Choosing Words to Teach:Choosing Words to Teach:Beyond Tier TwoBeyond Tier Two

William NagyWilliam NagySeattle Pacific UniversitySeattle Pacific University

wnagy@spu.eduwnagy@spu.edu

1919thth West IRA Regional Conference West IRA Regional ConferenceOctober 10, 2008October 10, 2008

I had helpI had help

• This talk is based on work I have been doing with Elfrieda Hiebert, in preparation for a chapter we are writing for Volume IV of the Handbook of Reading Research.

• Any imperfections in the presentation are my fault.

Why Choosing Words is ImportantWhy Choosing Words is Important

• Building students’ reading vocabulary is essential for student success

• There are too many words to teach– Lack of vocabulary control in texts– Increased diversity of student population– High-quality vocabulary instruction is time-intensive

• Publishers don’t have a consistent, principled basis for proposing words for instruction

Beck et al.’s 3 TiersBeck et al.’s 3 Tiers

• Tier 1 “The most basic words”

• Tier 2 “High frequency words for mature language users”

• Tier 3 “Low frequency words”

Beck et al.’s Criteria for Tier 2Beck et al.’s Criteria for Tier 2

• High frequency for mature language users

• Conceptually within reach of students

• Related in useful ways to the topic of the lesson or to other words

High frequency for mature High frequency for mature language userslanguage users

• “How generally useful is the word? Is it a word that students are likely to meet often in other texts? Will it be of use to students in describing their own experiences?”

• “likely to appear frequently in a variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users”

• “words that are characteristic of mature language users and appear frequently across a variety of domains”

Conceptually within Conceptually within reach of studentsreach of students

• “words [that] would allow students to describe with greater specificity people and situations they already have some familiarity with. However, notice that these words are not simple synonyms of the familiar ones, but represent more precise or complex forms of the familiar words.”

Related in useful ways to the topic Related in useful ways to the topic of the lesson or to other wordsof the lesson or to other words

• “What does the word bring to the text or situation?”

• “How does the word relate to other words?”

• “Does it relate directly to some topic of study in the classroom? Or might it add a dimension to ideas that have been developed?”

My critique of Tier 2 criteriaMy critique of Tier 2 criteria

• Frequency: More attention needs to be given to objective measures of word frequency

• Conceptual difficulty: The criterion must be modified to apply to informational text

• Relationship to text and other words: Morphology (word parts) as well as meaning must be taken into account

Towards a comprehensive Towards a comprehensive framework for word selectionframework for word selection

Multiple criteria for choosing words

• Frequency

• Familiarity

• Conceptual difficulty

• Relationships among words

• Role in the text and the lesson

Selecting words must take Selecting words must take multiple criteria into accountmultiple criteria into account

• The relative weight of these criteria depends on the kind of text, the reason for teaching the words, and the prior vocabulary knowledge of the students

What you need to know What you need to know about word frequencyabout word frequency

• Strengths and weaknesses of word frequency

• A steep drop-off in word frequency

• Frequency and text coverage

• Sources of information about word frequency

Strengths and Weaknesses of Objective Strengths and Weaknesses of Objective Measures of Word FrequencyMeasures of Word Frequency

Word frequency

• is NOT a good measure of familiarity (how likely students are to know the word)

• is NOT a good a good measure of difficulty (how hard the word is to learn)

• IS a good measure of frequency (how often the word actually occurs in print)

A steep drop-off in frequencyA steep drop-off in frequency

• If you order words from most to least frequent, absolute frequency drops off very rapidly

• Most of the running words in text are from a relatively small set of high frequency words

Word frequency as a function of rankWord frequency as a function of rank

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the of and to a in

Word frequency as a function of rankWord frequency as a function of rank

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Word frequency as a function of rankWord frequency as a function of rank

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Word frequency as a function of rankWord frequency as a function of rank

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The Frequency Drop-Off The Frequency Drop-Off and Text Coverageand Text Coverage

Once you get past the core of high frequency words (3-4 thousand word families), the remaining words are low in frequency (and increasingly so). Hence:

• Each word occurs only rarely in print

• Teaching such words doesn’t substantially increase the proportion of words in text that students know

Percentage of text covered by Percentage of text covered by words up to a given rankwords up to a given rank

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What U (Frequency per million What U (Frequency per million words of text) meanswords of text) means

• A word with a frequency U=5 occurs 5 times in a million words of text

• An average 5th grade student might encounter it 5 times a year – once every other month

What U=5 means for vocabulary What U=5 means for vocabulary instruction and text coverageinstruction and text coverage

If you taught 200 words with a frequency U=5 over the course of a year, what would your students gain?

• They would know one more word per thousand words of text

• They would increase the proportion of running words that they know by one tenth of one percent (e.g., from 97% to 97.1%)

The problem with subjective The problem with subjective impressions of word frequencyimpressions of word frequency

Mature language users know words that actually occur very infrequently in text

• U = 0.5: centaur, cumulus, deacon, demise, farce, filly, grotto, martyr, mildew, smock, thistle, tier, typhoon

• U = 0.1 grail, grog, hag, latrine, lingo, octane, smirk, sprig

The problem with subjective The problem with subjective impressions of word frequencyimpressions of word frequency

Beck et al.’s examples of Tier 2 words include words with suspiciously low frequencies:

• U > 5: 26 words (merchant, tend)

• U 1 to 5: 17 words (sinister, sullen)

• U < 1 11 words (detest, valet)

Information about Word Frequency: Information about Word Frequency: Frequencies for individual wordsFrequencies for individual words

• Carroll, Davies, & Richman (1971). The Word Frequency Book.

• Zeno et al. (1995). The Educator’s Word Frequency Guide.

• The Corpus of Contemporary American English

http://www.americancorpus.org/

Information about Word Frequency: Information about Word Frequency: Lists of frequent wordsLists of frequent words

General Service List http://jbauman.com/aboutgsl.html2000 high-frequency, high-utility words

Academic Word List http://language.massey.ac.nz/staff/awl/570 word families not in the General Service

List that are frequent across a wide variety of academic domains

Applying Objective Frequency DataApplying Objective Frequency Data

• Data should inform – not replace – teacher judgment

• If a word is not in the high frequency core (that is, not in the General Service List or the Academic Word List), it should not be taught intensively unless there is some compelling reason based on the other criteria for word selection

FamiliarityFamiliarity

• A balancing act: You don’t want to teach words students already know, but further learning of partially-known words can often be helpful.

Improving students’ ability Improving students’ ability to judge their own word knowledgeto judge their own word knowledge

Comprehension monitoring is the foundation of all reading strategies

Word-level monitoring is a major component of comprehension monitoring

Improving students’ ability Improving students’ ability to judge their own word knowledgeto judge their own word knowledge

Your students should become proficient at answering questions such as:

• Do I know the meaning of this word?

• Does the meaning I know for this word fit the context?

• Do I know the meaning of this word well enough to keep reading with an adequate level of comprehension?

Conceptual DifficultyConceptual Difficulty

• Beck’s criterion: “Words for which students understand the general concept but provide precision and specificity for describing the concept”

• Problem with this criterion: It excludes the most important words in informational text.

Another Tier 2 criterion that Another Tier 2 criterion that doesn’t apply to informational textdoesn’t apply to informational text

• “words that are characteristic of mature language users and appear frequently across a variety of domains”

• Problem with this criterion: Some extremely important content area terms don’t occur “frequently across a variety of domains”

Choosing words to teach from Choosing words to teach from informational textinformational text

• Role in the lesson and relatedness to other words and concepts trumps frequency

• Instruction focuses on learning concepts– Examples and non-examples– Emphasis on relationship among concepts– Graphic organizers– Refutation of misconceptions when needed

Relationships to other wordsRelationships to other words

• Relationships based on meaning– Beck et al. discuss this– I would emphasize it even more

• Relationships based on morphology (word parts)

Beck et al. on meaning Beck et al. on meaning relationships among wordsrelationships among words

• “How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students know or have been learning?”

• Does the word have to be in the text being read? No:

• “Think in terms of words that coordinate with, expand, or play off of words, situations, or characters in the text”

Relationships based on meaningRelationships based on meaning

• Learning a new word gives you not just knowledge of that word, but more precise knowledge of all the words to which it is related in meaning.

• When you select words, you take into account not only the value of the word itself, but the importance of the semantic field to which it belongs.

Taking related meanings into accountTaking related meanings into account

• Shudder – a low frequency word (family frequency U = 5)

• But it’s in an interesting domain – movement that convey an emotional state or reaction– shiver, tremble, quiver, quake– flinch, wince, twitch– wiggle, wobble, flutter, throb – scowl, smirk, smile, frown, sneer

Taking related meanings into accountTaking related meanings into account

• Take related meanings into account, but don’t forget the problem of interference:

Don’t simultaneously introduce new words that are highly similar in meaning (or form)

Taking morphology into account Taking morphology into account in word selectionin word selection

The words seldom and communicate are equally frequent in the language

• seldom has no related forms

• communicate is related to communication, communicative, uncommunicative, miscommunication

Taking morphology into account Taking morphology into account in word selectionin word selection

The words pyramid and sphere are equally frequent in the language

• pyramid has no related forms

• sphere is related to spherical, spheroid, hemisphere, atmosphere, biosphere, ionosphere, stratosphere, troposphere, blogosphere

Role in the text and the lessonRole in the text and the lesson

Role in the text

• Importance for understanding the text is not the only criterion – there are other ways besides vocabulary instruction to help students understand a text containing an unfamiliar word

Role in the text and the lessonRole in the text and the lesson

Role in the lesson

• Intensity of instruction should be commensurate with your expectations for student learning

Selecting words must take Selecting words must take multiple criteria into accountmultiple criteria into account

• The relative weight of these criteria depends on the kind of text, the reason for teaching the words, and the prior vocabulary knowledge of the students

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the genre of the texton the genre of the text

If you’re teaching words from informational text, then

• Don’t use criteria developed for narrative text

• Be prepared to make the effort necessary to bring students to an understanding of concepts beyond their existing knowledge and experience

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the reasons for teaching wordson the reasons for teaching words

Different possible reasons for teaching word:• Increasing the proportion of words in text that

students know• Developing knowledge of specific concepts• Developing students’ generative word

knowledge, especially knowledge of word parts

Note that these are not mutually exclusive

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the reasons for teaching wordson the reasons for teaching words

If you’re teaching words to increase the proportion of words in text that are familiar to students, then

• Choose words with moderate to high frequency (that is, words on the General Service List or the Academic Word List)

• Teach words thoroughly, so that students can use them

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the reasons for teaching wordson the reasons for teaching words

If you’re teaching words to develop knowledge of specific concepts, then

• Choose words related to important themes and ideas – words that increase students’ ability to make and articulate clearer distinctions among important sets of concepts

• Determine the importance of the word based on the semantic field it belongs to, not just the individual word

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the reasons for teaching wordson the reasons for teaching words

If you’re teaching words develop students’ generative word knowledge, then

• Choose words that illustrate morphological relationships – words that can be prefixed, suffixed, and compounded to form many new words

Weighting of selection criteria depends Weighting of selection criteria depends on the level of the students’ vocabularyon the level of the students’ vocabulary

The less familiar your students are with academic vocabulary, the more consideration you should give to word frequency as a criterion for word selection – but frequency is never the sole criterion for word selection, and using frequency as a criterion doesn’t mean that instruction can’t be engaging.