Word Up: Building a Rich Vocabulary for

Academy Themes

National Academy Foundation Leadership SummitOrlando, FloridaNovember 16, 2006Presenter: Andrew Rothstein, PhDNAF Curriculum Managerarothstein@naf.org

Focus & Essential Questions

• What is the rationale for integrating literacy strategies into Academy themes?

• What is literacy in the context of NAF Academies?

• How can we provide students with a robust vocabulary?

How does one acquire a large vocabulary?

Vocabulary

Criteria for Selecting Words to TeachSource: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (Beck, McKeown, Kucan)

• Importance & Utility: Appear frequently across a variety of domains.

• Instructional Potential: Words that can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students can build rich representations of them and their connections to other words & concepts.

• Conceptual Understanding: Words for which students understand the general concept but provide precision & specificity in describing the concept.

Key Components of Literacy Support Framework

(Source: Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice. Julie Meltzer, Nancy Cook Smith & Holly Clark. CRM)

• Address Student Motivation to Read, Write, and Speak.

• Implement Research-Based Literacy Strategies

• Integrate Literacy Across the Curriculum• Ensure Support, Sustainability and Focus

Through Organizational Structures and Leadership Capacity.

The Case and Guidance for Focusing on Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the building block of discourse in all subjects. Research

indicates that there is a strong relationship between academic success and

vocabulary. A major source of the achievement gap is a lack of background

vocabulary. The research supporting direct instruction

in vocabulary is compelling.

Elements of Effective Vocabulary Instruction

• Not relying on dictionary definitions.• Represent word knowledge linguistically & non-

linguistically.• Gradually shape word meanings through

multiple exposures.• Teaching word parts.• Vary instructional strategies.• Having students discuss terms and use word

play. • Focus on terms that enhance academic success.

Three “INTERACTING DYNAMICS” for Moving Words From Working Memory to

Permanent Memory • Number of times a student processes

information about the word (around four times over a two period)

• Depth of processing (adding detail to understanding)

• Elaboration (increasing the variety of associations with a term).

How to Organize Words for Instruction

The Story of Words

Categorizing

TaxonomiesList-Group-Label

Defining

Defining Format

History of Words

Etymology

Expanding Word Meaning

Morphology

Word Play

The Story of Words - Part 1

Categories

Creating Categories with List-Group-Label

• Put the students in groups of about 4 students.• Distribute Post-It Notes or Index Cards to the

students.• Ask them to place one word they associate with

mathematics on each card.• Have them work in teams put the words that

they think go together in groups.• Look at each group and give them labels. • These can now serve as categories for

taxonomies.

Taxonomy About Money

• A• B• C• D• E• F• G• H• I• J• K• L• M

• N• O• P• Q• R• S• T• U• V• W• X• Y• Z

Words Are Free!

Taxonomies

• Alphabetical Lists of Words On a Mathematical Topic

• Continuously Expanded• Used for Writing• Double Page Spread• Skip Lines• Solo/Share/Cross Pollinate

Steps 1 in Building a Taxonomy

• Each participant is to work alone or solo, and think of as many topics as possible that their classes will be studying this year.

• Give an example, such as rain forests, holidays, or mathematicians.

• Participants should enter each topic next to the initial letter.

• Ask participants to work for three or four minutes without talking to anyone in the class.

Step 2 to Build a Taxonomy

• Step 2: Collaboration

–Have participants form subgroups of three or four in their “class”.

–Tell the subgroups to collect each other’s words.

Step 3 to Build a Taxonomy• Cross-Pollination

– Instruct the “class” to collect topics from other “classes”. This will help enlarge the individual taxonomies.

– Ask one person from each “class’ to select a topic that she or he thinks is especially important or interesting.

– Direct that person to say to the entire group, “I would like to contribute the topic of _____ to your Taxonomy.”

– Encourage everyone to then add that topic to his or her Taxonomy.

Creating a Personal Thesaurus

Date Topic Pages

November 1, 2006

Types of lodging 6-7

November 14, 2006

Types of eateries 8-9

November 20, 2006

Hotel chains 10-11

Story of Words – Part 2

Defining

Defining FormatQuestion

What is money?

Money

Category

is

Characteristics

that

1

2

3

What is a dollar?

A dollar is money that

1

2

3

Morphology and Etymology

• Morphology: Word comes Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams. (morpheme, amorphous, morphine, animorphs).

• Describes how words change into various parts of speech, meanings, spelling, or pronunciations over time.

• Etymology• Tells us where the words

come from.• Mathematical words have

many origins: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, Arabic

Story of Words – Part 3

History

Etymology• What does one’s salary have to do with the taste of

food?• What do the following terms have in common?

– Baud– Hayes command– Bartlett pear– bolivar– boniface– doily– jacuzzi– museum– sandwich– welch

What do the following information technology and hospitality & tourism terms have in common with a type of suitcase?

• Information Technology– bit– intercom– Internet– netiquette– pixel– telecommuter– telsat– transistor

• Hospitality & Tourism– autobus– farewell– gasohol– moped– motel– skyjack– taxicab– travelogue

A common type of suitcase is the portmanteau (literally, carrier of the coat). A portmanteau word is the result of two

words folded into each other to make one new word.– bit = binary + digit– intercom = internal +

communication– Internet = international +

network– netiquette = network +

etiquette– pixel = picture + element– telecommuter =

telecommunication + commuter

– telsat = telecommunications + satellite

– transistor = transfer + resister

– autobus = automobile + bus– farewell = fare + ye + well– gasohol = gasoline + alcohol– moped = motor + pedal– motel = motor + hotel– skyjack = sky + hijack– taxicab = taximeter + cabriolet– travelogue = travel +

monologue

Story of Words – Part 4

Morphology

Why does the word mint have two meanings?

The Answer Lies in Morphology

• The word for the mint we eat comes from the Greek myth of Proserpine, who transformed a nymph into an herb (minthe)

• The word for the mint that makes the money comes from a Latin word for money (moneta)

Over time the pronunciations of the two words morphed independently until they became the same in sound and spelling.

Morphology ChartNouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs

digit

digits

digitizer

digitize

digitized

digitizes

digitizing

digital digitally

Story of Words – Part 5

Word Play

Rebuses

Travelcccccc

trworld

ip

sgeg

Rebuses

Travelcccccc

trworld

ip

sgeg

• Travel overseas• Trip around the world• Scrambled eggs

Academy Oxymorons

• Microsoft works• Advanced BASICS• Virtual reality• Constant variable• Working holiday• Free trade

Computer Word Play

• Dr. Seuss Comes to Your Computer– Bits. Bytes. Chips. Clocks.

Bits in bytes on chips in box. Bytes with bits and chips with clocks. Chips in box on ether-docks.

– Chips with bits come. Chips with bytes come.

Chips with bits and bytes and clocks come

– Look, sir. Look, sir. Read the book, sir. Let's do tricks with bits and bytes sir. Let's do tricks with chips and clocks, sir.

Costello Buys A Computer from Abbott