words count

WORDS COUNTTeaching Vocabulary for Meaning

WHAT I SAW….

LOTS OF TEXT

OUR WIKI

www.literacytcs.wikispaces.com

Welcome to our wiki: Literacy for The Columbus School!

"The biggest risk in education is not taking one."Seymour Sarason

“Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.” -- Blippitt

FACT OR FICTION?

An effective strategy for developing vocabulary skills is having students look words up in the dictionary and write sentences.

An effective strategy for developing vocabulary is playing vocabulary games with students.

If students have poor vocabularies, it’s important that they have long lists of words to memorize.

Vocabulary is a result of wide reading.

ASSIGN, DEFINE, TEST

APPEAL

• Dictionary definition: attractiveness that interests or pleases or stimulates.

APPEAL

• Dictionary definition: attractiveness that interests or pleases or stimulates.

• Student sentence: Shawna appeal to me from her good looks.

AND YOU?

5 PRINCIPLES

Vocabulary instruction matters! Growing vocabulary is a complex

process. So many words, so little time. Effective vocabulary instruction moves

beyond the dictionary. Teach towards student independence.

VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION MATTERS!

“Vocabulary knowledge is the building block of all learning.”

Rick VanDeWeghe

STUDY OF COLLEGE FRESHMEN

ONLY variable that counted

Students with weaker vocabulary Fail to question text Fail to recognize loss

of meaning

EVEN 5% MATTERS Never mind that the song contends you can’t

rhummi love – science says you don’t actually jeentedo to. It takes all of a fifth of a second for that truly, madly, deeply gigeieff to register, says a new report. That’s faster than your average resting heartbeat.

  Given the heart’s popular role in ecmanromd, it

may be a surprise that falling and being in love are actually more of a cerebral upheaval. Philtery into the wonders of passion has found that a concert of chemicals act on about a dozen parts of the brain all told to create that intense rush experienced as reboth.

LEVELS OF TEXT

Independent level: 98-100% Instructional level: 95 – 97% Frustration level: below 95%

PRINCIPLE 2

Growing vocabulary is a complex process.

RIGHT

I insist on the right to rebut his argument.

She held it in her right hand. Right the boat, please. Right now! She went right to the end of the road. He is a card-carrying member of the

far right.

What does it mean to “own” a word?

INCIDENTAL LEARNING

ACHIEVEMENT % MINUTES OF READING/

DAY

WORDS/YEAR

90th 40.4 2,357,000

50th 12.9 601,00010th 1.6 51,000

Adapted from Anderson, Wilson and Fielding from Allington

RICHARD ALLINGTON

All students need to engage in lots of reading every school day. Most of this reading should be self-selected reading. Skip the worksheets, skip the low level interrogations, and provide the time to read and the books that kids want to read and can read. While the kids are reading, move about the room and engage readers in literate conversations about what they are reading. Literate conversation focus on thoughtful dialogue about the characters, the plot, and the responses the reader is having as he/she reads.

RULE OF THUMB

Ideal: read 30 – 50 books a year (approx. 1 book a week)

Most books should be “easy” reads An easy read: 1 page/minute

If your students are not very adept at selecting books they can read and want to read it may simply indicate that they are relatively unpracticed at this activity. So help them by blessing 3 or 4 books every day. Blessing books is easy. Just hold up the book and tell the readers something about the book. Perhaps read a page or two aloud to allow them to hear what the book sounds like.

BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH

Intentional

GOAL

Own the word

MULTIPLE EXPOSURES

WIKI

How well do I know these terms?

Literacytcs.wikispaces.com

“Ultimately, academic vocabulary development is as much about problem solving as it is about acquisition.”

PRINCIPLE 3

So many words, so little time.

TIER 1 WORDS

General words Commonplace Often learned in the process of living

TIER 2

Specialized Different meanings based on context High frequency Often can be defined with other words

Function

Chaos

Appeal

Plot

Organic

TIER 3

Specialized Technical Infrequently used

Blepharospasm

Deus ex machina???HEGEMONY

Cyclical alophatic

hexene

KEEP THE LIST NARROW

8 – 10 maximum/week

QUESTIONS TO ASK IN SELECTION

Is this word critical for understanding key concepts?

Will this word help students build a rich representation or develop a more precise understanding of the concepts under study?

Does it appear in a variety of domains? Will it be used throughout the year? Will the

word be used in student writing?

By the late Middle Ages, England’s feudal lords had lost much of their power to the its king. The new class of townspeople supported a strong king. A single system of laws and courts and a larger army of soldiers helped strengthen the king. In addition, as the country prospered, more taxes were paid to the king.

FAMILIARITY PRINCIPLE

Word family? Common features or patterns

Word, wordy

Family, familiarity

COGNATES

Cognatus – blood relativeNight/nuitApotik/apothecaryParkir/parking lotTaksi/taxi

MORPHOLOGY

60% of academic words can be taught morphologically

collaborate

colleague

collate

cohere

YOUR TURN

Look through your text and select a few words to teach: Useful Important Transferrable Familiarity

PRINCIPLE 4

Effective vocabulary instruction moves beyond the dictionary.

"Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world." Steven Stahl

3 PRINCIPLES

Integration—connecting new vocabulary to prior knowledge

Repetition—encountering/using the word/concept many times

Meaningful use—multiple opportunities to use new words in reading, writing and soon discussion. 

MCREL’S 6 STEP PROCESS

1. Teacher explains the term.2. Students restate.3. Students create a nonlinguistic

representation.4. Students engage with the word(s).5. Students use the terms in discussion.6. Class plays games with the terms.

YOUR TURN

Select one of these words: Tier 1 Tier 2 Incidental Morphology Cognate Word family

Term: Your understanding: 1 2 3 4

Your definition Draw it

WIKI CHECK-IN FOR STEP 4 (ENGAGEMENT)

What are some activities that you could use to have students engage in the word?

STEP 5

Talk! Create word maps Collaborate on a semantic feature analysis Seminars Talk a Mile a Minute

TALK A MILE A MINUTE

Pair up with someone who selected a word other than yours. (Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.)

Meet with another pair. Talker 1: get the other team to say your two

words but do not use the words or exact definitions.

Other team tries to guess words.

STEP 6

Jeopardy Wordo Balderdash Charades And…

PRINCIPLE 5

Teach towards student independence.

SCIENCE WORD WALL

VOCABULARY NOTEBOOKS

Collect new words 2009

Acai Carbon footprint Flash mob

THINK ALOUD

Show them how you figure out words Groups think aloud

MORPHOLOGY/WORD

60% of academic words can be taught morphologically (prefix, root, affix)

 FLOCCINAUCCINIHILIPILIFICATION

Estonian scholars, who searched for as many Latin words meaning “nothing” or “not very much as possible”:

flocci (means “a little bit,” but literally it means “a bit of wool”),

nauci (means very little), nihili (means “nothing”), pili (means “very little”); fused them together, and then added the suffix “fication” on the

end, to give the sense of an action.

WORD FAMILIES

60% of multisybllical words can be inferred by studying word parts

Teach them to chunk words (break down in smaller parts)

WORD TREES

AND SHOW THEM YOUR JOY IN WORDS!