TSSSATSSSA

VVocabulary ocabulary DDevelopment in evelopment in the the SSocial ocial SStudies tudies CClassroomlassroom

Brutal Facts

• From ______ percent of the adult population have such poor reading skills that they have difficulty reading common print materials: news articles, report cards, coupons, recipes, even directions on prescription medicine bottles

(Stedman and Kaestle, 1991; cf., Barton, 1997)

15-30

Brutal Facts

• Nearly half of the 9-, 13-, and 17-year old students they surveyed reported reading 10 pages or less each day, including pages read in school for homework.

(National Center for Education Statistics, 1997)

Brutal Facts

• Almost every high school kid can decode, but many can’t read with higher-order comprehension. So we put them in courses where they read very little- and aren’t required to read with higher-order comprehension.

-Gene Bottoms

- Vincent Ferrandino and Gerald Tirozzi

Undeveloped literacy skills are the number one reason why students are

•Retained

•assigned to special education

•given long-term remedial service

•why they fail to graduate from high school.

Brutal Facts

Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens and conduct their personal lives.

-Richard Vacca

Results Now

Brutal Facts

Brutal Fact

Jim Cummins- Academic language tasks are context-

reduced, which means that the content is often presented in the absence of the actual situation. As a student reads to learn (approximately 3rd grade) the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced. Visual, picture, real-life situation support becomes reduced.

• Try reading the paragraph below and filling in the missing words. As you work on the passage, think about your own thinking.

• In the early 1860’s, A______________ issued the Emancipation ____________. This order freed millions of s___________. The C______________ had the authority to enforce this order. Emancipation alone did not give the former s___________ a new life. Decades of economic hardship and unequal rights continued. A_____________________ plan was supported by many R ____________________.

Preconceived

Preconceptions

• What type of awareness must a student already have or need in order to understand the definition of a new word?

• How do preconceived notions influence vocabulary development?

The learner constructs meaning by making what she thinks is a logical, sensible connection between the new information she reads and what she already knows about the topic.

The learner uses prior knowledge to learn and remember what he reads.

How Do We Learn

References

Gardner, Howard. The Unschooled Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1995.

National Research Council. How People Learn. Washington D.C, National Academy Press, 1999.

Marzano, Robert F. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD, 2004.

Reiss, Jodi. Teaching Content to English Language Learners. White Plains, New York: Pearson Education, 2005.

Cameron, Gregory N., Doty, Jane K. and Barton, Mary Lee. Teaching Reading in the Social Studies. Alexandria, Virginia, ASCD. 2003.

How well a student understands content vocabulary is dependent on:

deliberate selection,

direct instruction,

sustained involvement and

high level performance tasks.

Systematic-Deliberate-Intentional

Preparing- Selecting the write right words

Which Words Do We Teach?

First Tier

Words that require little or no instruction

Second Tier

High frequency words that are content-compatible. They have applicability across many subjects and content areas. They are critical to teach.

Third Tier

Specific to content area. Referred to as content- obligatory words. Should be introduced when teaching a specific subject.

Bringing Words to Life, p.8, Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan

Instruction in new words enhances learning those words in context.

Students with prior instruction on words were about 33% more likely to understand new words in their reading than students who have no prior instruction.

—Jenkins, et al., 1984

(Marzano, Classroom, 126)

Prepare

Overhead 2: Story Impressions for World Geography

Chain of EventsHuman Characteristics

Your version of what the textbook might say:Write a paragraph using the chain words in order.

Language

Religion

Political system

Economic system

Population distribution

Quality of life

 

This article was published in Phi Delta Kappan in February 1993, and subsequently in two books on teaching practices. Exposing Our Students to Less Should Help Them Learn MoreBy Frank N. Dempster

Sustained involvement in an area of inquiry – what Isaac Newton reportedly referred to as "patient thought" - is the key to success in a wide variety of endeavors.

• Insights seldom occur without repeated exposure to relevant material over a relatively lengthy period.

Sustained involvement

• …students need to be exposed to the word at least _____ …to ascertain and remember its meaning.

—Jenkins et al., 1984

Students must encounter words in context more than once to learn them.

(Marzano, Classroom, 124-125)

Sustained Involvement

six times

More than 90% of the words students encounter in their reading occur fewer than once in a million words of text;about 50% occur fewer than once in a billion words.

—Nagy & Anderson, 1984

(Marzano, Classroom, 126)

Comparisons

What is it?

Contrasts

What is it like?

The word Demographics

What are some examples?

the statistical study of human populations especially with reference to how many people live in an area, how large the area is, where people live, how much money people make

The ability to acquire and retain knowledge is enhanced when it-is acquired through multiple senses.-is practiced over time.-is not obscured by superfluous elaborations.

• Recognize meaningful patterns of information.

The Student The Social Scientist

How People Learn, National Research Council 1999 Edition

The Student

• 3) Learning transfer is facilitated when -concepts are abstracted and generalized.-concepts are learned in multiple contexts.-students have time to absorb knowledge by focusing on essential learning.

• Knowledge is organized around important ideas or concepts

• Understand the problematic nature of historical interpretation and analysis to appreciate the relevance of history for their everyday lives.

The Social Scientist

How People Learn, National Research Council 1999 Edition

Performance Tasks

• “The insensitivity of many less-able students to the vocabulary of argument- ‘contend,’ ‘hypothesize,’ ‘refute,’ ‘contradict’ – only magnifies problems of text comprehension.” – Students have to go beyond facts– Going beyond fact may require students to violate standard scripts

( ex. Injustice is punished and virtue is rewarded- not always the way things work out)

(Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach. Page 173

What does a classroom look like that focuses on vocabulary?

The Unschooled Mind How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach.

-Howard Gardner, Page 181

“In a preliterate society , it is necessary only to work with sensorimotor and symbolic knowledge. In a literate society, it has become essential to create learning situations in which these earlier forms of knowing come to be utilized in conjunction with formal ways of knowing that grow out of, and are tied to, specific disciplines.”