Concept of Definition: A Key to Improving Students' VocabularyAuthor(s): Robert M. Schwartz and Taffy E. RaphaelSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Nov., 1985), pp. 198-205Published by: International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199044Accessed: 12/10/2009 15:27

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Concept of definition: A key to improving students' vocabulary

This easy set of lessons using simple semantic word maps will

help students improve their vocabulary knowledge and compre hension in all subject areas.

Robert M. Schwartz

Taffy E. Raphael

Imagine the following scene in your fourth grade reading group. Eight stu dents are trying to determine the

meaning of one of their vocabulary words

? environment. The word has

been presented in the following written context: "You hear a lot about our envi

ronment these days, but not much about what it is. People talk about

cleaning it up, and it's true that much of our environment needs cleaning. The better our environment, the hap pier and healthier we are."

The group of students has been asked to write down what environment

means. The eight students can be seen

busily reading and taking notes; sud

denly Mitch looks up. "Can I use the

dictionary?" He looks up the word, closes the book again (without copying the definition or parts of it!) and says

"I got it! It tells what it is." Eric then adds "They talk about en

vironment in my science book. Can I use that? The dictionary doesn't tell

any examples." He busily looks up en vironment in the science book index, then finds words to describe it in the text. A few more students are heard

muttering phrases like "not a very good context," "they don't even tell us what environment is like!"

All of these comments involved chil dren making judgments about the ef fectiveness of the context clues, and about what information they need to

get elsewhere to have a complete defi nition.

What is happening here? This surely is not a typical scene in fourth grade

classrooms. Why are these students so

enthusiastic about finding out what a word means? What created their so

phistication in judgments about con texts? These students have been

participating in an instructional pro gram designed to help them develop a

198 The Reading Teacher November 1985

general "concept of definition" through the use of simple semantic maps.

Why teach the concept of

definition?

The concept of definition instruction stresses the importance of students' be

ing able to figure out new words on

their own, instructs them in what types of information make up a definition, and teaches them how to use context clues and background knowledge to in crease their understanding of words.

Most vocabulary programs focus on

teacher directed activities to introduce new words that will be encountered in a reading selection. The best of these

programs stress the need to provide many repetitions of the words, and

ways of making these repetitions meaningful (e.g., Anders and Bos,

1984; Beck et al, 1979; Hansen and

Alfours, 1982; Wixson, 1984). In con

trast, the concept of definition instruc tion helps students gain control of the

vocabulary acquisition process. The distinction between teacher di

rected strategies for enhancing vocabu

lary and strategies that students can use independently is important. The foremost means by which skilled read ers determine the meaning of unknown words is through the use of context clues (Alexander, 1983; Nagy and An

derson, 1984). Learning the meaning of new words from text is one of the

major comprehension activities re

quired when reading science, social studies or other content area texts. We

need to teach students strategies they can use to expand their own vocabu laries and to master unfamiliar con

cepts.

The concept of definition instruction addresses this need. Students are often told to "look at the context clues" or "look at the other words in the sen

tence," but many students do not know what they are trying to find. Further

more, they seem unaware that they

may have background knowledge that

they could apply to comprehending the text (Hansen and Pearson, 1983) or its

concepts. Also, students are often

asked to use glossaries and dictio

naries and then write a new word's

meaning "in their own words." Yet,

they are not taught explicitly what "de

fining in their own words" involves.

They may think they have understood these tasks when in fact they have only a vague or general idea.

Children have difficulty with each of these tasks because determining the

meaning of a new word always poses two problems. The first is specific, tied to the individual word (i.e., find

ing the information that tells its partic ular meaning). The second problem requires a decision about what type of information is needed to define any

word and how that information can be

organized. This problem is general and must be solved repeatedly until the student develops a strong "concept of definition."

The concept of definition instruction

helps solve this second problem. It

provides a general schema or structure for word meaning. In doing so it

makes students more efficient at se

lecting and evaluating different sources of information available for

determining the meaning of a word,

combining the new information with their prior knowledge into an orga nized definition of the concept, and re

calling previously learned vocabulary information. To establish this concept of definition, a simple form of seman

tic word maps is used.

What is a word map? A word map is a visual representation of a definition. This type of mapping has been applied to reading instruction

by Pearson and Johnson (1978; John son, 1984; Johnson and Pearson, 1984). Based on attempts by cognitive

psychologists to describe the structure of semantic knowledge, three catego ries of relationships are used in word

Concept of definition 199

maps: (1) the general class to which

the concept belongs, (2) the primary

properties of the concept and those that

distinguish it from other members of the class, and (3) examples of the con

cept.

These categories can be translated into three questions to guide elemen

tary students in their search for a

word's meaning: (1) What is it? (2) What is it like? (3) What are some ex

amples? This type of map is most appropriate

when applied to nouns, but can be eas

ily generalized to action words and other parts of speech. Figure 1 dis

plays its basic structure. In the center of the map, students

write the concept being studied. Next, in the topmost box, they write a gen eral word that answers the question "What is it?" The answer to this ques tion is a superordinate concept that can

include the concept and other related words. That is, it asks for the type of

thing the concept is. For example, in

defining sandwich, the word that iden tifies the class to which sandwich be

longs is the superordinate word food. Many items are foods; thus the an

swer to "What is it like?" specifies those features that distinguish a sand

wich from soup, pie, or other types of food. Some properties of sandwiches include that they are made with bread, have an edible filler, and are often

served for lunch. The answer to "What are some ex

amples?" requires that the student pro vide examples of the concept being defined. Examples of different types of sandwiches are easy to generate.

How can we teach the concept of definition?

Thinking about word meaning in terms

of these three questions is the basic

concept of definition that we would like students to develop and use. We have found that explicit instruction in

this concept of definition is useful with

students from fourth grade through college. We began to develop this in struction as part of an undergraduate study skills course to help students

clarify and organize the large number of new concepts introduced in college courses. We next applied it in instruc tional research with eighth grade sci ence students (Schwartz and Nicholas, 1982) and then with fourth graders (Schwartz and Raphael, 1984).

Since the work with fourth graders required more elaborate instructional

procedures, we will provide a com

plete description here. The instruction at other levels was basically condensed versions of this program which pro vides a guideline for introducing the

concept of definition and encouraging its independent use. In classroom use, teachers should extend this instruction over a longer period of time and a

number of content areas.

The students described at the begin ning of this article were in a fourth

grade reading group from a Depart ment of Defense school in Okinawa,

Japan. Their reading group received the concept of definition instruction

while another group participated in

regular reading activities. These were

academically talented students, aver

aging the 76th percentile on the Com

prehensive Test of Basic Skills (1968). (For a discussion of the research un

derlying this program, see Schwartz and Raphael, 1984.)

. The special instructional materials included five types of activities. The 4

days of instruction were designed to

provide strong initial support by the in

structor, with gradual transfer of stra

tegic control to the students (Pearson and Gallegher, 1983; Rogoff, in

press). (See Figures 1 and 2 for sam

ples of these activities.)

Lesson One On the first day, the children learning the concept of definition were given

200 The Reading Teacher November 1985

Figure 1 Word map

What is it?

What is it like?

What are some examples?

explicit information about what we

would be doing, why it was important, and how we would proceed (as recom

mended in Roehler, Duffy and Meloth, in press). During this session the stu dents were introduced to the idea of us

ing strategies to gain word meaning, to the need to determine what words

mean to fully comprehend text, and to the value of being able to judge

whether or not they know what a word means. This discussion promoted the idea that the new strategy could add to their control of the reading process.

Following this introduction, the structure of a word map was displayed (Figure 1) and introduced as a type of

picture they could use to remind them of what they need to know to really un

derstand a new word. Next, the stu

dents worked with the instructor to

organize familiar information in terms of the three questions used in the word

map. To maximize support for student

learning, this initial instruction was fo

cused around a categorization task (see

Figure 2). The following is a typical exchange between teacher and stu dents:

T: To answer the question "What is

it?", you need a very general word. This word would answer the question "What is it?" for many different words.

Look on your list under the word com

puter. Can you find a very general word that answers the question "What is it?" It could answer that question for lawn mower or dishwasher or pencil sharpener as well as computer.

S: Machine. T: That certainly is very general,

and it does answer the question "What is it?" Now we'll talk about the ques tion "What is it like?" The answer to this question gives details about the

word being studied. For example, the details for computer are descriptions of what computers are like. These de

scriptions tell things about computers

Concept of definition 201

Figure 2

Categorization tasks

SOUP COMPUTER

chicken noodle Atari

served with sandwiches has a keyboard tastes good a machine

is a liquid can play games on it

eat it with a spoon IBM-PC

served before the main dish at dinner has a screen to read from

served in a bowl people use it to write with

food has "memory"

Words in complete contexts

These examples are considered complete because they refer to one superordinate term, at

least 3 characteristics, and at least 3 examples.

Crops

Have you ever been to a farm? Have you ever seen a farmer work with his crops? Crops come from seeds planted by the farmer early in the spring. The farmer takes care of his

seeds all spring and summer long. Early in the fall, crops are harvested and taken to market.

At the market they are sold to people like you and me. Farmers can plant different kinds of

crops. Some plant potatoes. Some plant onions. Some plant corn and tomatoes. Fresh

crops sure taste good!

Words in partial contexts

These are partial contexts because they do not have all the components needed to fill in a

map and write what the word means.

Environment

You hear a lot these days about our environment, but what exactly is it? We hear a lot of

talk about a clean environment. Many parts of our environment need cleaning. The better

our environment, the happier we can be.

Student decision-making task

Astronaut

The space shuttle is in space again, this time with five astronauts on board. What an

exciting job to have! I'll bet people like John Glenn and Sally Ride really enjoy their work.

Definition: Astronauts enjoy their work. Examples of astronauts are Sally Ride and John

Glenn.

_ This is a complete definition. _ This is not a complete definition. Things to add are:_

and how they are different from other check the list again. Do you see any machines like lawn mowers or pencil examples of computers?

sharpeners or dishwashers. Can you S: Apple 2C. find any? S: IBM PC.

S: Has a keyboard. S: It isn't on the list, but there is the S: Can play games on it. TRS-80 computer. S: Has a screen to read from. T: Excellent. You used information T: Yes, those are properties of a from the list, and also from your own

computer; they answer the question experiences.

"What is it like?" To answer the last Note the use of contrast to demon

question, "What are some examples?" strate the difference between class re

202 The Reading Teacher November 1985

lationships (What is it?) and property relationships (What is it like?). This

tends to be difficult for children to un

derstand, and the use of contrasts is ef fective in making the distinction clear.

Independent activities were com

pleted in the instructional booklet fol

lowing this discussion. These included

having the students map words from

the categorization task and mapping one word of their own choice based on

their background knowledge. They then used the information from their

map to verbalize a definition of the

word.

For example, Natasha mapped the word ice cream and defined it as fol lows: "Ice cream is a dessert. It is cold,

yummy and melts in the sun. Some ex

amples are chocolate, vanilla, and

chocolate chip ice cream."

Lesson Two The second lesson introduced locating components of definition from the con text of the sentence in which the word occurred. "Complete context" senten

ces were used in this initial instruction to support learning of the definition structure. That is, the context senten ces provided at least one class, three

properties, and three examples for each concept. During discussion these

types of information were underlined, checked, or numbered so they would be highlighted and distinguished for later mapping by the students.

Generating oral and written defini tions followed the mapping. At this

point, we began to stress the idea that there was nothing magic about having three examples or three properties in a

map or definition. Students were told that additional ideas could be included in the map or definition if these would

help in understanding the word.

Lesson Three The third lesson was similar to the sec

ond, except the context provided for each concept was less complete. These

partial contexts meant that some of the

class, property, or example relation

ships were not provided. It was at this

point that some students asked to use

dictionaries, textbooks, and encyclo

pedias to obtain specific types of infor mation. Discussion in this lesson, at

the children's initiation, centered around the use of their background knowledge and other sources to locate

components of definition.

Bruce, looking for examples of as

tronauts, asked to get a dictionary. Paula told him it would be a waste of time: "Dictionaries don't have 'what are some examples'; you need an ency

clopedia!"

Lesson Four In the fourth lesson, students were

taught to write what a word meant, in

cluding all components, without map

ping the word. Instead, they were told to think about the parts of the map and use it to gather information in their heads. To practice this internalization of the concept of definition, students were given words in partial context sentences followed by definitions.

They were told that the definitions were written by another group of fourth graders who had been taught

word mapping. They were to evaluate whether each definition was complete and, if not, write in whatever additional information was needed. It was this ac

tivity that elicited many of the remarks

given at the beginning of this article. We found that the children who had

been led to develop the concept of defi nition were much more likely to inter

pret correctly the meaning of a word in

partial contexts. The children also wrote more elaborate definitions for familiar words presented without con

text clues. Finally when asked "What do you do to figure out the meaning of a new word?" they had a greater aware ness of a strategy for determining word

meanings. They indicated they would ask themselves questions and think

Concept of definition 203

about what they already knew. In con

trast, the students without this instruc

tion tended to answer "I would look it

up" (Schwartz and Raphael, 1984). This suggests that students can inter

nalize and use the concept of defini tion.

Implications This type of instruction has implica tions for both teachers and students. Students will find the strategy useful in

evaluating their knowledge of vocabu

lary, guiding their search for new in

formation, and as an aid in recalling other concepts. Internalizing a concept of definition is particularly important if students are to increase the effi

ciency with which they gain new vo

cabulary through reading (Nagy and

Anderson, 1984). Even small gains in

learning efficiency can have a large ef fect over years of school.

Having introduced the concept of definition through the type of instruc tion described above, teachers will find it also provides a shared structure for discussing new concepts. Concept

maps can be quite helpful in presenting information about synonyms, multiple

meaning words and other semantic re

lationships that are often difficult to

explain. Rather than providing defini tions for new words encountered in ba

sal readers, library books, and

textbooks, teachers will be better able to engage the class in discussion of

word meanings and a search for com

ponents of definition.

Vocabulary mapping has often been

suggested as a useful instructional

technique and learning strategy (An ders and Bos, 1984; Johnson, 1984; Johnson and Pearson, 1978). Estab lishment of a clear concept of defini tion makes students better able to

participate in this type of activity. For

example, in discussing related con

cepts, like compound and element, in

terconnected concept maps can be

developed to make explicit the similar

ity and differences among terms.

These simple maps can be expanded into structured overviews that display the relationship among a large set of

subject matter concepts (Barron and

Schwartz, 1984). We feel that the context of the class

room provides teachers with an excel lent opportunity to expand on the type of instruction described here. We hope this article will encourage teachers to

experiment with the procedure, and that you will write to us and share your

experiences in using the concept of definition.

Schwartz teaches and does research on

the reading process and reading in struction at Oakland University, Roch

ester, Michigan. Raphael teaches at

Michigan State University, East Lans

ing, where she does research in com

prehension and composing processes.

References Alexander, J. Estill. Teaching Reading. Boston, Mass.: Lit

tle Brown, 1983. Anders, Patricia L, and Candace S. Bos. "In the Begin

ning: Vocabulary Instruction in Content Classrooms." Topics in Learning and Learning Disabilities, vol. 3, (January 1984), pp. 53-65.

Barron, Richard, and Robert M. Schwartz. "Graphic Post Organizers: A Spatial Learning Strategy." In Spatial Learning Strategies: Techniques, Applications, and Re lated Issues, edited by CD. Holley and D.F. Danse reau, pp. 275-89. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984.

Beck, Isabel, Margaret McKeown, Ellen S. McCaslin, and Ann M. Burkes. Instructional Dimensions that May Af fect Reading Comprehension: Examples from Two Commercial Reading Programs (LRDC Publication

1979/20). Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, 1979.

Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. New York, N.Y.: Mc Graw Hill, 1968.

Hansen, Jane, and Georganna Ahlfors. "Instruction in In ferential Comprehension: An Extension and a Sum

mary." In New Inquiries in Reading Research and Instruction, edited by Jerome A. Niles and Larry A. Harris. Rochester, N.Y: National Reading Conference, 1982.

Hansen, Jane, and P. David Pearson. "An Instructional

Study: Improving the Inferential Comprehension of Good and Poor Fourth-Grade Readers." Journal of Ed ucational Psychology, vol. 75 (December 1983), pp. 821-29.

Johnson, Dale D. "Two Important Approaches to Vocabu lary Development: Semantic Mapping and Semantic

Feature Analysis." Paper presented at the International Reading Association Annual Convention, Atlanta, Ga., May 1984.

Johnson, Dale D., and P. David Pearson. Teaching Read ing Vocabulary. New York, N.Y: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston, 1984.

204 The Reading Teacher November 1985

Nagy, William, and Richard C Anderson. "How Many Words Are There in Printed School English?" Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 19 (Spring 1984), pp. 304-30.

Pearson, P. David, and Meg C. Gallegher. "The Instruction of Reading Comprehension." Contemporary Educa tional Psychology, vol. 8, no. 3 (1983), pp. 317-44.

Pearson, P. David, and Dale D. Johnson. Teaching Read

ing Comprehension. New York, N.Y: Holt, Rinehartand Winston, 1978.

Roehler, Laura R., Gerry G. Duffy, and Michael B. Meloth. "What to Be Direct About in Direct Instruction: Con tent-Only versus Process-lnto-Content." In Contexts of

School Based Literacy, edited by Taffy E. Raphael. New York, N.Y: Random House, in press.

Rogoff, Barbara. "Social Guidance of Cognitive Develop ment." In Contexts of School Based Literacy, edited by

Taffy E. Raphael. New York, N.Y: Random House, in

press. Schwartz, Robert M., and Susan Nicholas. "The Effect on

Vocabulary Acquisition of Instruction in the Concept of Definition." Paper presented at the American Educa tional Research Association meeting, New York, N.Y,

March 1982. Schwartz, Robert M., and Taffy E. Raphael. "Instruction in

the Concept of Definition as Vocabulary Instruction." Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, St. Petersburg, Fla., December 1984.

Wixson, Karen K. "Vocabulary Instruction and Children's Comprehension of Basal Stories." Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, St. Petersburg, Fla., December 1984.

Second graders learn best in cooperative groups Second grade children learned a unit on maps much better when they worked

in cooperative groups, with discussion, than when they did the unit individu

ally. The advantage showed up on both pos tins tructional and retention tests.

The cooperative groups discussed the map material and concepts. Results

indicated that group-to-individual transfer takes place in cooperative learning

groups and that orally summarizing the new material and children's monitoring of others' summaries contributes to the efficacy of cooperative learning. Fur

ther, the improvement occurred for children of all ability levels and was most

apparent in their retention of the material.

Structured discussion benefitted the children most, but even an unstructured

discussion produced better learning than did individual work.

For details, see Stuart Yager et al., "Oral Discussion, Group-to-Individual

Transfer, and Achievement in Cooperative Learning Groups," Journal of Educa tional Psychology, February 1985, pp. 60-66.

Armchair travel

Katherine Hatch, today a foreign correspondent in Cuernavaca, Mexico, re

ceived Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels "at the dining room

table in Kansas City on my twelfth birthday, and I've never been the same

since."

This was another world and whetted her appetite for travel adventure. And

yes, she adds, "I've splashed the water of the Blue Grotto, felt the wind blowing down the snowy slopes of Popocatepetl, marveled at the Panama Canal. I'm

still working on that old fabulous list that opened my eyes and my life thirty four years ago?and I still have the book."

Sabine, Gordon and Patricia, Books That Made the Difference: What People Told Us. Hamden, Conn.: Library Professional Publications (The Shoe String

Press), 1983, p. 59.

Concept of definition 205