Teaching Vocabulary in small groups

Introductions

Turn to the person next to you and tell them:

• Your favourite word

• Why it is your favourite word

How important is vocabulary ?

Teaching Effective Vocabulary’ (DCSF 2008) quotes research by Biemiller (2003):

Before the age of 7, vocabulary growth ‘is largely determined by parental

practices’

At age 7:

❑ Relatively high performing children (75th centile) have an average vocabulary

of 7100 words; learning three new words each day

❑ Relatively poor performing children (25th centile) know an average vocabulary

of 3000 words; learning one new word each day

Why are we so concerned?

• Catching up is difficult – ‘children with low vocabularies would have to learn at a rate of 3-4 words per day to catch up over 5-6 years’! (Biemiller 2003)

• The gap widens as children get older

• Vocabulary is the best predictor of a child’s academic success

• Some children have delayed vocabulary development; some children experience specific difficulties developing vocabulary

Vocabulary within the curriculum

‘Pupils’ acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to

their learning and progress across the whole curriculum.

Teachers should therefore develop vocabulary actively,

building systematically on pupils’ current knowledge.’

National curriculum in England: complete framework for key

stages 1 to 4 - for teaching 1 September 2014 to 31 August

2015

What do we need to do with words?

Speak

them

Write them

Read them

Understand them

What is a word? Spoken words are a representation in the mind

• Phonological SOUND

• Semantic MEANING

• Syntactic GRAMMAR

Reading: decode grapheme and then add meaning

Chiat (2000)

How are words stored?In association with other words, by their meaning. First associations:-

sit

classroom

legs

Function

Category

Parts

Location

What parts does it have?

What do you do with it?

Where can I find it?

What family/ group of words

does it belong to?

furniture

Levels of intervention

Specialist provision

Few children

Targeted provision

Some children

Universal provision

All children

Word Aware is mostly a

universal provision but it

can also be used to

support at targeted level

Vocabulary is

everywhere

Whole class

teaching

Whole School

Parents

Small

Group

Word Aware- what’s in the books ?

Word

Detective

Make words

count

Fun with

words

Involving

parents

Working with

small groups

STARTopic

Concepts

Literacy

Emotions

The Pre-teaching Vocabulary group

Who?

• Three to five children per group is optimal

• The group members will all need to be in the same year

group (or in classes which share the same curriculum)

When?

• Groups should be run once or twice per week for approximately

20 minutes.

• Ideally a group should be scheduled before the lesson in which

the new word comes up.

How to pick the right words?

S - select

Anchor words Goldilocks words Step on words

Children have a thorough

understanding of these

words.

Everyday spoken and

written language for a child

of this age.

Used at home and in daily

interactions.

Children have become

familiar with this

vocabulary through prior

teaching.

Really useful words

Likely to be encountered

again in reading or oral

language.

Average adult has a good

level of knowledge of the

word.

Words that are very topic

specific but are core to the

topic.

Age 7+: Desirable for

children to use in their

writing

Less likely to be

encountered again in

reading or oral language.

Average adult does not

have much knowledge of

the word.

Words that are particularly

topic specific, and are not

core to the topic.

Age 7+: Not a word that

children usually need to

use in their own writing

S - selectThese words are taken from the NC (2014) for KS2 Geography.

Imagine you are teaching a Year 4 class

Arctic Circle, biome, city, climate, country, desert, earthquake,

environment, global, hemisphere, location, map, minerals,

mountains, region, river, significance, topographical, Tropic of

Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, vegetation belt, volcano.

Which words might be more important to focus on?

Based on Stahl and Nagy (2005), Beck, McKeown and Kucan (2002)

Activity

S - selectKS2 Geography: Yr 4

Anchor words Goldilocks words Step on words

Map

Desert

River

Volcano

Mountains

City

Country

Global

Climate

Earthquake

Significance

Minerals

Location

Environment

Hemisphere

Region

Vegetation belt

Biome

Topographical

Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Cancer

Arctic Circle

Careful planning is crucial

The teacher should also identify the target words for the small group.

Select one word per session:

• any unknown ‘anchor’ words related to the topic or text

• then identify useful ‘Goldilocks’ words

Use ‘STAR Select Curriculum Vocabulary Planning’ sheet

(in your handout pack)

Warm up games • Thinking hat

• Big brain

• Word rounds

• Word associations

•“I went shopping”

• I give you this gift

• Letter and category

(in your handout pack)

T - teach• Symbol: link it to visual

• Phonology (sound): clap, rhyme, initial sound, say to partner

• Semantics: meaning (use Anchor to describe Goldilocks word) e.g

Collins Cobuild dictionary

• Sentence: put it into a sentence

• Action: act it out

• Song: song or rap

• Word pot: Put the word in the word pot

Word Pots and Word Walls

Sing a Song

A - activate• Back in the classroom - use the word in teaching

• Stickers

✓ I need to hear the word X

✓ Ask me about X

• Talking homework

• Fridge words ( in your pack)

R - review

Connect the group & the classChildren need to make connections with the word learnt

in the group and the learning in the class

• Prompt the children to listen out for the word as it will be used in class.

• The group children take the word and symbol with them into class and give it

to the class teacher. The word and symbol are added to the Working Word

Wall as part of the whole class teaching session.

• In class the teacher and group leader remind the group children about the

word they are learning.

• The group children have the opportunity to show others in class the work

that they have done in the group.

• The group children are asked to explain to the whole class what they have

learnt.

Thank you for listening

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