enhancing students’ vocabulary...

Berkeley, June 2005 1

Enhancing Students’ Vocabulary Knowledge

Isabel L. Beck University of Pittsburgh

captivateenthusiastic mesmerize

soar awe


What research says about vocabulary? Which word meanings need to be taught? How should word meanings be introduced? What are some ways to engage students with word meanings?


• Vocabulary knowledge is highly related to reading achievement.

• People have different amounts of

vocabulary knowledge.

What I knew about vocabulary research and instruction before I started studying it


• High-knowledge third graders had vocabularies about equal to lowest-performing twelfth graders (Smith, 1941).

• Linguistically “poor” first graders knew 5,000 words; linguistically “rich” knew 20,000 words (Moats, 2001).

• Once established, such differences are difficult to ameliorate (Biemiller, 1999; Hart & Risley, 1995).

The magnitude of “different amounts” of vocabulary knowledge.

What I didn’t know


• There is very little vocabulary instruction in the schools (Biemiller, 2001; Scott, Jamieson, & Asselin, 1998; Watts, 1995.)

What else I didn’t know

High vocabulary people not only know more words, they know more about the words they know


capable emanated

familiar garlic hurry odor

peaceful polite

wonder

An Instructional matter that made a big impression

• Which words were selected for instruction.


Choosing Words to Teach: Three Tiers

Tier One: • the most basic words • clock, baby, happy • r arely require instruction in school

Starting point: words in the language havedifferent levels of utility.


Tier Three: • words whose frequency of use is quite

low, often limited to specific domains • isotope, lathe, peninsula • probably best learned when needed

in a content area

Choosing Words to Teach: Three Tiers cont…


Tier Two: • high-frequency words for mature

language users • coincidence, forlorn, industrious • instruction in these words can add

productively to an individual’s language ability

Choosing Words to Teach: Three Tiers cont…


Importance and Utility

Words that are characteristic of mature language users and appear across a variety of domains.

Two of the Most Essential Criteria for Choosing Tier Two Words

Conceptual Understanding

Words for which students understand the general concept but provide precision and specificity in describing the concepts.


Word Tier-anny: Where do these fall?

forlorn ceiling triumphant oboe absurd

hungry hostile corner colonial brea k


• All words selected for instruction treated the same

• Typical instruction was limited

Often: only a definition and sentence or example

The content of the example was often dull, ordinary.

Quarrel: an argument, disagreement

The teacher told the boys to stop quarreling.

Other instructional matters that made a big impression


• Better instruction • Intermediate grade studies • Primary grade studies

• What’s better instruction?

So big impressions led to research


• Interesting words with mileage. • Explanations in everyday connected language, rather

than dictionary definitions. • Providing several contexts in which a word can be

used. • Things for kids to do that require them to process

the meanings of words. • At least some of the examples, situations, and

questions are interesting and less pedantic. • High frequency of encounters.

What’s better instruction


How effective are definitions? Studies that provided dictionary definitions and asked students to create sentences or answer brief questions about the words showed:

63 percent of the students’ sentences were judged to be “odd” (Miller & Gildea, 1985)

60 percent of students’ responses were unacceptable (McKeown, 1991; 1993)

Introducing Vocabulary


Student-friendly explanations tell what a word means in everyday

connected language


Dictionary Friendly

Contagious: able to be spread by contact

An illness is contagious if you can catch it easily from another person who is sick with it.

Attention: thoughtful care or kindnes s

If someone is getting attention they are being well-taken care of.

Unexpected: not expected; surprising

If something is unexpected you are surprised about it.

Eavesdropping: listening secretly to a conversation

If you are eavesdropping, you are listening to what other people are saying without them knowing.


Sentence Endings

If you wanted to eavesdrop on someone in the next room. . .

a) . . . that people on the street stopped to listen.

The doorbell wasn't audible from the kitchen. . .

b) . . . you can hear better if you put your ear up to the keyhole.

Jack answered the phone, but the din of music and voices. . .

c) . . . my dog runs under the bed to hide.

The farmer heard a commotion outside and then ran out to find. . .

d) . . . so we didn’t know that the guests had arrived.

The serenade that the man played for his sweetheart was so beautiful. . .

e) . . . that two puppies had gotten into the chicken coop.

When the shrill sound of the fire whistle is heard. . .

f) . . . made it hard for him to hear who was on the other end.

Things for kids to do that require them to process meaning of words


Sentence stems: The newspaper called Mr. Bowman a philanthropist because. . . . I told my teacher I wanted to be a spectator at the play because. . . .

I scrutinized my mom’s face because. . . .

Things for kids to do that require them to process meaning of words


Word Lines

How surprised would you be if . . . 1. you saw your friend vault over the moon? 2. your teacher commended you for doing good work? 3. a dog started bantering with you? 4. the mayor urged everyone to leave town? 5. a coach berated his football team for not making a touchdown? 6. a rabbit trudged through a garden?

Least ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most Surprised Surprised

At least some of the examples, situations and activities are fun


Word Lines

How much energy does it take to . . .

1. meander down the hall?

2. vault over a car?

3. banter with your best friend for an hour?

4. berate someone at the top of your voice?

5. stalk a turtle?

6. be a spectator at a concert?

Least ---------------------------------------------------------------------MostEnergy Energy

At least some of the examples, situations and activities are fun


Encounters Accuracy RT Compr

TraditionalTraditional

412

++

-+

--

RichRich

412

++

-+

-+

McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pople

What can be gotten from better kinds of instruction


Most recent big impressions How early the huge individual differences appear No evidence of early grades’ school curricula making a difference What’s considered vocabulary development in the early grades


Tradebooks are excellent sources of sophisticated words

appropriate charming

concentrate forlorn

exhausted absurd

dignified exquisite

rambunctious leisurely


sensible: In the story, Fred said “very sensible” when Monty thought the sign said “Help prevent forest fires.” If something is sensible, it is the right thing to do; it makes sense.

Let’s say the word together: sensible Something sensible is safe to do or good to do. Like it would be sensible to make a list of what you need before going shopping.

Rich Instruction Sheepish Tale


Sheepish Tale cont… • Let’s say it’s raining out--what

would be sensible to do? • If I said we were going on a long,

long walk and you should wear sensible shoes, what kind of shoes would those be? • What kind of shoes would not be

sensible for a long walk?


Participants: Poverty District One school

4 kindergartens 2 experimental 2 control

4 first grades 2 experimental 2 control

Study 1 To what extent can instruction increase

young children’s knowledge of the meanings of sophisticated words?


Compared to a control group there was learning, both statistically and educationally. There was room for a lot more learning. Why wasn’t there more learning? More instruction over time. So---Study 2 Are there differential results for varying amounts of instruction?


Study 2Participants: Same poverty district as Study 1, different school

3 kindergartens 3 first grades

Within subject design Children were introduced to 42 words from seven trade books.

21 words in the “Rich Instruction” condition 21 words in the “More Rich Instruction” condition

Complete data for 40 first grade children.


Study 2All words received Rich Instruction as exemplified for sensible (Sheepish Tale). Words in the More Rich Instruction condition received MORE of the same kind of instruction (distributed across several days). Six words selected from 7 trade books. Each word in a set of six words was randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: - Rich Instruction - More Rich Instruction Majority of words were not concrete or easily imageable.


Rich Instruction for all 6 words

More Rich Instruction for 3 of the 6 words

Amos and Boris RichInst

MoreRich Inst

miserable ximmense xleisurely xevade x xstranded x xnecessities x x


16 15

32

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2001 Study 1 Rich Instruction(Experimental Group)

2002 Study 2 Rich Instruction(Within Subject)

2002 Study More Rich Instruction (Within Subject)

Percentage of Gains across Instructional Conditions on Picture Task for First Grade


• Is it worth it? • Why didn’t children learn more

words? • Why teach sophisticated words to

young children since they are unlikely to encounter them?

• Isn’t vocabulary instruction over time consuming?

Some Questions and Answers


Needs to be asked in comparison to what?

Is it worth it. . .

• accepting the status quo

NOT AN OPTION • in relationship to other sources of

vocabulary learning. read-alouds incidental learning

Let’s see


Effect on vocabulary learning from other read aloud studies

• Effects range from 4 % to 40 %

• Why do results range so widely?

Higher learning reported when Story is repeated at least 3 times Explanation of the word is included each time Word is repeated in the text of the story Word is illustrated in the story


• Type of word strongly affects the 4 % to 40 % range of result

♦ If words are concrete/imageable results are in upper range (often that means nouns).

♦ If words are less concrete and less imageable, results are in lower range.


♦ In Elley’s (1989) study, children learned 24% of the nouns and only 6% of the adjectives and adverbs.

♦ In Beck et al recent studies vast majority of words were adjectives and adverbs.


The graphs show that at age 3

Higher SES children know about 1100 words – exposed to over 30 million words of spoken language

Children from working class know about 700 words - exposed to about 20 million words

Lower SES children know about 500 words - exposed to about 10 million words


So Why Don’t Children Learn More Words?

Learning words that are not typically part of oral language is difficult.

Much evidence that it takes lots of repetitions to learn new words.

Not surprising that learning not easily pictured words and more abstract words is most difficult.

But… We need to be cognizant of the role of learning not easily pictured and more abstract words in language development.


• Actually children who are read to will encounter the words—after all the words came from read alouds

• Strong evidence that the earlier word meanings are acquired the more readily they are accessed in later life.

• In later texts, knowing some hard words may allow a steeper vocabulary trajectory.

Why teach sophisticated words to young students since they are not likely to

encounter them?


• word awareness

• kind of facility that will assist higher verbal goals

• affect about words

Beyond learning some sophisticated words, what else did they learn?

enhancing students’ vocabulary...

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