Feature Article
Learning Vocabulary: Different
Ways for Different Goals
Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck
Although no best method of vocabulary instruction has been identified, certain features have been recognized as characterizing
vocabulary instruction that improves comprehension. These features
include multiple exposures to words in various contexts and engaging students in active thinking about word meanings. In this article, effects of a vocabulary instructional program containing these
features are discussed and compared with instruction that offers
only definitional information. The design of a vocabulary program
for intermediate grades is then discussed. The emphasis here is that
activities developed depend on the goal of instruction, the nature of
the words taught, and the characteristics of the learners.
W
H A T U N D E R L I E S E F F E C T I V E vocabulary instruction? T h e literature on vocabulary instruction
contains investigations o f and recommendations for a
variety o f methods, including the dictionary method, context method, concept method, and, more recently, semantic
mapping and semantic features analysis. But no single tech
nique has been endorsed as the "best method." For instance, Petty, Herald, and Stoll (1968) analyzed 80 studies
o f vocabulary instruction in an attempt to identify the most
effective method. They concluded that the data available
did not allow the selection o f a best method. Rather, the
most effective instruction involved several techniques
rather than a single approach.
A key to why a best method has not been identified is
that the label given to an instructional method is not always
a good reflection o f the kind o f instructional activities that
are presented. Often, the same label is used to describe
instructional activities that differ in important ways. For
example, the context method used by Gipe ( 1 9 7 8 - 7 9 ) included explicit definitions o f the words within the instructional context. But the context methods used by Quealy
(1969) and Rankin and Overholser (1969) included no
definitional information. In other cases, different labels
may be given methods that require students to engage in
the same kind o f thinking about words. For instance,
semantic features analysis (e.g., Anders, Bos, & Filip, 1984)
and semantic mapping techniques (e.g., Stahl & Vancil,
1986) both require students to generate relationships between words.
A method's label does not necessarily give a clue to the
instructional effectiveness. Rather, the nature and quality
o f learning is determined by the kind o f thinking processes
that different kinds o f instruction require o f students.
Recently, researchers have investigated vocabulary learning
by considering the thinking processes embodied in vocabulary instructional studies. Mezynski (1983) examined
successful vocabulary instruction from eight studies and extracted several features that seemed related to improvement
in comprehension. These features were breadth o f training in
the use o f words, active processing o f word meaning information, and greater amounts o f practice. Similarly, Stahl and
Fairbanks' (1986) meta-analysis o f vocabulary studies found
that the most effective vocabulary teaching included both
definitional and contextual information, involved students
in deeper processing, and presented multiple exposures to
words in different contexts.
The conclusions o f these researchers correspond to the
approach we have taken in developing instruction designed
to improve comprehension. T w o important notions drove
the design o f our instruction. First, word knowledge is not
an all-or-nothing proposition. Words may be known at different levels, such as knowing only that a miser is a greedy
person versus knowing that a miser is someone who hoards
money, as well as being able to give examples and consequences o f miserly behavior and being able to use the word
beyond typical contexts, such as to describe people who are
stingy with things other than money.
The second notion is that, given the complexity o f processes involved in comprehending text, a high level o f word
knowledge may be needed to affect comprehension. T o
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achieve this level o f knowledge we hypothesized that
students would need to understand a word's use in varied
contexts and its relationship to other words, and be able to
access that information quickly to make it available while
reading. W e further hypothesized that, to bring about this
level o f understanding, instruction needed to present the
words to be learned frequently (not just one or twice), promote active thinking about word meanings and uses, and
motivate use o f the words as more than a classroom exercise. Thus, the instruction we developed exhibited three
features. First, the instruction was rich in that it entailed activities ranging from associating a word with a definition or
synonym, to relating a new word with a variety o f contexts;
student generation o f contexts; and comparing and contrasting words to discover relationships. Second, there is a
high frequency o f encounters with each word. Third, students were encouraged to extend the use o f the new words
outside the classroom. A description o f the implementation
o f these features in the instructional program follows.
Words were presented in semantic groups o f 8 to 10
words. For example, the group labeled Moods included
such words as jovial, indignant, and enthusiastic. Richness o f
instruction was incorporated into the design as follows.
Each set o f words was taught over about a week's time, in
which the activities required more involvement with the
words and deeper processing on each subsequent day. T h e
instruction included a range o f task requirements that began
with associating words with their meanings. T h e sequence
o f instruction then moved beyond relating words to their
meanings, for instance by requiring children to associate
new words with contexts that did not contain definition elements, but presented consequences, examples, or typical actions associated with the taught words. For example,
children were to recognize the following context as containing an example o f ridicule:
Maria decided she didn't want to play with Terry any
more. Terry was always being nasty about other people.
She'd make a big joke out o f the way other people looked
or talked. What did Terry do to other people?
Children were sometimes asked to create contexts for
words, such as discussing what a hermit might a have
nightmare about, or describing when they had consoled
someone. Attention was also given to the relationships
among words. For example, activities involved comparing
and contrasting words to discover relationships, such as
answering, "Would you berate someone who inspired you?"
"Would you want to baffle someone who tried to snare
you?" "Could a miser be a tyrant?"
T h e activities were mostly whole class, and provided for
a great deal o f discussion and interaction around the words.
Children were most often asked to give reasons for their
answers. Even off-beat answers were encouraged as long as
the children could give reasons for them. These justifications were requested to help the children reinforce
their processing by making it explicit.
Another aspect found throughout the program was
teacher modeling. For the activities in which children were
asked to construct scenarios, the teacher initially provided a
model o f a possible response such as suggesting "A hermit
might have a nightmare that a big apartment building was
built right next to his hideaway."
-A. second design feature was high frequency o f encounters with taught words. Each word introduced in the program received at least 10 exposures.
The final design features was to set up conditions to
motivate the children to carry their vocabulary learning
beyond the classroom. T h e implementation o f this was an
activity called W o r d Wizard, in which children could earn
points toward becoming a word wizard by reporting the
context in which they had seen or heard an instructed word
outside o f class, or by using the words themselves in their
own speech or writing.
In two studies we demonstrated that instruction based
on the three features just discussed significantly improved
accuracy o f word knowledge, yielded faster and more accurate responses to semantic decision tasks such as categorizing words, and produced better story comprehension
(Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982; McKeown, Beck,
Omanson, & Perfetti, 1983).
Following these two studies, we undertook a study to investigate the different effects o f the three instructional
features (i.e., richness o f instruction, frequency o f encounters,
and extension beyond the classroom). Three types o f instruction were used in the study. T w o types o f instruction were
designated rich and extended/rich, and these were based on
the instruction used in our first two studies. T h e only difference between these two types was that the extended/rich
instruction included the W o r d Wizard activity, which encouraged the use o f the words beyond the classroom, while
rich instruction did not. T h e third type was a more traditional
instruction that presented only associations between words
and definitions as the content o f instruction.
T h e rich and traditional instruction differed as to
whether the content o f activities was limited to definitional
information, but the two types o f instruction were alike in
format and in mode o f responding, providing equal opportunities for oral and written responses. How those aspects
were held constant while content varied can be illustrated
by an example. Each type o f instruction included a sentence
completion activity. For the traditional instruction, this was
cloze sentences the content o f which stayed close to the
definition (e.g., " T h e [sleuth] became well known as a person who looks for ways to solve mysteries"). In the rich instruction, students had to generate an ending to a sentence,
and thus had to either create or respond to a context for the
word: "A sleuth helped the police by
"
T o test the effect o f frequency o f encounters with
words, the frequency was varied within each type o f instruction. Half o f the words presented in each condition appeared in 4 activities over the course o f instruction while
the other half appeared in 12 activities.
T h e instruction was implemented in fourth-grade classrooms, and the results o f the three types o f instruction and
two frequency conditions were as follows. First, in a multi-
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pie choice test that measured accuracy o f knowledge, all
types and frequencies o f instruction showed advantage over
no instruction. High-frequency words were better known
than low-frequency words, but whether instruction was
rich or traditional did not make a difference on this
measure.
In a measure that tested the speed o f deciding whether
words fit certain categories, the extended/rich instruction
was significantly better for all words. T h e rich and traditional instruction groups did not differ on this task, and
for both groups, high-frequency words were responded to
faster than low-frequency words.
Comprehension o f stories containing instructed words
was greatest for the high-frequency words under rich and
extended/rich instruction. There was no benefit for comprehension from the traditional instruction for high-frequency words, or from any low-frequency word instruction.
(For a full discussion o f this study, see McKeown, Beck, O m anson, & Pople, 1985.)
The results allow several conclusions about the effects o f
various aspects o f instruction on vocabulary knowledge.
First, even a few encounters with a word within rather
narrow instructional activities will produce some, albeit
limited, learning. Second, a greater number o f encounters is
generally helpful toward a variety o f learning goals. One
exception to this was that even the higher number o f
encounters with narrow instruction did not enhance comprehension. Third, the features o f high frequency and richness o f instruction both appear to be needed in order to
affect comprehension. Fourth, extending instruction beyond the classroom helped in making knowledge more
readily available for decision-making tasks, such as categorizing words. This could be important when readers need
to quickly understand word meanings during reading in
order to keep comprehension going smoothly.
The
discussion o f the success o f rich instruction and instruction that extends beyond the classroom does not mean,
however, that all vocabulary instruction must be rich or extended. T h e choice o f the kind o f instruction to use in
specific instances depends on the goal o f the instruction, the
kinds o f words being presented, and the characteristics o f
the learners. For example, i f the goal is to familiarize
children with the meanings o f several words so that they do
not cause problems in comprehending a specific reading
selection, a brief introduction may be all that is required.
Certain words o f general high utility, such as unique,
gregarious, laudable, are better candidates for rich instruction
than words that apply to specific domains such as divertimento or nebula. Regarding individual learners, instruction
that extends beyond the classroom may be particularly important for lower achieving children who may lack the skill
to increase word knowledge on their own, and who may
seek fewer opportunities to meet and become familiar with
a more sophisticated vocabulary.
W i t h these issues in mind, we now turn to a description
o f the kind o f vocabulary program we would design were
we teaching in an intermediate grade classroom. T h e start-
ing point would be the understanding that different kinds
o f experiences in vocabulary have value for various aspects
o f vocabulary knowledge. Learning an association or brief
definition for a word, or meeting a word in an informative
context has some pay-off (McKeown et al., 1985; Nagy,
Herman, & Anderson 1985). Receiving this kind o f information about a word might be seen as an initiating event
that begins the process o f learning a word. Subsequent encounters with the word may then become more meaningful
and allow a learner to build a full understanding o f the
word. W e also know that rich instruction in vocabulary can
make a strong contribution to one's understanding and use
o f specific words (Beck et al., 1982; McKeown et al., 1983).
Further, encouragement for learners to extend their word
learning beyond the classroom results in even greater
facility with the words (McKeown et al., 1985). Finally,
because instruction cannot cover all words that students
need to know, and because some people are much less efficient word learners than others, it is important to encourage independent word learning.
W i t h an understanding o f these notions from research,
we would create a program with several components. One
component would be the introduction o f lots o f words in a
narrow way, by creating an association to a definition or
synonym. Another component would be rich instruction
for a smaller set o f words. A third component would be
gimmicks to encourage the use o f words being taught outside o f the classroom. Finally, this encouragement would be
extended to include motivation to discover, learn, and use
new words other than those introduced in class.
The selection o f words for the program and whether
they would be taught in a narrow or rich way cannot be
determined independent o f the classroom curriculum.
Rather, those decisions would be made based on classroom
lessons, opportunities that arose spontaneously such as
community or news events, and contributions from the
children themselves. The key to designing the program is to
be alert to words in upcoming lessons and elsewhere that
we suspect, based on knowing our students, would be unknown or not well known. Similarly, we would be alert to
opportunities to enrich knowledge o f words already introduced, to draw relationships between words, and to
point out new contexts or different uses for words.
W e would lay the groundwork for our vocabulary program by reviewing the lesson materials that we would be
using. O n e o f the major sources we would use for words are
selections from basal reading programs. W e would preview
the set o f selections that would be encountered for the next
month or so o f school. For each selection we would be on
the lookout for words that seemed important to the central
ideas in the selection, but would also identify words that
were not necessarily important to the central ideas, yet
seemed interesting and generally useful.
Let us provide an example. Consider a fourth-grade
selection set in ancient Greece about a young woman's
haughty attitude toward her weaving prowess. T h e woman
gives no credit to Athena for teaching her to spin. So
Athena and she have a contest, and o f course, Athena
triumphs. T h e bargain had been that i f Athena won, the
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girl, Arachne, would agree never to weave again. Seeing
how unhappy Arachne is with this outcome, Athena allows
her to go on weaving in another form—by turning her into
a spider.
Our review o f the selection resulted in three sets o f
words that were related to central ideas. One set contained
words that dealt with weaving, such as loom, flax, warp, woof
skeins, fleece, spindle, and dustoff. A second was words that
were associated with ancient Greece, Athena, Greece, and
Jupiter. The third was two words around which the plot
evolved, bargain and agreement. In addition to the three sets
o f words related to central ideas in the selection, we identified four words as interesting and generally useful, dwell,
boast, stern, and marvelous.
How might we handle these words in view o f the variety
o f vocabulary experiences possible and their differential
values? First we look at the setting words (Athena, Greece,
and Jupiter). T h e amount and kind o f instruction that we
might provide for these words prior to our fourth-grade
students encountering them in this selection depends upon
what they already know o f the ancient Greek gods. O b viously, i f we have reason to believe they know a lot—for
example, i f they had read some o f the myths earlier—we
would not need to do anything, or at most, we would mention the setting o f the story. But let's assume these children
know virtually nothing o f ancient Greece. D o we use rich
instructional methods to provide a strong backdrop for the
selection, or do we provide just enough so that the super
power o f the gods (they appear from nowhere, they cast
spells) is available to the children? T h e latter would not
take much instructional time as fourth graders have a
strong schema for super heroes, so Jupiter and Athena
could quickly (less than a minutes) be related to a wellestablished schema. Y e t it would be sufficient for understanding their role in the story.
T h e decision o f whether to introduce the words in a rich
or narrow way depends upon what else needs to be done for
the selection and whether upcoming instructional content
(e.g., some myths will be read; a visit to a museum is
scheduled; a social studies unit on modern Greece is coming) can take advantage o f the instructional time that would
be needed to establish a strong background.
N o w let's move to the longest list o f related words, those
associated with weaving. Because a good portion o f text in
the selection is devoted to weaving, it is likely that many
fourth graders would not know details o f spinning and
weaving, we would present these in a very narrow way. Our
concern would only be that when the words were encountered in the selection they be processed as "having something to do with weaving and spinning." A rich knowledge
o f such words would not be particularly useful. In contrast,
the words we would establish through rich instruction are
bargain and agreement. T h e reasons for this choice are (1)
they represent the central issue o f the story; (2) the concept
o f an agreement or bargain is a common plot device in
literature; and (3) the notions o f bargain and agreement are
related to domains as wide-ranging as everyday human interactions and relations between foreign countries.
Knowledge o f the interesting and generally useful
words, dwell, boast, stern, marvelous, is not critical to comprehension. Thus, they could be dealt with either before or
after story reading. I f we dealt with these words before the
story, we would not want to consume much time, so the in-
troduction would be brief and narrow. I f we dealt with
them after the story, either rich or narrow instruction could
be used. The important point about these words is that they
would be maintained, used in relation to other general
words, and eventually developed in a rich way. Our perspective on these words is that we would be "collecting" them
for subsequent use. For example, in selecting them, we
were aware that dwell relates to inhabitants, which occurs in
a later selection, and marvelous relates to the upcoming word
marveled.
Another selection offers a different kind o f example for
vocabulary work. T h e selection is a Pippi Longstocking tale
in which Pippi discovers a new word, spink, and then
searches for a meaning for the word. Conceptual structure,
setting, and type o f character are likely to be familiar to
children, and thus, in one sense, there is not any critical
vocabulary to teach. However, this story represents a situation found frequently in literature, that is, the rich and effective use o f language by a good writer.
Particularly, unfamiliar words such as the following are
used; triumphantly, peculiar, objects, veranda, indignantly, innocent, nations, contagious, needlessly, hoisted, astonishment, tremendous, and radiant. Unfamiliarity with these words might not
interfere with comprehension o f the story, but it could
diminish an appreciation for good writing by lessening the
impact o f effective language use. Another reason for teaching these words is that they are o f high general utility. They
can be used in many and varied situations, and can be
related to other words.
How would the words be taught? Because there are so
many o f them, we might choose to introduce before reading a subset o f those words we believe might be least
familiar or might add most to story enjoyment. After the
story, all the words would be worked with, probably in a
rich way. This would include discussing the contexts from
the story in which the words were used. Because o f their
generative nature, these words would be given attention
again, perhaps as part o f a weekly vocabulary period, or during the introduction o f related words.
W e have discussed selections that offer different kinds o f
opportunities for vocabulary development. T h e choice o f
which words to teach and what kind o f attention to give
them depends on a variety o f factors, such as importance o f
the words for understanding the selection, relationship to
specific domains o f knowledge, general utility, and relationship to other lessons and classroom events. A major
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problem in the vocabulary instruction in basal readers is the
egalitarian treatment o f all categories o f words. For example, in the mythology selection about Arachne, who loved to
weave, the word loom is given as much attention as agreement.
Loom may be helpful to understand aspects o f spinning, but
it is a word o f low general utility, while agreement is central to
the entire story as well as being generally useful. Consideration needs to be given to why words are selected for attention and the role they might play in a child's vocabulary
repertoire.
Under our program, most words would be taught within
the context o f the lesson from which they were drawn. In
addition we would have about a 20- to 30-minute period
per week set aside to work on vocabulary. At this time we
would review words, present enriching activities, challenge
the children to generate contexts for new words, or draw or
elicit relationships among words.
Other activities would include those to encourage children to extend their learning beyond the classroom. As
with the W o r d Wizard activity used in our studies, children
would be challenged to find uses o f taught words, or to use
the words themselves, outside o f class. A tally would be
kept as children brought in evidence.
T h e notion o f working with words outside o f class
would be extended to words not introduced in class, those
that children found on their own. For example, children
might be asked to go home and find a word used, such as in
the newpaper or a book that they don't know, and share it
with the class. O r children might be asked to bring in a
word to "stump the class" and then prepare and teach, with
some teacher assistance, a lesson on that word.
W e would not underestimate the power o f captivating
children's interest in words through such gimmicks. W e
observed, over the course o f several studies, how immensely effective the W o r d Wizard activity was in getting
children to think about and use the taught words. It had the
effect o f creating a rich verbal environment for children at
home as well as in school. This is a characteristic that is lacking for many children who experience slow vocabulary
growth.
Research has provided much useful information about
vocabulary learning and instruction. What it has not provided is a simple formula for optimal instruction, because
no such formula can exist. The creation o f effective vocabulary instruction calls for a careful crafting o f experiences in
consideration o f specific learning goals, the words being
taught, and the characteristics o f the learners. M»
Margaret G. M c K e o w n Is a research associate at the
Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pitts-
burgh. She received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh.
Her research interests include vocabulary development, reading
comprehension, and the use of microcomputers in reading instruction. Isabel L . Beck is professor of education at the University
of Pittsburgh and a senior scientist at the Learning Research
and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh. Her current
research interests include the acquisition of decoding, vocabulary
development, reading comprehension, and computer-assisted reading instruction.
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