Teaching Vocabulary
Developing Vocabulary in the ClassroomGive Your Students Superpowers.
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist, Jan 2015
To cover:
  What is oral language development?
  What is ‘knowing’vocabulary?
  What’s so important about it?
  What’s at risk without it?
  How can I extend my students to access these benefits?
  What does this mean for me?
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Oral language acquisition:
  Learning to understand and use the words around us.
  Becoming able to exchange ideas and information with
another communicator through speaking and understanding.
  Mastering more complicated techniques and more specific
words for more accurate ideas.
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
When children are acquiring language they are developing five
different aspects of language knowledge
semantic
syntactic
pragmatic
phonetic
morphemic
Otto, B. (2014) Language Development in Early Childhood Education, Pearson, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Semantic knowledge: ‘Jam’
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Semantic knowledge:
  Understanding word meanings
  Understanding similarities, differences and relationships
between words
  Gathering of words from your own collection
  Choosing words for ideas
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Significance?
I choose to read
I choose to interact, I choose
to participate,
It makes sense to me, I can
engage
I can follow:
conversations, stories
and explanations
I understand
words
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
  There are huge differences in vocabulary size amongst children at age
7yrs:
High performing students (upper quartile) know an average of 7100
root words.
Poor performing pupils (lower quartile) know 3000 words.
  Children with low vocabularies would have to learn words much faster
than their peers, at a rate of three to four root words per day, if they were
to catch up within five or six years.
Biemiller, A. (2003) ‘Vocabulary needed if children are to read well’ Reading Psychology, 24:323-335
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
What outcome?
  Vocabulary is a strong indicator of reading success (Biemiller, 2003)
  From age 8 onwards, declining reading comprehension is largely
due to lack of vocabulary knowledge. (Becker, 1977)
  Low vocabulary can trap children in a cycle of non achievement as
poorer readers miss out on opportunities to extend their
vocabularies. (Fisher and Blachnowicz, 2005)
  Poor vocabulary is the primary cause of academic failure of
disadvantaged students. (Becker 1977)
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Known groups with low vocabulary
1.  Children with disabilities/ learning difficulties
2.  Economically disadvantaged students
3.  Children learning English as a second language
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Background
  Typically, young children add 3,000-4,000 words a year to
their vocabulary
  It’s estimated that preschoolers learn about 5 words a day
  Children arrive in first grade with a lexicon of about 6000
words.
  Most adults use the same 5-10,000 words for conversation
and instruction (but have up to 50,000 in the listening
vocabulary)
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Mapping is the name given to the process wherein
the word is attached to the item or the experience.
  Fast Mapping:
In early childhood (between 2 and 5yrs) children can learn words
after only one or two exposures.
  Slow Mapping
After the fast mapping period of early childhood, language
learners need more encounters with a word before they know it.
(12 encounters is a commonly acknowledged estimate)
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
In building semantics we need to know:
Group
Function
F
Form
Name
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
What do we teach?
Recognising different word levels
Lower frequency, specific domains, subject areas or
locations.
(semantics, synaptic, mapping)
High frequency words for more mature users, may be
used in academic courses and have multiple meanings
(gather, announce, glance, fragrant)
Basic words: Sight words, words in early readers, 5,000
words we use for every day conversation
(house, dog, friend, yellow)
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, l. (2002). BringingWords to Life: RobustVocabulary Instruction. Solving problems in the
Teaching of Literacy. New York: Guilford Press
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
What to teach? (The Masterplan)
Decide on number of target words per grade level/ subject
For each content area create a rank ordered word list considering local standards and curriculum.
Use prepared word lists for your grade level.
Consider your word lists and assign ‘weighting’ to academic areas.
e.g. 30% maths, 30 % social studies, 20% science and 10% from each of language and health
Decide on final list of vocabulary terms for each academic area
Assign terms to specific grades.
Marzano, R.J., & Pickering, D.J. (2005). Building AcademicVocabulary Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: ASCD
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Teaching New Vocabulary (Marzano and Pickering, 2005)
Provide a description, explanation or example
Ask students to restate this in their own wordsdescribe in notebook
Ask students to construct a picture, symbol or
graphic representing the new term- picture in
notebook.
From time to time engage students in activities that
help them add to their knowledge of their new
vocabulary
Encourage students to discuss the terms with each
other. Involve students in games that allow them to
use the new vocabulary.
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
and into the classroom…
Meaning
Word
Connected
Speech
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
Provide direct instruction of vocabulary words for a specific topic
Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important (enables
‘mapping’)
Target words that the learner will find useful in many contexts
Vocabulary tasks should be restructured as necessary
Learning a definition is not ‘knowing’ a word. Learning must involve full, broad
knowledge and engagement
There is a role for computer technology in vocabulary teaching
Vocabulary is acquired through incidental learning, make all your interactions rich
Reliance on a single learning method is sub-optimal. Find variety and diversity in your
methods, extend yourselves and your teaching.
Butler, S., Urrutia, K., Buenger, A., Gonzalez, N., Hunt, M. and Eisenhart, C. (2010). A Review of the Current Research onVocabulary Instruction. National
Reading Technical Assistance Center, RMC Research Corporation. Viewed January, 2, 2015. http://www2.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/support/
rmcfinal1.pdf
Marzano and Pickering (2005)
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist
References and Resources:
  Beck, I. L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, l. (2002). BringingWords to Life: Robust
Vocabulary Instruction. Solving problems in the Teaching of Literacy. New York: Guilford
Press
  Becker, W.C. (1977) ‘Teaching Reading and Language to the Disadvantaged-what we
have learned from field research.’ Harvard Educational Review, 47:518-543
  Biemiller, ,A. (2003) ‘Vocabulary needed if children are to read well’ Reading
Psychology, 24:323-335
  Blachnowicz, C., & Fisher, P. (2000) TeachingVocabulary in all Classrooms. Columbus,
Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.
  Carleton, L., & Marzano, R.J. (2010). Vocabulary Games for the Classroom.
Bloomington,IN: Marzano Research Laboratory
  Fisher, P., & Blachnowicz, C. (2005) ‘Vocabulary Instruction in a Remedial Setting.’
Reading andWriting Quarterly,21:281-300
  Marzano, R.J., & Pickering, D.J. (2005). Building AcademicVocabulary Teacher’s Manual.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD
  Montgomery, J.K., (2007). The Bridge ofVocabulary. Minneapolis: Pearson.
Catherine Silcock, Speech Pathologist