on recent conversations with Dr. Biemiller. The goal is to teach many word meanings quickly and superficially. Thirty minutes per day were allocated for each lesson. Students were taught about 25-30 word meanings per week.

This plan is only a guide. Various factors need be considered, including the grade level and verbal proficiency of the students, the complexity of the target words, and the appeal of the story itself (who wants to hear a boring story four times?). As to that, Biemiller and Boote found that repeating the same story four times resulted in a larger effect size in kindergarten, compared to second grade.

At any rate, here is the basic five-day plan:

Day 1: If necessary, preteach one or two key concepts to enable comprehension of the story. For example, Biemiller and Boote (2006) pretaught circus before reading Clifford at the Circus. Prior to reading the story, 30% of the kindergartners were unfamiliar with the concept. Afterwards, 100% of them demonstrated an understanding of circus.

Read the story once without stopping. Then ask some basic comprehension questions, but do not teach any word meanings.

Day 2: Read the story again, stopping to briefly explain about 7-10 words. New comprehension questions are raised after reading. Word meanings taught that day are reviewed again after reading.

Day 3: Read the story again, stopping to briefly explain about 7-10 more words. New comprehension questions are raised after reading. Word meanings taught that day are reviewed again after reading. (Based on study 2 by Biemiller and Boote, and recent conversations with Biemiller, I suggest teachers briefly review all taught words.)

Day 4: Read the story again, stopping to briefly explain about 7-10 more words. New comprehension questions are raised after reading. Word meanings taught that day are reviewed again after reading.

Day 5: Briefly review all word meanings learned thus far. Informally assess learning. Provide each word in a different context (not context lifted from the story), perhaps asking students to respond with their thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Look for partial understanding of the meaning.

Interpreting your assessment results: Expect students to remember only about one-third to one-half of the words taught, at most, even if the meanings are reviewed cumulatively. In the second part of the study by Biemiller and Boote (2006), the teachers recommended adding more review to the methodology. Biemiller and Boote agreed with the modified procedure, so the teachers folded more review into the lessons. Thus, children learned and remembered about one-half of the words that were unknown to them, according to the pretest, on average. However, in other studies, children have learned and remembered only about one third of the taught words--sometimes not even that many.

Validate children for a job well done if they learn and remember only one-third to one-half of the words taught, because even in fairly optimal research conditions, the average child does not perform better.

Days 6 to… Revisit words in subsequent weeks and months, in varied context. Biemiller and Boote (2006) have found that retention of learned vocabulary was even greater six weeks after instruction. Why was retention greater six weeks later, when typically we forget things over time? Was the initial instruction successful enough so the children could continue to add to their lexical understanding through new context they encountered? Did the teachers continue to use the words in meaningful context? We do not know why the average child knew more meanings six weeks later, but this is certainly a happy finding!

Below, I provide an excerpt from Biemiller and Boote (2006). They discuss how many times to read a book, by grade level, and how each new reading provides another opportunity to learn more word meanings.

How Many Times Should Texts Be Reread?
In Grades 1 and 2, the percentage of meanings learned was about the same when books were read twice as when books were read four times (Study 1). (In kindergarten, reading books several times was more effective and is generally welcomed by children.) However, more word meanings can be taught in a week if the same book is read four times rather than two times. This is because different word meanings are taught on each of three readings rather than one. … The present method was effective, but the issue of repeated reading procedures requires more research. (p. 55)

Book selection: It is important to begin by selecting a suitable and captivating book. Suggestions for selecting books are discussed in the prior post and in Preschool: Where the Wild Words Are.  Biemiller and Boote (2006) used the following books, recommended by the classroom teachers and the school librarian.

Kindergarten

There Is More, Much More (Alexander, 1987)
Mud (Ray, 1996)
Something From Nothing (Gilman, 1992)
Clifford at the Circus (Bridwell, 1985)
Jillian Jiggs (Gilman, 1977)

Grade 1

Going Down the Road (Schertle, 1995)
The Seashore Book (Zolotow, 1992)
The Tree That Grew to the Moon (Fernandes, 1994)
Julian (Khalsa, 1989)

Grade 2

Drac and the Gremlin (Baillie & Tanner, 1991)
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (Lionni, 1969)
Brenda and Edward (Kovalski, 1984)
The Chicken Cat (McLellan, 2000)

References:

Biemiller, A. (2010). Words worth teaching: Closing the vocabulary gap. Columbus, OH: SRA/McGraw-Hill.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 (1), 44-62.

How to Read Aloud to Children to Optimize Vocabulary Growth

One established way to promote vocabulary is by reading aloud to children. Educators, including librarians and parents, are encouraged to read to children at every age, beginning in infancy. Children's books often contain rich and savory vocabulary. As shown on the chart, Hayes and Ahrens (1988) examined the words used in varied types of content. They found that, compared to the recorded conversations of college students, children's books contained nearly twice as many rare or infrequently used words. The vocabulary used in children's books also far exceeded that of television programs.

Click to enlarge chart.

What should we read to children?
This varies by age and child, but strive for variety: Read fiction and nonfiction, prose and poetry, news articles, etc. Select materials that offer some unknown words and/or concepts. Younger children tend to benefit from narrative storybooks with a fairly predictable story grammar (e.g., "Once upon a time" or something similar). It is also beneficial to read nonfiction in early childhood, including books about dinosaurs or types of locomotives, for example. Select captivating children's books that contain rich vocabulary (see Where the Wild Words Are by Lucy Hart Paulson).

Also, when selecting books, bear in mind that children come to school with vastly different prior experiences with stories, based largely on the culture and language of the home. This question was explored in a previous Vocabulogic survey. Visit Twiigs Poll  to view the closed survey: "Collectively Shared Cultural Literacy and the Movie Industry."

How often and for how long should we read to children?
Read to children every day, if possible. For how long? That varies by the attention span of the child, the interest level of the child, and the competing priorities of the day. Perhaps we should strive for a minimum of 15 minutes each day. Does that sound reasonable?

Can children learn a new word from only one exposure to it?
Yes, children can learn a new word through only one exposure to it as a process called “fast mapping” takes place (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). Children mentally "map" the new word to a superficial and context-specific understanding. Fast mapping does not result in depth of knowledge, but learning does occur, and in a natural manner, through conversations or storybook reading, for example. If the child does not hear the word again within a reasonable time, it is probably forgotten. 

Do children learn words if the book is only read once?

Yes, reading a story only once to children results in word learning. This is good! However, the effect size tends to be small, the knowledge less robust, and the words are more quickly forgotten. In addition, children do not tend to learn the words well enough to produce them themselves via writing or speaking (see Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011). Word knowledge is typically receptive, not productive.

How can we improve the likelihood that, by reading aloud to children, words will be learned more deeply and remembered longer? 
Even though researchers are still debating how children learn words from read-alouds, and they take different theoretical positions, they tend to agree on three big ideas:

1) In general, reading aloud to children results in more lasting vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week. However, this varies by grade level. Repeating the same story four times has resulted in a larger effect size in kindergarten, compared to second grade (Biemiller & Boote, 2006).

2) In general, reading aloud to children results in deeper and more lasting vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week AND we directly teach the meaning of targeted words by paraphrasing them or briefly defining them at point of use in the text.

Note: Read the entire story without stopping, the first time, to better ensure enjoyment and to avoid disrupting the train of thought or losing track of the main ideas of the story. During subsequent readings, stop to briefly explain or paraphrase target words. 

3) In general, reading aloud to children results in deeper, more lasting, and more productive vocabulary growth if we read the book more than once in the same week AND we directly but briefly teach target words at point of use in the text AND we follow this with interactive word study (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011.)

Should we preteach a few words BEFORE we read the text to the class? 
Depending on the student's background knowledge, we may need to preteach one or two key words. Often, an understanding of a specific concept is required if the listener is to understand the piece. For example, in a kindergarten lesson, Biemiller and Boote (2006) taught circus before reading Clifford at the Circus. Preteaching key concepts is a practice that applies to every grade level and every subject area (see post by Joan Sedita).

How might we quickly teach word meanings DURING the read-aloud?
There are a number of ways to directly teach word meanings while in the midst of reading to children. Perhaps the simplest is through the use of paraphrasing. When reading aloud at any grade level, teachers paraphrase a word to ensure students understand it. This takes only a moment. For example: “Once upon a time a lass (a girl) lived with her grandmother in a cottage (a small house)." After paraphrasing, reread the sentence, but without the scaffold: "Once upon a time a lass lived with her grandmother in a cottage."

How might we help children interact with target words AFTER the read-aloud, to develop depth of knowledge and productive use of the words? What does interactive, responsive, engaging word study look like?
In follow-up lessons after the story has been read at least once, provide ways for children to engage with the word in contexts other than the story.  Help them create semantic connections and build networks of related words and concepts. For example, if children are taught the concept stubborn to augment the rather simple vocabulary in Green Eggs and Ham, they could discuss how stubborn plays out in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Thus, they learn another application of the word, with a slightly different nuance. To prompt productive vocabulary, have children say and/or write the word. Encourage discussion and debate as children engage in word sorting activities with partners. Furthermore, have children juxtapose two learned words against each other. For example, after children have learned drenched and stubborn, ask them to use both words in the same sentence. Have them compare shades of meaning: Which word is wetter: drenched, damp, wet, watery, waterlogged, saturated, dripping, soaking, sopping? How is drenched similar to and different from damp? Tell a friend about a time you got drenched. Also, depending on the grade level, include morphology in the lesson if the word contains common prefixes, base words, or suffixes. Again, depending on the grade level, develop figurative knowledge: Could a rose be drenched in sunshine? How could a rock be stubborn?

There is a growing body of research showing the promising effects of elaborative, interactive word study, built around repeatedly reading a story aloud in primary grades (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Coyne et al., 2010; McKeown & Beck, 2011). This research has also been applied to Response to Intervention models of instruction in primary grades (see post by Michael Coyne.) Furthermore, this method of instruction has been found to be effective with English Language Learners in kindergarten (Silverman, 2007). However, by spending so much time interacting with words in responsive and meaningful ways, there is only time to explore about 3-5 words per day.

On the other hand, there is another body of research showing the effects of teaching more words per day during storybook reading (about 7-10 words per day, 3 or 4 days a week). This method teaches words fairly superficially, spending less time interacting with each word, with the goal of developing greater breadth of knowledge (e.g., Biemiller & Boote, 2006). This goal will be discussed in more depth in the next post.

References:

Beck, I., McKeown, M., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 (1), 44-62.

Carey, S. & Bartlett, E. (1978). Acquiring a single new word. Proceedings of the Stanford Child Language Conference, 15, 17-29. (Republished in Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 15, 17-29.)

Coyne, M. D., McCoach, D. B., Loftus, S., Zipoli, R., Ruby, M., Crevecoeur, Y. & Kapp, S. (2010). Direct and extended vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: Investigating transfer effects. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3, 93-120.

Hayes, D. P., & Ahrens, M. G. (1988). Vocabulary simplification for children: A special case of 'motherese'? Journal of Child Language, 15, 395-410.

McKeown, M.  & Beck, I. (2011, April). Two approaches to vocabulary instruction for kindergarteners: Comparing effects on comprehension. (Poster talk at American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.)

Silverman, R. (2007.) Vocabulary development of English-language and English-only learners in kindergarten. Elementary School Journal, 107(4), 365-383.

Modeling Word Solving (Frey & Fisher)

This post is courtesy of Drs. Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher, professors at San Diego State University. Visit their website. They are the co-authors of several professional books for educators, including In a Reading State of Mind: Brain Research, Teacher Modeling, and Comprehension Instruction. Key ideas from their book are discussed below, where Nancy and Doug describe how to model "word solving" so students might learn to infer word meaning when reading independently. This entry builds on the previous post by Fisher and Frey, describing how to decide which words to teach.

Although selecting words worthy of being taught is one of the hardest things about explicit vocabulary instruction, modeling is one of the most underutilized instructional routines for ensuring students’ progress in word knowledge and word solving. Modeling word solving strategies does not focus on specific words, but rather the skills of figuring out unknown words. It’s habit building and students need to develop this habit if they are going to apply what we have taught them on their own.

Our thinking about modeling word solving focuses on students learning to look inside words and outside words for clues about meaning.

And we say this to them all of the time, “Let’s look inside the word and outside the word to see what we know.” That’s what we hope that they start to say to themselves, over time, as they come to words they don’t know.

In thinking about word solving, we have identified three categories worthy of attention during modeling: word parts, context clues, and resources (Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2008). Of course, modeling word solving should be integrated with other attempts at understanding the text, such as comprehension strategies and using text structures and text features. We are not suggesting that teachers focus only on modeling word solving, but rather add word solving in their shared readings and think alouds so that students have access to examples of expert thinking about words. As we will see in the examples below, modeling requires the use of an “I statement” in which the teacher shares his or her thinking with others.

Looking Inside: Word Parts

When readers come to an unknown word, one of the things that they can do is look inside the word to see if there are any clues to the word’s meaning. Understanding morphology, including prefixes, suffixes, roots, bases, and cognates, helps the reader make an educated guess about an unknown word. For example, if the reader has never been exposed to the word paleozoology, she or he can make an educated guess about this field using knowledge about prefixes and suffixes. In fact, the word is fairly easy to figure out when you remember that paleo- means old or ancient, zoo relates to animals, and -ology relates to the study of something.

But simply providing students with a morphology list is not likely to change their behavior when they come to unknown words. Instead, teachers need to model the use of morphology in understanding words. For example, while reading a sentence that contained the word heterozygous, the biology teacher modeled his use of morphology saying, “I know that hetero means different, so this must be the one that has two different alleles, or different versions, of a specific gene.”

Of course, morphology does not always work and students should be provided with examples that remind them to check other clues as well. Our favorite example of this occurred in an English as a Second Language classroom when the teacher got to the word repeat. She said, “I got this one. I know that re- means to do again. So I’m going to peat again. Wait, I have no idea what that means! I better check the context clues and look outside the word to see if I can figure this out.”

Looking Outside: Context Clues

In addition to looking inside words, students have to be taught to look outside of words to figure out their meaning. This happens through an understanding of context clues. Although context clues are not infallible, they can be helpful. There are a number of different kinds of context clues, such as embedded synonyms, antonyms, direct definitions, and the use of punctuation. Again, students need to be taught how to use these tools. Modeling provides students examples that can be built into habits.

For example, when reading about the “supermoon” predicted for March 19, 2011, the teacher noted the word fatalities in the news report. There had been quite a bit of news coverage around the world that this astronomical event, which brought the Moon into close range of the Earth, would cause widespread flooding and earthquakes. She made the connection between fatalities in the beginning of the sentence and the use of “the number dead” later in the sentence. Another example occurred when the teacher modeled using punctuation, in this case a dependent clause that contained additional and specific information about a more difficult word. As with word parts, teachers should also model when the use of context clues fail.

Again, the goal is for students to develop a habit that they can use independently when they come across unknown words. Like most of the systems we use when reading and trying to make meaning, they don’t always work. When these two systems--word parts and context clues--fail, it’s time to look further outside the word and use resources.

Looking Further Outside: Using Resources

“When all else fails, look it up” is a common motto of teachers, and with good reason. When the systems we have for figuring out unknown words within a the text do not help, it’s time to turn our attention to the resources we have at our disposal. Once upon a time, that was limited to printed dictionaries and glossaries. Today, we have a plethora of resources at our fingertips because of the Internet. For example, the visual dictionary is a great resource that student can be taught to use. The same holds for the many specialized dictionaries such as:

• Science: TSD: The Science Dictionary

• History: Babylon.com: History Dictionary

• Mathematics: A Maths Dictionary for Kids

• Art: Artlex Art Dictionary

• Sports and fitness: Babylon.com: Sports Dictionary

As with word parts and context clues, teachers should model their use of resources such as these as well as the appropriate ways to ask other people. This can be as simple as calling a friend on the classroom phone or texting someone for more information.

Modeling is an important part of explicit vocabulary instruction, but it is not sufficient in and of itself to ensure that students learn words deeply. In addition to modeling, students need intentional instruction and multiple opportunities to practice the words they are learning.

Editorial Note: To see how Frey and Fisher's "word solving" fits into the third of four components of a comprehensive vocabulary plan (Graves, 2006), read Four-Ply Vocabulary Plan.  To read about the problem with relying only on context clues to infer word meaning, read Context: Good News and Bad. To see another example of using morpheme clues and context clues to infer meaning and solve unknown words, see the portage example embedded in English: A Large Language. To see how the strategy discussed by Frey and Fisher applies to English Language Learners, see The Mindful Zen of Morphology. Also, for Spanish-strong language learners, see A Morphological Approach for English Language Learners by Carolyn Eddy. Finally, to see how to teach morphological reasoning in a deductive approach that prompts critical thinking, see the prior post by Peter Bowers.


References

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2008). In a reading state of mind: Brain research, teacher modeling, and comprehension instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Selecting Words: An Important Consideration in Explicit Vocabulary Instruction (Fisher & Frey)

This post is courtesy of Drs. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. Doug and Nancy are professors at San Diego State University and nationally known for their work with vocabulary and comprehension instruction. Visit their website. They are the co-authors of several professional books for educators, including Word Wise and Content Rich: Five Essential Steps to Teaching Academic Vocabulary.  Key ideas from their book are discussed in this post. In two weeks, Nancy and Doug will post again, elaborating on how to teach vocabulary effectively.

There are a number of instructional components required for students to really learn words. It’s not simply a matter of assigning words, having students define those words, and then testing them on the words. Rather, the evidence suggests that students need explicit instruction in word meanings, repeated exposure to words, opportunities for wide reading, and experiences using the words in the presence of their peers (e.g., Fisher, Blachowicz, & Watts-Taffe, 2011; Graves, 2006).

One of the most difficult aspects of quality vocabulary instruction is deciding which words are worthy of being taught. There are clearly defined categories for words, which have become part of the lexicon for vocabulary researchers and teachers. We are all familiar with Tier 1 or general words, Tier 2 or specialized words, and Tier 3 or technical words (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002; Vacca & Vacca, 2007). These categories have guided teachers in the selection of words and facilitated an understanding of the value in learning different kinds of words.

While these categorical systems are helpful, they don’t provide teachers with concrete information about selecting words to teach. To address this, we have attempted to create a series of questions that teachers can ask to determine which words are worthy of being taught. We drew on several well-known vocabulary researchers, including Graves (2006), Hiebert and Kamil (2005), and Nagy (1988) to name the six categories useful in identify which words to teach. Figure 1 contains our questions, organized in six categories: Representative, Repeatable, Transportable, Contextual analysis, Structural analysis, and Cognitive load.

Considerations for Selecting Vocabulary Words

Topic	Questions to Ask
Representative	Is the word representative of a family of words that students should know? Is the concept represented by the word critical to understanding the text? Is the word a label for an idea that students need to know? Does the word represent an idea that is essential for understanding another concept?
Repeatability	Will the word be used again in this text?  If so, does the word occur often enough to be redundant? Will the word be used again during the school year?
Transportable	Will the word be used in group discussions? Will the word be used in writing tasks? Will the word be used in other content or subject areas?
Contextual Analysis	Can students use context clues to determine the correct or intended meaning of the word without instruction?
Structural Analysis	Can students use structural analysis to determine the correct or intended meaning of the word without instruction?
Cognitive Load	Have I identified too many words for students to successfully integrate?

Figure 1. Considerations for Selecting Vocabulary Words (Fisher & Fry, 2008)

In our teaching, we have found these categories and questions useful. For example, during a recent unit on disability as part of our integrated health curriculum, we used this system to analyze a primary source document that students were going to read in class as part of their Internet Reciprocal Teaching task. From the article about Phenylketonuria (PKU), we selected condition, inherited, gene, enzyme, recessive, and treatable, based on our knowledge of our students and their existing word knowledge. In doing so, we were able to ensure that students understood these key terms, and thus the information about this disability.

Once the words have been selected, instruction begins. There are a host of great ideas about teaching vocabulary on this blog and in a number of other published resources. To our thinking, these are less helpful if we are not clear about which words need to be taught. Having said that, even selecting words worthy of being taught will be useless if we revert to the “assign, define, test” approach to building students’ knowledge.

In sum, selecting words should be foundational in explicit vocabulary instruction, and there should be instruction!

Editorial Note: For a discussion of The Academic Word List, containing morphological families of scholarly words for older students and English Language Learners, see Academic Families of Words. One might apply Fisher and Frey's six considerations to the words in the list, to determine suitability for instruction. For helping students develop conceptual knowledge of words that meet Fisher and Frey's representative condition, read Kathleen Lord's post. For a discussion of essential words for younger students in primary grades and beginning English Language Learners, see prior posts (and books) by Michael Graves and Andrew Biemiller. For a discussion of how to understand words through structural analysis--the fifth consideration suggested by Fisher and Frey--see Morphology (MA) and follow the embedded links to specific posts concerning morphology (e.g., Bellomo, Bowers, Ebbers, Eddy, Filippini, and Henry).

References:

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bring words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford.

Fisher, P. J., Blachowicz, C. L. Z., & Watts-Taffe, S. (2011). Vocabulary instruction: Three contemporary issues. In D. Lapp & D. Fisher (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (3rd ed.) (pp. 252-257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Word wise and content rich: Five essential steps to teaching academic vocabulary. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning & instruction. New York: Teachers College.

Hiebert, E. H., & Kamil, M. L. (Eds.). (2005). Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Nagy, W. E. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Vacca, R. T., & Vacca, J. A. (2007). Content area reading: Literacy and learning across the curriculum (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Multiple Meanings: Theory, Research and Teaching Tips

Learning about the multiple meanings of words (e.g., to find -- a find) is included in the new and widely adopted Common Core Standards for English Language Arts. For example, the excerpt below was lifted from the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language. This anchor standard is identical for Grades K-5  and 6-12 and applies also to ELLs (English Language Learners).

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

By implication, the standard requires students to consider context even as they consider the degree and type of relationship between the basic known word and the new meaning. In each example below, the relationship between the two meanings is fairly transparent, clear, obvious. These linguistic types are called morphological conversions and/or zero-derivations because a new word is formed without adding any affixes, converting the word's grammatical function and creating a related meaning that is conceptually very similar to the first meaning.

Semantically Transparent Morphological Conversions
Word	Used as noun	Used as verb (or adjective)
button	Find the gold button.	Please button your jacket.
work	We like our work.	We work hard.
water	Don't drink the water.	I water the plants.
green	Let's picnic on the green.	Paint the bench green.

Teachers might help children see that in many cases the relationship between the two meanings is fairly obvious and semantically transparent, as in the examples above (Kiparsky, 1982).

However, in many other cases there is only a weak semantic relationship, or no semantic relationship at all. For example, the two meanings of bear are completely unrelated (e.g., I see a bear.  Can the table bear that load?). These are homonyms or homographs, with distinctly different meanings/ For grade school purposes, these are sometimes called "multiple-meaning words" (and see footnote on homographs versus homophones).

Here, the two meanings of house are related, yet not fully transparent. We may house our things in places other than a house. This illustrates some of the confusion conversions might create, especially for language learners, who tend to translate fairly literally at first. 

Likewise, consider the statement, "I will hammer the nail." The literal and linear interpretation is that I will use a hammer to hammer. However, because we could use a shoe or a rock to pound that nail, the related meanings of hammer are not quite transparent.

As students advance in their language skills, they need to become competent at examining the context to decide whether the meaning of the conversion is closely related to the meaning they already know--assuming they already know the word! The teacher's role is not only to teach children about this language phenomenon, but also to help them develop confidence in their ability to infer the meaning of a conversion. This requires us to help readers attend closely to context. It also means helping students identify the grammatical function of a word. 

In one pertinent study, Carlo et al. (2004) taught fifth graders about how English words work. Topics included learning about polysemy (multiple-meaning words), learning the structure of morphologically complex words and understanding the nature of academic language. On the polysemy post test, the ELL group made significant improvement compared to their pretest scores, yet despite this gain they did not match the progress of students who spoke native English.  However, both groups -- ELLs and native English speakers -- made significant gains over the control group, who did not receive the intervention. It is beneficial to teach students about how words work, including how multiple meanings work. The surprise bonus finding? The students enjoyed the lessons!

Two teaching suggestions:  Show students the Grammar Rock Video about verbs (lyrics here). One minute into the film, the video shows how nouns become verbs, a process sometimes referred to as "verbing." Stephen Fry discussed this  in his podcast, shown in a prior post.

Also, students might work with a partner to sort multiple-meaning words, given with context, by levels of semantic transparency. Provide a continuum, as shown below. We could decide that the verb brush is not fully transparent because one can brush with items other than a brush: We can brush the crumbs off a table with a napkin and brush down a jacket with a hand, etc.  Likewise, one need not use a whistle to whistle. Interestingly, there is transparency between a metal staple and the verb to staple, but not between the metal staple and a food staple, for example. This type of work should help learners become more sophisticated in terms of verbal reasoning and more attuned to context and the ever-shifting nature of English words.

to fight/a fight                            a brush/ to brush                              a train / to train
tiny staple / to staple                 a whistle/ to whistle                        Cinderella's coach / to coach

________________________________________________

+ transparent                      related                                 - not related

Defining terms:

Homographs have distinctly different meanings and are pronounced differently, despite identical spelling. Examples are wound and moped: We wound the clock versus bandage the wound; he moped around versus she has a new moped, etc. (See more examples of "true homographs," provided by ESL expert John Higgins.) 

Sometimes, homographs are confused with homophones, but homophones are words with two or more spellings and two or more meanings, but identical pronunciation. Examples include fair and fare, and also air, heir, and ere. 

Homonyms are words that look and sound alike, but have distinctly different meanings, as with river bank, an investment bank, bank the car into the curve, and bank your earnings, etc. High frequency words tend to be homonyms, and tend to be quite polysemous--some convey dozens of meanings.

Zero-derivations, also called morphological conversions, occur when we transform a source word's grammatical function, but the sense or meaning of the word does not change much at all. Examples: 1) the noun snowplow becomes the verb to snowplow; 2)  the verb to polish becomes the noun polish.

References:

Carlo, M.S., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C.E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., Liveley, T. & White, C.E. (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of ELLs in bilingual and mainstream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, 188-215.

Kiparsky, P. (1982). Word-formation and the lexicon. In F. Ingemann (ed.) Proceedings of the Mid-America Linguistics Conference. Lawrence, KS.

Preschool Language Intervention: Part 2 (Cavanaugh)

Today, Christie Cavanaugh, Ph.D. continues her description of a preschool language intervention, providing specific examples and models to encourage rich use of oral language in early childhood. Readers are encouraged to download Christie's slides and use them with educators and parents. For part one, see last week's post.

The reference to incidental teaching in last week’s post reminds us that teaching language to young children should be purposeful, yet accomplished in the context of children’s play or “incidents” of opportunity. Hart and Risley (1975) described incidental teaching in reference to language teaching as a naturally-occurring interaction between a child and adult, usually in the context of free play and that the child-initiated interaction is considered an opportunity for the adult to impact a child’s skill development. Child initiation, adult support, and naturally-occurring situations are fundamental principles that have underscored decades of research in this area related to naturalistic language intervention. 

Incidental language teaching is both implicit and child-centered due to the nature of following children’s leads and using these contexts to determine how to scaffold appropriately and elevate language appropriately. Hence, this approach is also explicit because we plan purposefully to ensure that children have a variety of topics (e.g., theme-based centers to expand background knowledge and experiences) from which to initiate language. We also know development to determine children’s language levels and use this to provide support for elaborating language and providing models of rich vocabulary and sentence structure of increasing complexity. Planning ahead allows us to generate multiple opportunities to use new vocabulary embedded in various contexts to serve as models and prompts for children to integrate new language into their repertoires. Bonnie Raitt’s lyrics, “Let’s give ‘em somethin’ to talk about . . .” resonates with our actions of planning purposefully.

Click slide to enlarge or save/download.

A simple tool for teachers to use as an environmental prompt or cue to assist in modeling efforts is something I’ve labeled as “The Teacher’s Word Wall” (see slide at right).

This word wall serves as a reminder for teachers to use sophisticated language or expressions in place of common, routine comments produced in the child’s environment. The table provides examples of alternate ways to say common expressions, like “Great job” or “thank you.” Because some of these alternatives may not be part of one’s typical vocabulary when conversing with young children, the adults present and talking to young children can easily glance at the word wall and select an option to insert into a comment or dialogue. Over time as the common expressions are replaced with more sophisticated options in a fluent manner, the children will hear them used multiple times and eventually weave them into their speaking vocabulary. The idea is to replace the expressions often to continue building on children’s vocabulary.

Click to enlarge.

An extension of the “Teacher’s Word Wall” includes vocabulary, anchors for conversation or conversation starters, prompts (questions and comments), and actions that relate to a specific theme. This slide relates to a flower shop themed center.”Again, these cues serve as reminders for adults to embed the language into the context of playing with children. 

We do have a strong research base for some very simple, effective strategies. These translate to simple actions: Talk to children, converse, plan for the opportunity for children to use their language, follow children’s leads (but remember to plant a few seeds), model, model, model, prompt (comments and questions), use rich vocabulary, build background knowledge, make connections between words, concepts, and topics.

The personal narrative Susan Ebbers provided in a prior post, describing how her early childhood experience of looking for buds in spring helped her to immediately understand the word dormant several years later, illustrates the importance of early language experiences for building background knowledge and comprehending both oral and written language. Susan was interested and initiated the interaction, her mother followed her lead to use this interaction to provide the oral vocabulary (appropriate support and modeling), and the dialogue on Susan’s initiated topic deepened her understanding. All of this impacted her understanding of related vocabulary and concepts in the written form. This is a very simple, yet powerful example and many like these help us realize that the goal of building children’s oral vocabularies is attainable, but there are many who will rely on us to model and disseminate the simplicity.

Responses are encouraged and appreciated, especially if they include examples to disseminate to early childhood teachers.

References and Resources

• Byrnes, J. P., & Wasik, B. A. Language and literacy development: What educators need to know. New York: Guilford Press.
• Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (Eds). (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
• Hart, B., & Risley, T. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap. American Educator, 27, 4-9.
• Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore: Brookes.
• Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1975). Incidental teaching of language in the preschool. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 8, 411-420.
• Israel, S. E. (2009). Vocabulary lists and activities for the PreK-2 classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
• Otto, B. Language development in early childhood (3rd Ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill.
• Otto, B. (2008). Literacy development in early childhood. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
• Owens, R. E. (2008). Language development: An introduction (7th Ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Soderman, A. K., & Farrell, P. (2008). Creating literacy-rich preschools and kindergartens. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Warren, S. F., & Kaiser, A. P. (1986). Incidental language teaching: A critical review. Journal of Hearing and Speech Disorders, 51, 291-299. 

Building Oral Vocabulary in Primary-Grade Students with Very Small Oral Vocabularies (Graves)

This post is courtesy of Dr. Michael Graves, Professor Emeritus of Literacy Education at the University of Minnesota. As a researcher, Mike has examined--and continues to examine--variables related to vocabulary development and instruction. His most recent books on vocabulary are written for teachers as well as researchers, including Teaching Individual Words: One Size Does Not Fit All (2009), and The Vocabulary Book (2006). To read about Mike's comprehensive plan for vocabulary instruction, detailed fully in The Vocabulary Book, see my post: Four Ply Vocabulary Plan.

      
Vocabulary has been my major scholarly interest for something like 30 years, and over that period of time we have learned a huge amount about teaching vocabulary (see, for example, Baumann, Kameénui, & Ash, 2000; Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000; Graves & Silverman, in press). Most of what we have learned, however, is about teaching reading vocabulary. Recently, we have come to recognize that some students come to school with very small oral vocabularies (Hart & Risley, 1995, 2001). While most students arrive at school with oral vocabularies of perhaps 10,000 words, some English learners and some children of poverty arrive knowing just a fraction of that number of words. Building oral vocabulary in students who enter school with very small oral vocabularies is tremendously important and vital to their becoming successful readers (Biemiller, 2009, DeTemple & Snow, 2004; Graves, 2009).
       
Two key questions we face in helping these children are "How do we teach them oral vocabulary? and "Which words do we teach them?"  In this blog, I address each of these in turn.
 

How Do We Teach Oral Vocabulary to Primary-Grade Students with Very Small Vocabularies?     
Both observations of mothers reading to their young children and studies with preschool and primary grade students have repeatedly revealed a successful pattern of reading aloud and build oral vocabulary that goes by the name of interactive oral reading or shared book reading (DeTemple & Snow, 2004). There are several versions of the technique, but one of the best documented is that described by Biemiller (2009). It consists of selecting a number of short books, each of which contain 20 or so words that are not likely to be in your students' oral vocabularies, and working with each book over a five day cycle like this one.

• On day one, probably a Monday, read the book once without stopping to define any words.
• On days two-four, read it three more times, each time briefly defining about six unknown words as they come up in the reading so that over the three days you define about 20 words.
• On the fifth day, review each of the 20 or so words taught in a different context but with the same meaning.

    
As Biemiller notes and as I would emphasize, because these children need to add a large number of words to their oral vocabularies, this is a long term process, extending over several years for many students.

Mike Graves, Pa ai Beach

Which Words Should We Teach Primary-Grade Students with Very Small Oral Vocabularies?     
Here, I consider two different groups of students and suggest a different source of words for each of these two. The first group is students with extremely small oral vocabularies, probably fewer than 2,000 words. There are not many of these students in a single classroom, probably only 2-4 of them even in a class with quite a few newcomers and children of poverty. However, those students who do fall into this group desperately need our help. The most important words for these students to learn are those that occur most frequently, those that they will stumble across repeatedly as they are reading if they don't know them. 

My colleague Greg Sales and I (Sales & Graves, 2009) have identified a set of about 4,000 words that we term The First 4,000 Words and created a web-based program to teach them. These words make up about 80 percent of the words in a typical text. This list, which ranks the words by frequency, and a description of the web-based program for teaching them are available at thefirst4000words.com. The list is in pdf format and available for download. To give you an idea of the words the list contains, the five most frequent words on it are the, of, and, to, and a; five middle-frequency words on it are file, boots, reflect, custom, and background; and the five least frequent words on it are abuse, loving, generous, excessive, and arteries. As I just said, you are likely to have very few students in your class that don't already know these words, but for students who do not already know them learning them is crucial.
    
The second group of students who need special help with oral vocabulary consists of students who already know most of The First 4,000 Words but whose oral vocabularies are still far smaller than those of average students. This is a considerably larger number of students, and if you teach a class that includes a number of newcomers and children of poverty a significant number of students in your class may fall into this group. Fortunately, Biemiller (2009) has developed a list of words specifically designed for building oral vocabulary in these students. It is called Words Worth Teaching in Grades K-2 and includes about 2,000 words, most of which are less frequent than those on The First 4,000 Words.  Some of the words from this list, which is not sequenced by importance or frequency, are absorb, against, laboratory, language, stumble, and study. The complete list is available in Biemiller (2009).
    
In summary, the main message here is that while most students come to school with large oral vocabularies, other students—some English learners and some children of poverty—come with very small oral vocabularies, and these students need special help. A technique called Interactive Oral Reading has been shown to be an effective teaching tool, and Sales and Graves (2009) The First 4,000 Words and Biemiller's (2009) Words Worth Teaching in Grades K-2 provide appropriate words to teach.

I look forward to your comments and suggestions. 

Mike Graves

References:

• Baumann, J. F., Kame'enui, E. J., & Ash, G. E.  (2003).  Research on vocabulary instructing:  Voltaire redux.  In J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, & J. M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook on research on teaching the English language arts (2nd ed., pp. 752-785.  Mahwah, NJ:  Erlbaum.
• Biemiller, A.  (2009).  Words worth teaching.  Columbus, OH:  SRA/McGraw-Hill.
• Blachowicz, C., & Fisher, P.  (2000).  Vocabulary.  In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), The handbook of reading research, Vol. III.  New York:  Longman.
• De Temple, J., & Snow, C. E.  (2004).  Learning words from books.  In A. van Kleeck, S. A. Stahl, and E. B. Bauer (Eds.), On reading books to children (pp. 16-36).  Mahwah, NJ:  Erlbaum.
• Graves, M. F.  (2009).  Teaching individual words:  One size does not fit all.  New York:  Teachers College Press and IRA.
• Graves, M. F., & Silverman, R.  (in press).  Interventions to enhance vocabulary development.  In R. Allington & A. McGill-Franzen (Eds.), Handbook of reading disabilities research.  Mahwah, NY:  Erlbaum.
• Hart, B., & Risley, T. R.  (2003, Spring).  The early catastrophe:  The 30 million word gap.  American Educator, 27 (1), 4-9.
• Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore: P. H. Brookes.
• Sales, G. C., & Graves, M. F.  (2009).  Web-based pedagogy for fostering literacy by teaching basic vocabulary.  Information Technology, Education and Society, 9 (2). 5-30.

Connotations and Denotations (poll)

Definitions are denotations.What does the word snob denote? The emotions, images, and visceral responses associated with a word are called connotations. What does snob connote?

Connotations can be positive, neutral, or negative and they are subjective, unique to the individual, even though most people would probably respond positively to fireplace and negatively to arson. English language learners in particular may struggle to grasp connotations. Consider the similar denotations but differing connotations of the words relaxed, inactive, and lazy. I’d prefer to be viewed as relaxed rather than lazy, wouldn’t you?

Now to the poll results. Of 266 voters, 200 (75%) felt that snobbish was more insulting than smug. These two negatively charged words share similar but not identical denotations. I was curious to learn if the affective associations triggered by the words varied widely. The finding was surprising—in my perceptual lens, smug is more insulting, more negative. The word reeks of superiority. I was in the minority. One can only guess at the personal experiences that triggered the varied responses but a few comments provide clues:

One blogger said, “Smug is worse because people are not snobbish about everything, only some things. If people are smug, they are always smug, because it’s in them, a part of their personality.”

An email stated, “I down-rated smug because the mind is set and arrogant whereas snobbish is because of birth, but context makes a difference.”

A college student wrote, “I would have to say I would much rather be called smug than snobbish. I just don't like the word snob, I guess.”

Another blogger said, “I think snobbish is more universally insulting because many people aren’t sure what smug means, but nobody likes a snob.” 

Do fewer people know what smug means? To investigate, I consulted The Educator’s Word Frequency Guide, a corpus created by Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and Duvvuri (1995). In the listing, the frequency of smug was greater than that of snobbish, but neither word appears frequently in English texts (0.5436 versus 0.1431 appearances per million words). Even when all forms of smug (that is, smug, smugly, smugness) were tallied against snob, snobs, snobbish, snobbishly and snobbishness, the smug family had a higher total frequency (1.0429 versus 0.6497). Thus, based on the written word, smug should be known at least as well as snobbish, but we must also consider the frequency of spoken words, and there is no data base for that to my knowledge. It is possible that we hear snob more frequently than smug.

At any rate, the implications are clear—words can trigger surprising and differing emotional responses. Students need to be aware of this. Perceptions are key to language processing. Communication (including reading comprehension) depends not only on understanding a word’s denotation but also its connotation. 

Classroom application: After the denotations of a handful of near-synonyms are learned, why not vote on their connotations with sealed ballots? Discuss the rationale behind the vote. Such discussion should prompt thinking, learning and memory. This task should be accessible to everyone as long as the denotations are known. 

These types of engaging tasks will motivate most students and may kindle interest in words and phrases, especially needful for children of poverty. Word consciousness should develop along with explicit knowledge of a word's denotations and connotations. Furthermore, writing might well improve as students become discerning with respect to word selection (see poetry post). I have not found rigorous evidence to support these claims but the theory is sound and a few promising studies offer support for the idea, including the study described in the prior post, carried out by Baumann, Ware, and Edwards, 2007 (and see Graves, 2006; Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008).

      

References:

• Graves, M.F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning and instruction. New York: Teachers College Press. 
• Scott, J., Skobel, B., & Wells, J. (2008). The word-conscious classroom: Building the vocabulary readers and writers need.   New York: Scholastic - Theory into Practice Series.  
• Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R. T., & Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide. New York: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.

Mindful Zen of Morphology

Years ago, as a particularly bitter winter retreated from Wisconsin, my mother pointed to a tree near the window. “See the buds on the branch, Susie.” I searched, the two of us peering together through the glass, until finally I saw something that resembled unpopped popcorn. Small, knobby, not much of a muchness. Mom then explained that the tree had been sleeping all winter and now it was awake, putting out buds, making new leaves. I knew she was pleased at these small signs of spring so I decided to be pleased too, even though I was distracted by the notion of a sleeping tree. Years later, in grade school, we learned the scientific term that describes trees at rest, dormant. It was easy to grasp the new term because I already understood the concept.

I am learning to look as closely at words as I once did at that branch. When I peer into the word dormant I think to myself, “Look more closely. Make a connection.” Eureka! Awareness makes all the difference. Immediately dormitory springs to mind. I slept in a dorm room and dormant means 'sleeping, inactive.' Then I think of those charming little dormer windows often found in a sleeping loft. Suddenly the French nursery song Frère Jacques plays through my memory. Dormez-vouz? (Are you sleeping, Brother John?) Dormez-vouz!! It’s a discovery! And a discovery is always interesting. Awaken young minds to the delight of discovering word relationships. All teachers can prompt the mindful Zen of morphology. No need to be a linguist. Just be curious.

Awaken older minds, too. Somehow I became fairly comfortable with French in high school yet never made the connection between dormez-vous, dormant, and dormitory until years later when I began to actively seek associations in English and beyond. Then, voila! Like blossoms in springtime, they’re everywhere.

Robertson's compendium provides many more derivatives of the root dorm. By checking Woxicon I learn that the words for 'sleep' in French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese contain the root dorm. This fact makes cross-linguistic transfer possible (see list of websites for teaching ELL, in the page footer).

Bring out the books! Help students become mindful of morphology when they read. Teach them to apply morphemic analysis in context. Consider this excerpt from Chapter 7, Alice in Wonderland, a book rich with word play (full text here). Prompt awareness with a question like this, "Why do you think the rodent is called a dormouse?"

`They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy....The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on...." (Lewis Carroll, 1865).

A dormouse hibernates. This may be a blended compound word. OED Online suggests dormouse flows from French dormir, 'to sleep'  and the Middle English word for 'mouse' but the origins are obscure (see comments). Children are unlikely to readily assume that dormouse contains dorm, because it looks like dor + mouse and sounds like door + mouse.  But most students have more knowledge than they realize. The teacher's job is to draw such knowledge to the surface, from dormancy into metacognition. 

And we can always count on Rowling for wordplay with Greek and Latin. I especially liked the Hogwarts coat of arms (Wikipedia/Creative Commons/Jakovche). The school motto states Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus: Never tickle a sleeping dragon. A joyous discovery!

PS. The Vernal Equinox is Saturday, March 20, heralding the first day of spring. During an equinox the night is nearly as long as the day, almost 12 hours each. The meaning is in the morphemes. The Latin root equi refers to 'same or equal' as in equality, equity, equate, equator, etc. The root nox means 'night.'

To study words like equinox we need context but context comes in many forms. Pictures provide a platform for discussion and are especially helpful for English Language Learners. I saw a creative portrayal of an equinox in student-created calendar art, published by Buffalo Public Schools. How would you depict the concept?

That's all, folks. My thanks to Jessica Fresco for capturing her spring blooms on film and sharing them with us.

English: A Large Language (video)

English is not only a complex sound-spelling system, posing a potential challenge for learning to read (Seymour, 2007), it is also a large language, rapidly assimilating words from all over the globe. Linguist David Crystal (1987, 1995) estimated at least a million 'words' in the English language. Read Crystal's brief report; note that he disagrees with most estimates in terms of the size of the language and how many 'words' people know. The folks at Oxford University Press take a more conservative position, yet they acknowledge the size of the English language, relative to other written languages. Such differing views are due to methodology: Counting words is a slippery business, as explained by Michael Quinion at World Wide Words. According to Global Language Monitor, as of January 1, 2012, there were 1,013,913 words in the language, but many experts contest this "finding" due to methodology. Based on their Web-sweeps, this same Austin-based group of "language monitors" suggest that English is twice the size of Mandarin and five times the size of French. This too has been contested. See brief video below, aired June 4, 2009.



The size of any language is only an estimate. In this BBC podcast, Paul Payack, President of Global Language Monitor, and Benjamin Zimmer, consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary and producer of Visual Thesaurus, debate the merit of counting words.  Zimmer argues against the accuracy of any minute-by-minute word tally. His point is well taken.

Such debate aside, the language is large. The good news is that related words can be studied in morphological families, in effect, condensing the task somewhat. Morphological families of words share a common morpheme. For example, port is a Latin root meaning 'to carry.' Its broader morphological family includes more than a dozen words, called derivatives: porter, portable, import, importation, export, exportation, transport, transportation, transporter, deport, deportee, support, (here, sup- is really sub-, assimilated) supportive, insupportable, portage, etc. The core concept of 'to carry' manifests itself more or less transparently in each derivative. This family also includes the inflection ports.

Explore morphological families of words and isolate the shared morpheme. Include the element of context, vital to vocabulary study. Teach students to decipher unknown word meanings when reading independently by merging context clues with morpheme clues, as described below.

The explorers had to portage their canoes through forest and across field. After several hours, the weary travelers finally reached the nearest river. For the next four weeks, water would carry their burden. 

Help students resolve the meaning of portage by examining the external context clues and the internal morpheme clues. Note the context clues that help convey the meaning of portage. Teach students to look in every surrounding sentence for context clues. Then, circle the root port and write 'to carry' in the margin. Help students merge the clues to infer the meaning of portage. As for usage, explain that portage is typically used in the context of carrying boats to navigable water, not when we carry a grocery bag, for example.

Limitations: Morphemic analysis is most effective if the morphological family is large. When the unknown word belongs to a small family, we must hope for explicit context clues. For example, the word stringent belongs to a small morphological family; its meaning is not internally apparent. Because stringent is academic and abstract, this brief vocabulary video might provide a good introduction to the word. Reinforce the video with further study, use it in peer conversations, and examine the word in varied context, distributed over time.

Given the scope of the language, it makes sense to explore individual words and word families. This can begin in the primary grades with word families like sun, sunning, sunned, sunshine, sunscreen, suntan, sunny, sunnier, sunniest, etc.

References

Crystal, D. (1987). How many words? English Today, 12, 11-14.

Crystal, D. (1995). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge University Press.  

Seymour, P. H. K.  (2007).  Early reading development in European orthographies. In M.J. Snowling and C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook (pp. 296-315). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Content Knowledge & Vocabulary

“Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.” (George Eliot, English novelist, 1819-1880).

If we do not already have knowledge of Babylon, Eliot's meaning is not so clear. The Tower of Babel got its name from the ancient city of Babylon and the darkness Eliot speaks of may well be the darkness of confusion and chaos. If knowledge is power, and ignorance not so blissful, let's create classrooms that promote content knowledge along with word knowledge.

If handled properly, word knowledge grows as we actively explore art and science, math and music, history and technology. As David Pearson said in a prior post, "Read it! Write it! Talk it! Do it!" Let the content drive the vocabulary instruction and provide a good deal of context, distributed over time. Build knowledge. Knowledge supports cognition (Willingham, 2006). Knowledge is necessary to comprehension (Kintsch & Rawson, 2007). Embed word learning into knowledge-building activities across content. Word knowledge and content knowledge should eventually merge through intellectually interesting lessons framed around the words (logos) that support the 'study of' the particular science, be it biology, math, or linguistics. The words are the science, in some sense. For instance, how can we discuss the science of meteorology without using the words weather, thermal, pressure, humidity, etc? We can, I suppose, and silence may be a useful device at times, but people will talk, and for that, they need words.

The real question? How do we make word knowledge a major part of content instruction? We do so in varied ways, but we must be deliberate and explicit about it. For example, in art (an important subject area for six reasons, research brief here), when creating these snowpeople with paint and fabric, we might teach the names of the fabrics used in the project. Have the students say and read the word fabric and discuss its basic meaning. Then, have students say and read the various types of fabric: cotton, felt, burlap, silk, wool, velvet, etc. Say and read the texture words, touching the cloth: rough, scratchy, silky, smooth, wrinkly, etc. Describe the patterns: checkered, striped, plaid, etc. Using a model or outline, have students generate a sentence: “My cotton fabric is gold and black in a plaid pattern.” Compare one fabric to another. When the art project is complete, brainstorm potential names or titles for the finished work and discuss why one title is preferred over another. This promotes word consciousness.

In the process of teaching art  we build knowledge, and with it, vocabulary. Did I mention how much fun important art is? For more art ideas tour the entire blog, created by a master teacher in Washington. To facilitate classroom management as well as effective communication habits, be sure to read about his settling time, the seven-minute rule. It should work in any subject area, I think.

Back to the fabric lesson, eventually students will need to make the morphological leap from fabric to fabricate and fabrication. Fabricate means "to make something out of pieces or parts" but it can also mean "to make something up, to concoct an untruth," more euphemistically called a story. The leap from fabric to fabricate ('to lie') is more obvious when we think of this as "to make up a story out of whole cloth." Also, eventually, students need to learn about other ways we use the word fabric, as in the fabric of society, the fabric of the universe, etc. How is fabric used in the quote by Eliot?

Fabric and fabricate are academic terms compared to the more common words cloth and make. In the art lesson described above, students develop artistic ability, acquire academic vocabulary, and gain knowledge of different types of fabrics. Time is in limited supply; our lessons need to accomplish several goals at once. 

References:

Kintsch, W., &  Rawson, K. A. (2007). Comprehension. In M. J. Snowling & C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook, 2nd edition, (pp. 209-226). Malden, MA: Blackwell publishing.

Willingham, D. T. (2006, Spring). How knowledge helps: It speeds and strengthens reading comprehension, learning—and thinking. American Educator, 30-37.