Middle Level and High School Vocabulary

“For most students, finding definitions and writing those words in sentences have had little apparent impact on their word knowledge and language use.”

Janet Allen

Reading StrandReading Anchor Standard #4Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative,

and figurative meanings, analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Language StrandLanguage Anchor Standard #4Determine 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.

Language Anchor Standard #6Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

ELA CCSS - Vocabulary

So… why change?

• Research suggests that a student’s reading vocabulary soars at a rate of 3,000 - 4,000 words a year, attaining about 35,000 by 8th grade, and can read something like 50,000 words by the end of high school. (= 20 words / day) Graves

• Lack of vocabulary can be a crucial factor underlying the school failure of disadvantaged students. Becker & Biemiller

Types of Vocabulary

Print

Reading Writing

Receptive Productive

Oral

Listening Speaking

Receptive Productive

What works?

M. Graves Presents a Four-part Program:

1. Provide rich and varied language experiences

2. Teach individual words3. Teach word-learning strategies4. Foster word consciousness

1.Provide Rich and Varied Language Experiences

More reading = more words learned Anderson & Nagy

• Actively promote programs like Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) or Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) with free choice and varied materials

• Establish read-aloud/shared reading procedures in ALL classrooms. Fisher & Frey

• Incorporate regular book talks.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVQjt_H2SQ

SUNDRY SYNONYMS

spell binding

exceptional

epic

awesome

Read-Aloud with Text Talk

1. Contextualize the word.

2. Repeat the word.

3. Compose student friendly definition.

4. Use in other contexts.

5. Engage students.

6. Repeat the word.

How do students learn

the meanings of words?

Indirectly

Oral Language

Listening

Reading Extensively

Directly

Word Learning

Strategies

Read-Aloud

Vocabulary Study

Specific Word

Instruction

Brain Matters

“From brain research, we … have come to understand that the brain is a pattern-seeking device in search of meaning…” Olsen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVQjt_H2SQ

2. Teach Individual WordsLevels of Word

Knowledge 1. No knowledge

2. General sense;

Narrow, context-bound knowledge

3. Some knowledge; limited recall and application

4. Decontextualized knowledge; word relationships; metaphorical extensions

(devouring a book) Beck...

1234

“Words are learned in many small steps, not all at once.”

Stahl & Nagy 2006

reductive

His views of life are reductive.

animadvert

The coach will animadvert

when the player misses a tackle.

More defined…

• animus – mind

• advertere – to turn toward; adverse

•Definition: to remark or comment critically, usually with strong disapproval

3 Tiers of Vocabulary (Beck & McKeown)

• Tier 1 – most basic words : clock, baby,happy,walk …

• Tier 2 – high frequency words for mature language users and are found across a variety of domains: absurd, coincidence, fortunate, …

• Tier 3 – low frequency of use; limited to specialized domains; content concepts: isotope, peninsula, lathe…

Vocabulary for the Common Core

Chapter 3

Marzano’s Tier 2 Words

• Verbs that describe cognitive processes

• Arranged in 24 basic categories

• Not specific to ELA or math

• Descriptions and examples in Part II

Marzano’s Tier 3 Vocabulary for the CCSS

• Domain –specific to ELA and math

• Suggested grade level ranges

• Categorized by “measurement topics”, CCSS categories of knowledge and skills – ELA: 37 topics; math: 79 topics

LEVEL IITaking incremental steps to increase

knowledge of specific words Independent word study & Teacher-directed

word-learning strategies for vocabulary instructionuse while reading

LEVEL III

Achievingproductive control

and precision of meaning for new words & concepts

key content high-utilityarea terms general vocabulary

LEVEL IIncreasing breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge

through experiences with rich oral and written language

Increasing exposure to and productive Increasing exposure to written languagecommand of rich oral language through through systematic and long-term efforts to

hearing books read aloud and through increase the amount of time, engagement,interactions with peers and responsive adults and variety in students’ reading

VOCABULARY GROWTH PYRAMID

Fewer words/ Moretime and effort per word

More words/Less timeand effort per word

“Teaching Word Meanings”Stahl & Nagy 2006

2.Teach Individual Words

Selecting Vocabulary to Teach

• Tier 3 (content specific) and Tier2 words (relatively high frequency) Beck…

• Fry’s (2004) list of 1,000 Instant Words

• General Service List of English Words West, Folse, Nation

• The Living Word Vocabulary Dale & O’Rourke

• Student self-collection Rapp-Rudell & Shearer

• Subject area terms Marzano

Building Academic VocabularyMarzano

• Why choose terms?

• How do you choose terms?

district, school, or content?

• Who is responsible to teach?

What We Already Know!

There are two key elements essential for learning to read in

any content:

Vocabulary

Prior Knowledge

24

Vocabulary and Prior

Knowledge Go Together

“Teaching specific terms in a specific way

is probably the strongest action a teacher

can take to ensure that students have the

academic background knowledge they

need to understand the content they will

encounter in school.”Marzano, Pickering: Pg. 1

25

What Does the Research Tell Us

About Academic Vocabulary

Instruction?

There are 6 steps in the process for

direct instruction of academic terms

to ensure that students will have the

academic background knowledge

they need to understand content

they will encounter in school.

26

What Does the Research Tell Us

About Academic Vocabulary

Instruction?

The first 3 steps ensure that

teachers appropriately

introduce a new term and

help students develop

(transform) an initial

understanding of it.

27

What Does the Research Tell Us

About Academic Vocabulary

Instruction?

The last 3 steps describe different

types of multiple exposures that

students should experience over

time to help them shape and

sharpen (consolidate) their

understanding of the terms.

28

Step 1 Describe:

Provide…

• A description

• An explanation

• An example

The Six Steps

Step 1: Describe—Develop an Initial

Understanding of the Term

• Ask them what they know or think they know about the term.

• Explain the term in common every day language.

• Do not provide a definition or ask them to look up a definition in the dictionary or glossary.

“Look at a milk container and you will see the word pasteurized. That word means that the milk was heated to kill the bacteria that could make you sick. Louis Pasteur, a man from France, invented the process to make milk safe to drink in the 1800s. The process was named after him.”

30

Step 2 Restate: Ask students to

restate in their own words the

• Description

• Explanation

• Example

The Six Steps: Step 2

Turn to page 19 in your book.

Step 2: Restate

• Students take what the teacher has said

and translate it into their own words.

• If they can use words of their own, it helps

them retain the words and be able to use

them later.

• “Write something that will help you

remember what the word means.

Everyone will be different.”

32

Step 3 Draw: Ask students to construct

• A picture

• A symbol

• A graphic

of the term or phrase.

The Six Steps: Step 3

Turn to page 22 in your book.

Step 3: Draw

• Students take what they just wrote and

translate that into a picture or a graphic

organizer.

• New modality—from words to pictures and

images.

• The pictures don’t have to be perfect but

need to be something that will help them

remember what the word means.

Visual > Verbal Learning Steps

Draw symbols for each the following

words:

Love

Religion

Divorce

Copasetic (copacetic; copasetic)

Torsade (de Pointes)

Love

Religion

Divorce

Copasetic

Torsade

37

Think-Pair-Share

With a Partner:

1. Discuss how the first three steps relate to

you as a content area teacher.

2. Note the examples in the book that would

work in your content.

3. Share at your table what you starred and

what you are thinking.

MIX and MATCH

• Activities for Step 4 (pages 24-34)

– Free Association

– Comparing Terms

– Venn Diagram

– Double Bubble

– Matrix

– Classifying Terms

– Solving Analogy Problems

– Creating Metaphors

Reinforce Terms

Step 4:

• Need to highlight new information and

insights

- note prefix and/or suffix

- identify synonyms and antonyms

- draw additional graphics

- translate the term

Social Learning

Step 5: Social interactions

• Confirm meaning

• Clear up misconceptions

• Restate connections

MEANINGFUL EXTENSIONS

• Games for Step 6 (pages 36-40)

– What Is the Question?

– Vocabulary Charades

– Name That Category

– Draw Me

– Talk a Mile a Minute

Templates for Activities and Games in

Building Academic Vocabulary:

Appendix A (pages 75-81)

Last Thoughts About

“Good Stuff”

Turn to page 32 of BAV

–Keeping track of student

progress

–Self-assessment of knowledge

level

–Working with ESL students

Self-Assessment

• Level 4 - I understand even more about

the term than I was taught.

• Level 3 - I understand the term and I’m

not confused about any part of what it

means.

• Level 2 - I’m a little uncertain about what

the term means, but I have a general idea.

• Level 1 - I’m very uncertain about the

term. I really don’t understand what it

means.

A Manageable Process?

“The time is invested on the front end, so

you don’t have to invest as much time on

the back end to review terms and to spend

a lot of time with terms at the end of the

year. So we have more time for additional

terms and additional concepts later.”

High School Teacher, Adrian Leday

Think About This…

• All students can

develop content

vocabulary.

• We know the six-

step process works.

• Teachers make the

difference!

Day 2

Developing a

Comprehensive

Vocabulary

Program

M. Graves –Guidelines for Instruction

• Include both definitional and contextual information

• Need active and deep word processing

• Provide multiple exposures

Guidelines continued

• Review, rehearse, and remind students

• Discuss word meaning

• Spend significant time on word study, including appropriate games

Graves (Marzano’s six steps are similar.)

3. Teaching Word-learning Strategies

• Direct explanation model• Graphic organizers• Links to prior knowledge• Using context clues• Using word parts• Using the dictionary and related

references• Strategy ownership

Gradual Release of Responsibility

Teacher Support

Student Responsibility

Teacher Modeling

Guided Practice

Independent Practice

Application

Structure for Successful Instruction

Teacher Responsibility

Focus Lesson “I do, you watch.”

_______________________________________________________

“I do, you help.”

Guided Instruction “You do, I help.”

________________________________________________________

Collaborative

“You do it together”

________________________________________________________

Independent

“You do it alone”

Fisher and Frey Student Responsibility

Graphic Organizer Applications

• Frayer model• 4 Square• Semantic mapping• Semantic feature analysis• Venn diagram• Double bubble• Linear arrays• Analogy

Frayer Model

“The Frayer Model is a word categorization activity. Using the Frayer Model, students analyze a word’s essential and nonessential attributes and also refine their

understanding by choosing examples and non-examples of

the concept.”Frayer, Frederick, & Klausmeier, 1969

Essential Characteristics Non-essential Characteristics

Examples Non-examples

Frayer Model

Graphic Organizers

Parallelogram

CharacteristicsDefinition (in own words)

Non-ExamplesExamples

A quadrilateral that has

two pairs of parallel sides

• 4-sided

•Opposite sides ll

•Opposite sides =

•Has 360 interior degrees

Frayer Model

Essential Characteristics

A mathematical shape that is a closed plane figure

bounded by 3 or more line segments.

Non-essential Characteristics

• Closed

• More than 2 straight sides

• 2-Dimensional

Examples

• Pentagon

• Hexagon

• Square

• Trapezoid

• Rhombus

Non-examples

• Circle

• Cone

• Arrow

• Cylinder

Frayer Model

Polygon

Adapted 4 Square for Tier 2’s

• Fold blank paper into four equal parts

• Put oval in center

• Insert word in isolation and sentence context

• Upper left: “Example” and student-friendly definition

• Upper right: “NOT Example”

• Lower left: “Synonym”

• Lower right: “Antonym”

Semantic Mapping

No voteof people

Hitler

One person rule

Dictatorship

SEMANTIC FEATURE ANALYSIS

Venn and Comparisons

square

rectangleparallelogram

Double Bubble

Differences Similarities Differences

1. 2.

Linear Array

Place the following words on the linear array: mumble, proclaim, shout

WHISPER SCREAM

Analogy

Puppy:Dog Kitten:Cat

• Synonyms and antonyms

• Descriptive

• Part to whole

• Item to category (commonalities)

• Order

bat

hitteras

stick

(relating factor)

Analogy

aspeople

oxygen

plants

carbon dioxidein order to survive, need

BAV Marzano

3.Teaching Word-learning Strategies

Linking Prior Knowledge • Wordstorming or ABC’s to Anticipate Content Allen

• List-Group-Label Allen

• Exclusion Brainstorming Blachowicz

• Predict-O-Gram Blachowicz

• Vocabulary Overview Guide Buehl

• Possible Sentence Beers

• Frame Routine Tollefson

Before Reading Strategies

Concept Words

• Most likely Tier 3 words

• Examples include:

Concept Definition Map

Concept Circles

Analogy Graphic Organizer

Concept Definition Map

Concept or Attribute Circles

Context Clues for the CCSS

Jabberwocky

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9o6

DH_uzE

Using Context Clues

Four-Step Strategy(Inferring word meanings from context) Graves

1. Play and QuestionRead carefullyFrequently ask yourself, “Does this make sense?”

2. Slow AdvanceNotice when you don’t know the meaning of a word and slow down.Read that sentence (or surrounding sentences) once more, looking for clues.

Using Context Clues

3. Stop and RewindIf necessary, go back and reread the

preceding sentence, looking for clues that help you figure out what the word might mean.

4. Play and QuestionWhen you figure out what the word might mean, substitute your guess in for the difficult word and see if it makes sense.If it does, keep on reading. If it doesn’t, stop and rewind, and try again.

Context >> Word Meaning

1. Model with talk aloud how you search for clues before and after a word.

2. Talk about the relative value of context clues; some strong and some misleading.

3. 3 categories of context clues: definition or synonym (amnesia, or loss of memory); properties or characteristics (cypress –scale-like leaves and round, woody cones); examples and/or non-examples (domestic animals such as dogs, cats, and cows)

Syntax and Semantics

Read the following words:

a cones function on

as daily graph shows

below data line snow

best fit maximum sold

for of collected the

number temperature

Now read this…

The graph below shows a line of best fit for data collected on the number of snow cones sold as a function of the maximum daily temperatures. Neubert & Wilkins

Here’s another example…

With a last kiss for her husband, John, Ramsey and her three women passengers (two sisters-in-law and one family friend) began a historic journey of four thousand miles from New York City to San Francisco, making her the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States.

Neubert & Wilkins

Marzano says:

Word parts:

Using Word Parts(2nd choice; requires explicit instruction)

Teaching Prefixes• What?

Most frequent 20 list White…

• When? Most productive grades 4-6; try about 6

per year

• What order? Most frequent first.

Most Frequent Prefixes

un – 782 re – 401 in,im ir,il (not) – 313

dis – 216 en, em – 132 non – 126

in, im (in,into) – 105 over – 98 mis – 83

sub- 80 pre – 79 inter – 77

fore – 76 de- 71 trans – 47

super – 43 semi – 39 anti – 33

mid – 33 under – 25

Using Word Parts

Teaching Suffixes

• Inflectional – Native English speakersneed to learn a process for suffix removal; English learners need grammatical knowledge as well.

• Derivational – Systematic instruction inderivational suffixes ought to be reserved for secondary students. (ment; able)

Common Suffixes

ed * - past ism - belief

ing * - present logy - science

ful – full of, like ician - specialist

ly *- like es* - more than

ness – condition one

less – without tion, ion – state of* Most frequent. These suffixes account for 97% of suffixed words

printed in school English.

* derivational suffixes

Using Word Parts

Non-English Roots• Example – anthro meaning “man”• NOT recommended to use systematic

instruction because lower frequency and variance in spelling and meaning

• Secondary level may benefit from incidental, specific instruction as encountered Graves

Latin and Greek Roots• Instruction should be targeted to secondary

content Graves

Self Study Resources

• Test prep lists for ACT & SAT

• http://quizlet.com/1642257/100-words-every-

high-school-graduate-should-know-flash-cards/

• http://www.vocabulary.com/lists/388513#view=n

otes

Cognates for ESL

• What is a cognate?

color, animal, normal

• How to use?

English Spanish

Using the Dictionary and Related References

• Match level to reader

• Use explicit instruction

• Read and consider ALL definition choices

• Remember multiple meanings

• Which definition fits context?

• Does your student have a clue?

Strategy Ownership

How to deal with unknown words?

A Aware; makes sense?

K Need to know?

I Infer from context and word parts?

S Sound match to oral vocabulary?

S Ask or search for help?

Adopt a “Personal” Approach

• Self-monitor

• Self-regulate

• Learn new words

4. Promoting Word Consciousness

• Model, recognize, and encourageWord-of-the-dayLiterature discussion – word hunterWord Wall

• Promote word playHomophones, homographs, idioms, punsWord Games – Question Matrix; Draw Me“Not a frill, but necessary” Blachowicz & Fisher

• Provide rich and expressive instructionMore formal methodsLiterature study supports

4. Promoting Word Consciousness

• Involve students in original investigationCompare newspaper word useCollect contemporary hip or slang termsNote geographical word use (bubbler)

• Teach students about wordsComplexities of word knowledge demands explicit instructionResearch concludes that only powerful instruction produces high levels of word knowledge Stahl…

Brain Matters

“The person doing the work is the one growing the dendrites”

“Games can provide an active, motivating way for students to review what they’ve learned, but their effectiveness is enhanced if the students participate in the design or construction of the game.”

Wolfe

4. Promoting Word Consciousness

“Given the size and complexity of the task of learning tens of thousands of words, developing students’ word consciousness so they have both the will and the skillto improve their vocabulary is hugely important. However… it makes good sense to keep most efforts to foster word consciousness light and low keyed.”

Graves

ACTION PLAN

• Identify a unit you will be teaching over the next month.

• List the vocabulary terms that you believe students will need to know in order to understand the big ideas of the unit.

• Determine which of these words are important enough to warrant direct instruction. (No more than 10?)

• Select a vocabulary strategy that you believe would be effective for teaching each of the selected words.

• Plan how you will use the selected strategies to teach each word.

Reading StrandReading Anchor Standard #4Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative,

and figurative meanings, analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Language StrandLanguage Anchor Standard #4Determine 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.

Language Anchor Standard #6Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

ELA CCSS - Vocabulary