vital vocabulary instruction: your life line to content area comprehension
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Vital Vocabulary Instruction: Your Life Line to Content Area Comprehension. Presented by Jamea Elzy and Michelle Wrona. Opening Activity: Open the envelope on your table and empty its contents. Follow directions on the envelope. Work with a partner if you like. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Vital Vocabulary Instruction: Your Life Line to Content Area Comprehension
Presented by Jamea Elzy and Michelle Wrona
Opening Activity:
1. Open the envelope on your table and
empty its contents.
2. Follow directions on the envelope.
3. Work with a partner if you like.
4. When you are done, flag one of us down
to check your answers!
ObjectivesAt the end of the session, participants will be able to:
• understand how active learning strategies increase student understanding of content area vocabulary
• gain practical examples of resources and strategies to use in content areas.
Tried, but not so true vocabulary strategies:
1. Definition Copying2. Context Clues
Why those strategies aren’t successful:
•Utilizes the lowest levels of cognitive processing from Bloom’s Taxonomy
•Fail to develop relational knowledge (Blachowicz & Fisher, 1996).
True but Less Tried• Vocabulary instruction should
involve students in deep processing of words (Irvin, 1990)
• More active engagement on the part of students
• Higher level cognitive processing in the sense of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Strategies We’ll Be Talking About:
• Connect Two• Word Sorts• Vocabulary
Knowledge Rating• Word Webs
Strategy #1: Connect Two
This vocabulary strategy allows them to connect words that they may have slight knowledge of or have never heard of to words they already know.
Connect Two
Benefits:• Students learn vocabulary best by
connecting new words to their existing schema.
• Provides teacher with formative assessment.
• Higher level thinking
Strategy #2: Word Sorts
• An active learning strategy that requires students to think critically about the relationships between words or concepts.
• An activity that requires students to classify.
• A before, during, or after learning activity.
What is it?
Different Types of Sorts:
1. Words and Definitions2. Word with Example3. Categorize
Geometry Word Sort
Pop Quiz:
What type of sort
is this?
Word SortsTips for Creating Word Sorts:• Focus on key vocabulary• Laminate so you can keep them FOREVER!• Make the categories a different font or style to
avoid confusion• OR have the students create their own
categories• Keep width and length of sort pieces consistent• Color coded sets• Keep the table as a key
Now Take Some Time to Reflect…• How can you use Connect Two or Word
Sorts in the next few weeks? • What terms from your curriculum
would work best with these strategies?
Strategy #3:
Vocabulary Knowledge Rating• Beck and McKeown (1988) argue that
“‘word knowledge is not an all or nothing proposition. Words may be known at different levels” (as cited in Allen, 1999, p. 6).
• Stages of word knowledge:– Stage Four: students know the word and can
use it comfortably– Stage Three: students know the word but
rely on context to define it – Stage Two: students have seen the word but
do not know the definition– Stage One: students have never
encountered the word before
(Beck et al., 2002: Dale, 1965).
Vocabulary Knowledge Rating Continued
Benefits :• requires students to access their prior
knowledge• word consciousness: "an awareness of an
interest in words and their meanings…[which] involves both a cognitive and an affective stance towards words” (Graves,2009 p. 7).
• Helps students make an emotional connection (Spranger)
• allows students to preview or predict• works as a formative assessmentNote: this strategy is used WITH your
normal vocabulary instruction
Strategy #4: Word Webs
• Students should learn specific roots, prefixes, and suffixes (Beers, 2003).
• It is better if the word part is chosen from a word in context.
Word
Word Webs ContinuedHow to teach word parts:
1. Choose which word part you want your students to study Ex. Multi
2. Write it in the center of the web3. Under the word part, write its definition
(KISS) Ex. many4. Write an example word that you provide
that uses that word part Ex. Multilingual5. Under that word, students write its
definition using the KISS definition Ex. Speaking many languages
6. In the branches of the web, students write other words that use that root and define using KISS definition
Name ____________________________________ Date _______________________ Period____________________ Directions: For each word, write a definition in your own words using tiny or very small.
Micro-
(tiny, very small) Microscope- An instrument for producing a magnified visual image of a small object
Intervention Options
Connect Two, Word Sorts, and Word Webs, can be used for a student who may need additional support.
Additional References
Scholarly Journals: Phillips, D., Foote, C. J., & Harper, L. J. (2008). STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION. Reading Improvement, 45(2), 62-68.
Ebbers, S. M., & Denton, C. A. (2008). A Root Awakening: Vocabulary Instruction for Older Students with Reading Difficulties. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice (Blackwell Publishing Limited), 23(2), 90-102. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2008.00267.x
Book Titles:
When Kids Can’t Read by Kylene Beers
50 Content Area Strategies for Adolescent Literacy by Fisher, Brozo, Frey, and Ivey
• Identify a course in which you plan to use one or more of these strategies.
• What unit of study from this course will you focus on?