Focus on Vocabulary Development

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Focus on VocabularyDevelopment
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Overview of the Focus

• Session 1
• Research
• Implications for Best Practice

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What is Vocabulary?

• Words we speak
• Words we need to know
• to understand what we hear
• Words we need to know
• to construct meaning when reading
• Words we use in writing
• Armbruster, et al., 2001

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Research
Vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to
reading proficiency and school achievement.
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Research

• The problem
• There are profound differences in vocabulary
  knowledge among learners from
• different ability and socioeconomic groups
• beginning with toddlers all the way through
  high school.
• In fact, high-knowledge third graders had
  vocabularies equal to low-performing 12th
  graders.
• Beck McKeown, 1991
• Smith, 1941

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Research Review

• After 35 years of review, Marzano and colleagues
  concluded research quite specifically points to
  eleven school-, teacher-, and student-level
  factors that determine student achievement.
• Among these factors is Academic Vocabulary
• It is one of the strongest indicators of how
  well students will learn subject area content
  when they come to school.
• Many students acquire vocabulary outside of
  school and come to the subject-area classes
  already knowing and using terms essential for
  understanding content.
• 
  Marzano Pickering, 2001

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Research

• Two types of students
• Those from academically advantaged environments
  
• Those from academically disadvantaged
  environments.
• As time progresses, the gap in academic
  vocabulary knowledge grows even larger, as does
  the gap in academic achievement .
• 
  Marzano Pickering, 2004

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How many words do you know?

• 2,500 words
• (typical 3rd grade
  student)
• 19,000-200,000
• (typical college
  student)

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Do the math

• To learn 175,000 words between
• third grade and college,
• a student would need to learn about
• 17,500 words every year, or
• 48 words every day, or
• 115 words every school day
• Kamil (Stanford), 2003

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More

• Low SES students use 1/3 to 1/2 the words of
  higher SES students
• Hart Risely, 1995

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Similarly

• ELL students use 1/3 to 1/2 the words of an
  average educated persons active vocabulary
• Nash, 1997

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Research

• Researchers have stated that
• Vocabulary deficiencies are a primary cause of
  academic failure in grades 3-12.
• Baumann Kameenui,1991
• Stanovich, 1986
  Becker, 1977

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Consider

• It is a vocabulary deficit that contributes
• to student failure in content classrooms
• and in meeting content standards.

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Five Research-based Facts

• Vocabulary is essential to learning
• Students bring a wide range of vocabulary to
  school
• Oral language, talk and listening is critical
• Books and wide reading are essential
• Instruction can make a difference.
• Blachowicz, 2005

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Acquiring Vocabulary

• Students learn the meanings of most words
  incidentally or indirectly (implicitly) through
  everyday experiences by
• Engaging in oral language (conversing,
  interacting, hearing others, asking questions)
• Reading others communication
• Listening to adults read high level selections to
  them and discussing the selection
• Reading extensively on their own

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However

• Some vocabulary needs to be taught intentionally
  (explicitly) by providing
• Specific word/term instruction
• Word-learning strategies

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Vocabulary Instruction

• Vocabulary is essential to comprehension because
  of its long-term impact upon powers of
  communication and concept development.
• It requires on-going instruction
• To increase student familiarity and understanding
  of word meanings
• To expand student word recognition
• To increase student comprehension of content

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Vocabulary Instruction

• Vocabulary instruction should be an integral part
  of ALL instruction
• It may begin with the major concept or
• big ideas of the content,
• i.e. photosynthesis, area, income tax, story
  elements
• Or, be the foundations of content information
• i.e. chloroplasts, square unit, paycheck,
  plot

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Vocabulary Instruction

• The average student in middle grades
• and beyond
• must acquire approximately 3,000 new words
  each year to stay current with each successive
  grade level. Nagy
  Anderson, 1984

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Kinds of Gains Expected

• Depicts a student who is in the 50th percentile
  in terms of vocabulary with no direct vocabulary
  instruction
• Depicts same student after specific content-area
  vocabulary instruction and their ability to
  comprehend subject matter taught in school
• INCREASE OF 33
• Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986

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Vocabulary Instruction

• Research since 1980 suggests that the following
  principles should guide vocabulary instruction
• Find ways to actively engage students when
  learning new words and developing understanding
  of their meaning
• Enable students to personalize word learning
• Use multiple sources of information to teach
  words through repeated exposures
• Immerse students and the classroom in words

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Vocabulary Instruction

• National Reading Panel report (2000) offers the
• following implications for practice
• Vocabulary should be taught directly and
  indirectly
• Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary
  are important
• Learning in rich contexts is valuable for
  vocabulary learning
• Vocabulary tasks should be restructured when
  necessary
• Vocabulary learning should entail active
  engagement in learning tasks

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Student comprehension and memory is strengthened
when

• Relate to the content/words by experiencing it,
  by imagining it, and by using other sensory
• experiences or images such as sensing, or
• experiencing its smell, taste, feel, or
  outcome
• Represent it by brainstorming, identifying
  associations, comparing/contrasting, structured
  mapping , visual organizers, drawing, writing
  about the words or using them in conversations
• Reason with words/concepts by developing their
  definitions, identifying cluster associations,
  classifying words, acting them out, using them in
  creative writing

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Vocabulary Instruction should not be left to
chance

• Vocabulary instruction that improves
  comprehension has the following characteristics
• Multiple exposures to instructed words
• Exposure to words in meaningful contexts
• Rich or varied information about each word
• The establishment of ties between instructed
  words
• and students own experience and prior
  knowledge
• An active role by students in the word-learning
  process
• Nagy and Herman,
  1987 Beck, et al.,
• 2002 Beck, et al.,
  1987

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Vocabulary Instruction

• Vocabulary development is the
• responsibility of every teacher

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A Six-Step Process for Teaching New Terms
.
By Marzano and Pickering
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Activities For Engagement
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Games for Multiple Exposures to Vocabulary