Rationale for Vocabulary Instruction

Although research found that when specific instruction designed to promote vocabulary development is instituted, children do show substantial gains in both vocabulary and comprehension (Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982; McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Pople, 1985), it has also been noted that there is little emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary in schools.

“Building leadership teams worked with faculty to identify key vocabulary in each curricular area. Instructional strategies highlighted in the Marzano work were employed to ensure greater effectiveness in learning these key terms. Methods for direct instruction might include the Frayer Model, personalized non-linguistic representations, noting similarities and differences between words, and other research-based strategies. Terms critical to understanding and learning were front loaded by either direct instruction or planned incidental strategies. As procedural vocabulary required more intensive use for mastery, over twenty exposures to the term were encouraged and factual vocabulary words were also identified. Student and teacher feedback indicated that this focus on vocabulary throughout the school played a major role in improved student learning. (The Academic Achievement Gap: Where is the Sense of Urgency? http://www.oseda.missouri.edu/step/vol17/no4/step1107.pdf)

“’There are many persuasive reasons for helping students build vocabulary, and none is more important than the contribution to reading comprehension,’ (Lehr, Osborn, & Hiebert, 2007).” From 50 Ways to Close the Achievement Gap

Best Practices in Vocabulary Instruction (From 50 Ways to Close the Achievement Gap)

“Feldman and Kinsella (2007) indicated that learning vocabulary must be based on the students’ active engagement in constructing understanding of the words/terms.”

“Students gain most of their word knowledge through wide reading; however, explicit instruction of specific words and their meanings also contributes greatly to their vocabulary development. Such instruction is especially important for students whose exposure to vocabulary of literate English is limited. Instruction needs to ‘(1) use both definitional and contextual information about word meanings, (2) involve students active in word learning, (3) use discussion to teach the meanings of new words and to provide meaningful information about the words” (190).

Steps to Building Powerful Vocabulary Development Practices

District Level1) Develop a position paper on the teaching of vocabulary in the classroom and ensure that all staff

members are aware of and can implement this position.2) Specify words by grade level and course in the district’s written curriculum

School Level3) Provide the professional development for each teacher and instructional support staff to know

how to teach vocabulary and use effective vocabulary development strategies.4) Observe for effective vocabulary development strategies as part of informal walk-throughs and

provide follow-up reflective conversations as desired.Classroom Level

5) Teach the vocabulary standards to mastery.6) Use the following process to provide direct instruction on words that are critical to new content for

the most powerful learning (Marzano et al. 2002):i. Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term.ii. Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.iii. Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representating the term or phrase.iv. Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the

terms in their notebooks.v. Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another.

vi. Involve students periodically in games that allow them to play with terms(Marzano, R. J. & Pickering D. J. (2005). Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.)

7) Teach new terms in context of meaningful subject matter and facilitate discussion on that term (Ellis, 2002)

8) Teach fewer vocabulary terms, but teach them to deep understanding (Ellis, 2002).9) Teach terms central to the unit or theme under study (Ellis, 2002).10) Teach terms that address key concepts or ideas. Pick one to five terms from a chapter that

address critical concepts in the chapter (Ellis, 2002).11) Provide instruction so that students encounter words in context more than once (Marzano et al.,

2002)12) Teach terms that will be used repeatedly through the year – that are foundational concepts upon

which much information is built over time (Ellis, 2002).13) Facilitate paraphrasing of a new term’s definitions so students identify the core idea associated

with the meaning of the term and its distinguishing features (Ellis, 2002).14) Make background knowledge connections to each new vocabulary word (Ellis, 2002).15) Identify examples and applications and nonexamples and nonapplications related to the meaning

of the vocabulary term (Ellis, 2002). 16) Create multiple formats in which students can use and elaborate on the meaning of new

vocabulary terms (Ellis, 2002).

Marzano Six-Step Process

Use the following process to provide direct instruction on words that are critical to new content for the most powerful learning (Marzano et al. 2002):

i. Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term.ii. Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.iii. Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representating the term or phrase.iv. Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the

terms in their notebooks.v. Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another.vi. Involve students periodically in games that allow them to play with terms

(Marzano, R. J. & Pickering D. J. (2005). Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.)

Marzano adds “Teachers must block out time for the direct instruction described in the first three steps of the process, and decide how often and when the activities in the last three steps will be used. These planning decisions will vary from teacher to teacher and will differ somewhat in elementary versus secondary settings” (Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher’s Manual. p. 30)

He then goes on to offer some suggestions for scheduling academic vocabulary instruction:1) When and how often will you present new terms? You might decide it takes 15 minutes to present

three new terms and take students through the first three steps of the process. 2) You might decide that you want to begin by introducing three new terms a week for three weeks –

then add three new terms every other week after that. In a 9-week period, students would be presented with 18 words to enter into their notebooks. In the next 9 weeks, you might decide to introduce fewer terms so that you can focus on Steps 4 – 6 which help students review the terms.

Strategies that should be moved to the “dust bin”: Copying definitions from the dictionary. Writing sentences which include the new word before studying the word’s meaning is of little

value; writing sentences is only effective AFTER gaining some understanding of the word. Telling students to “use context” to determine meaning: research shows that students have about

a one in twenty chance of learning a word’s meaning through context.

Memorizing a list of definitions is ineffective for new learning; once students understand a new word, review is very helpful.