VOCABULARY STRATEGIES:
COMBINING ENGAGEMENT AND
EFFICIENCY SRL, 11/6/2010
BECKY MCTAGUE, Ed.D.
Roosevelt University, Chicago IL
[email protected]
MARGARET ANN RICHEK, Ph.D
Northeastern Illinois University (emerita);
Author: Cengage; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
[email protected]
.
Is meaning vocabulary important?
• It’s the best predictor of academic
achievement.
• It’s even an important predictor of IQ.
• English vocabulary is monumentally large and
growing every day.
How is English vocabulary learned?
• Exposure and repeated practice are key.
• Two approaches are incidental and direct
instruction.
incidental – words in reading, listening
direct – actual instruction in words
• Words are learned gradually
• Active engagement teaches best.
How about strategies?
• While useful in some ways, dictionary
definitions can present insurmountable
difficulties.
• Context clues can help students to learn words
independently.
• Morphology (prefixes, roots, suffixes) helps
student to learn and use structure. Derivational
suffixes are most important.
Important Instructional Principles
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Teach appropriate words (Beck’s three tiers).
Encourage students to notice words.
Introduce words in user-friendly ways.
Relate words to each other.
Gradually deepen processing levels.
Remember to review.
Interest students in words and strategies.
EXPERT WORD CARDS
• The teacher makes a list of important words
before a novel or unit of study begins.
• Each student is assigned a few words. Each gets
different words.
• Each student makes the assigned expert cards.
(Each student makes only his/her own cards.)
• Students teach words to each other.
The Expert Word Card strategy
• teaches words effectively.
• does not threaten students.
• allows students to cooperate.
• allows students artistic expression.
• is excellent for teaching technical words.
Student Directions for Vocabulary Word Cards
Courtesy of Susan Ali
Use the page number to locate the word in the text.
Copy the sentence containing the word inside the card.
Use a dictionary to look up the definition for each word; you may discuss it
with others or with the teacher.
On scratch paper, write the part of speech and the definition in your words that
matches the use of the word in the story.
On scratch paper, write your own sentence using the word.
Get the definition and sentence approved for accuracy by the teacher.
Copy onto the inside of your card your definition, part of speech, and sentence.
Write the word on the front outside of the card in big bold letters.
On the front of the card, illustrate the vocabulary word neatly and creatively.
Get your illustration approved.
Write your name, word, and class period on the back outside of the card.
Completed cards must be turned in by (date).
Cover
Inside
WORDS ALIVE - NONLINGUISTIC
• Students are divided into small groups.
Each group is given a few words.
• The teacher discusses the meanings of the
words.
• Each group comes up with an action or
"tableaux" (still life, involving students)
that illustrates the meaning of each
assigned word for other students.
The Words Alive strategy
• teaches words effectively.
• allows students to process words deeply.
• allows students to cooperate.
• differentiates small distinctions.
• is excellent for teaching technical words.
Examples:
agile
distort
supplant
mobilize
impair
envelop
rejuvenate
A few done in the past:
intertidal
organism
bacteria
sulfides
kelp
salt marsh
hydrothermal
ANYTHING GOES
The teacher lists words on board or overhead,
then “anything goes.” That is, the teacher can
ask any questions he or she wants.
The Anything Goes strategy
• increases automaticity.
• provides review.
• deepens processing.
• takes five to ten minutes.
Sample “Anything Goes” questions include:
What does __________ mean?
Find me two adjectives (or other parts of speech).
Find a word with a positive meaning.
How are ________ and __________ related?
Find two words with prefixes (suffixes).
Give me another form of _________.
Find me a word that can be both a noun and a verb.
Find me a word that has to do with _________.
Find me a word with two (or three) meanings.
Show how you ____________.
CONNECT TWO
Words from two lists are connected by students
because they have something in common. Students
think of connections.
The Connect Two strategy
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provides review.
may be used in independent managed learning.
deepens processing.
encourages students to think creatively.
From: Blachowicz, C.L.Z. & Lee, J. (1991). Vocabulary
development in the whole literacy classroom. The Reading
Teacher, 45, 188-195.
EXAMPLES
garb
debonair
disheveled
unsightly
veneer
chic
ostentatious
dowdy
drab
rumple
TWO IN ONE
Working together students combine two or
more words in one sentence. Can change forms.
The Two in One strategy
• provides review.
• may be used in independent groups.
• deepens processing.
• encourages students to think creatively.
• encourages use of derivatives.
• encourages students to cooperate.
converge
pivotal
terminate
degradation
initiate
penultimate
crux
sequel
supersede
tangential
admire
anticipate
bayonet
bondage
cavalry
captive
charge
clamor
recoil
insignificant
captor
lanky
infantry
marvel
musket
pine
plot
pondered
ravine
magazine
.
“ Humbug!” said Scrooge, and walked across the
room. After several turns, he sat down again. As
he threw his head back in the chair, his glance
happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that
hung in the room, and communicated for some
purpose now forgotten with chamber in the
highest story of the building. It was with great
astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable
dread that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to
swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it
scarcely made a sound; but soon it ran out loudly,
and so did every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had
begun, together. They were succeeded by a
clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person
were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the
wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to
have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were
described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the
floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming
straight towards his door.
“It’s humbug still!” said Scrooge. “I won’t
believe it.”
.
His colour changed though, when, without a
pause, it came on through the heavy door, and
passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its
coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it
cried “I know him! Marley’s Ghost!” and fell
again.
The same face; the very same. Marley in his
pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the
tassels on the latter bristling, like his pig-tail, and
his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The
chain he drew was clasped about his middle.
Parting Words:
VOCABULARY IS FUN!!!!!!