Vocabulary Instruction

Created by Amy Okafor May ’06

Revised for 318 by Abel

Reference - www.fcrr.org/staffpresentations/Marcia/NA/vocabulary_pineview.ppt

Vocabulary Instruction

5 BIG IDEAS: Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Fluency

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Vocabulary---

The words students need to know in

order to communicate

effectively.

Did you know?According to Hart & Risley, l995 (and TEA)Words Heard in an Hour

Poverty:  615 wordsMiddle Class:  1251 wordsProfessional: 2153 words

Differences In Vocabulary Starts Early

• Average child from a welfare family hears about 3 million words a year vs. 11 million from a professional family.

– By age 4, the gap grows to 13 vs. 45 mil.– Children from a professional family spoke

more words than parents in a welfare family

Ways Words Are Learned

• By reading a lot

• Through multiple exposures (USE)

• Through explicit instruction:– Teaching words– Analyzing word parts – Exploring words

Closing the

Vocabulary Gap

How many words should teachers

teach per day to help close the gap?

• In 1st and 2nd grade, about 2 per day.

• 3rd grade onward, about 8 per day.

• Remember - students already behind by 1st grade need more intense and ambitious focus to help

them catch up!

• Research shows typical child needs to encounter

a word about 12 times before they know it

Choosing Words For Vocabulary Instruction

Words Matter

Molly avoided playing the ukulele.

Which word would you choose to pre-teach?

avoided

Avoided• Why?• Verbs are where the

action is – Teach avoid, avoided,

avoids,….– Likely to see it again

in grade-level text– Likely to see it on a

test

• Why not ukulele?– Rarely seen in print– Rarely used in stories

or conversation or content-area information (discuss, not teach it)

Tier 1 = basic (clock, door, food)

TEACH

Tier 2 = high frequency for mature (coincidence, absurd, industrious)

Tier 3 = infrequent (isotope, peninsula)

Deepening Children’s

Understanding

of Words

• Charades– Act Out words

• Word Bee– Work together to define

• Word Substitution– Team mates replace a target

word in a sentence• Word Guess

– Guess the word with fewest clues possible

Games!!!

Venn Diagram

Cat Dog

meows

fur

tail

barks

Use New Words in context

What boisterous students! It is nice to get away from all that noise!

I like the bright strong vivid color on your dress.

How generous of you to give me

your last apple.

Word Study• Build word parts un-happi-ness hypogeal • Teach multiple meanings, idioms,

expressions (Amelia Bedelia)

• Teach children to use references (thesaurus)

Source: http://otra.texasreading.org

Did you know?

Source Difficulty level

Scientific Articles 4389

Newspapers 1690

Children’s Books 627

College grads w friends 496

Prime-time TV 490

Mr. Rogers; Sesame St 413

Lots of Reading improves voc + rdg Class Rank Daily Reading Words / year

90% (A) 30 minutes 1,823,000

80% (B) 15 minutes 1,146,000

70% (C) 10 minutes 622,000

Bottom 2% of the class

less Very few

Vocabulary Links• Prefix/Suffix Game

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/book_buddy/skill/3_prefix.html

• ESL support http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/vocabulary/vocabulary.html

• Vocabulary & Analogies• http://www.quia.com/pages/havefun.html• Interactive Adventure Stories• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/digger/7_9entry/7_9.shtml• Mad libs• http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html• sample – try it here – click “play”• http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/Games/Game.html?

GameName=MadLibsSchoolRules&Brain=reading&GameNumber=1&Color=FFFFFF

• Which word parts to teach http://www.nevadareading.org/resources/vocab/vocab_parts.pdf