RAPID Educator Series 6

The RAPID project offers seven sessions for educators, with session six focusing on vocabulary. The objectives include defining vocabulary, understanding the difference between expressive and receptive vocabulary, and exploring direct and indirect vocabulary instruction. The session covers various types of vocabulary instruction, such as direct and indirect approaches, and the importance of vocabulary for reading comprehension. The session also discusses the three tiers of vocabulary, with tier 2 words being high utility and frequently used. Teaching vocabulary to English language learners is also addressed, including the use of cognates. The session concludes by discussing different methods of teaching vocabulary, including direct and indirect instruction. Welcome to RAPID, Reading Acceleration Professionally Integrated Project. Together we will go through seven sessions for educators. This is session six. Each session will be about 30 to 40 minutes long. Session six is on vocabulary. Next we will be looking at our objectives. Here are four objectives today. We will be defining vocabulary, understanding the difference between expressive and receptive vocabulary. We will look at the three tiers of vocabulary and then explore direct and indirect vocabulary instruction. The vocabulary that we will cover today are direct vocabulary instruction, indirect vocabulary instruction, expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, tier one, two, and three, word consciousness, root words, prefix, and suffix. Here's our Padlet that will have all of the resources and materials shared in our session. At the top of the Padlet you will see the session headers one through seven, and today I'll be referencing session six. This Padlet can be shared and saved for future use and references. It might be helpful to share with additional staff members that are not at the training as well. All resources are free and do not expire. Before we start with our content, here are the seven sessions that we will be exploring during our rapid series, starting at session one and moving along through all the foundational skills. Today, we are exploring session six, vocabulary, and adding to what we've learned in sessions one through five. I wanted to show you again the reading rope so we can see how all the elements are deeply connected. As you can see, the upper green strand addresses vocabulary. The reading rope consists of lower and upper strands, the word recognition strands, which include phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of familiar words, work together as the reader becomes accurate, fluent, and increasingly automatic with repetition and practice. Concurrently, the language comprehension strands, which include background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge, reinforce one another and then weave together with word recognition strands to produce a skilled reader. Our first section will be looking at defining what vocabulary is. Vocabulary is the knowledge about meanings, uses, and pronunciations of words. We want to make sure we teach the meaning of words so that they can understand what they are reading. That is the goal of vocabulary instruction. Instruction does result in improved reading achievement as measured by reading comprehension tests. Vocabulary and comprehension are connected in a very important way for reading success. The National Reading Panel reviewed 45 studies on the teaching of vocabulary and several past reviews on vocabulary research and concluded that such instruction did result in improved reading achievement as measured by reading comprehension tests. Explicit instruction in vocabulary includes teaching students the meanings of words, techniques to determine word meanings from context, and the meanings of word roots and affixes. These kinds of instruction have been found to provide students with clear and consistent gains in reading. There also were benefits from less directive approaches, reading to children or encouraging them to read, which present vocabulary more implicitly. Now that we know what it is, we're going to look at why vocabulary is important. This is a great quote by Jane Yolen, a famous children's author who wrote Owl Moon. What does the quote mean to you? Do you agree with the words unlocking the world? Vocabulary is key to reading comprehension. Readers cannot understand what they are reading without knowing what most of the words mean. As children learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning from new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary. This is important to build a child's vocabulary. The scientific research on vocabulary instruction reveals that most vocabulary is learned indirectly and that some vocabulary must be taught directly. Thus, research supports using a combination of both indirect and direct approaches. We want to make sure that we use both when we teach vocabulary instruction. Children bring a rich repertoire of words with them as they enter our classrooms. Words that come from their families, experiences, cultures, communities, and languages. Words help to shape a child's identity and experiences. They are the mechanism with which they express themselves. By affirming and using the words children already know in the classroom, we honor the words that have helped shape them. We then work to add more words to the child's word bank. In doing so, we are helping prepare them for success in the future. The more words that students know, the better they can express themselves, and the research also shows that larger vocabulary is a key component to academic success. We want to be culturally responsive to our students, and so we must be aware of how our instructional choices impact our students. Now let's look at vocabulary instruction. Receptive or listening vocabulary are words that we understand when we hear them. Expressive or speaking vocabulary are words that we use in our speech. Vocabulary refers to the words that we must understand to communicate effectively. Teachers often consider four types of vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening vocabulary refers to the words that we need to know to understand to what we hear. Speaking vocabulary consists of words that we use when we speak. Reading vocabulary refers to the words we need to know to understand what we read. And writing vocabulary consists of the words we use in writing. If you think about all the words there are to teach, it can be overwhelming. Beck, McGowan, and Coogan introduced us to the idea of classifying words by tiers. Each tier represents the type of word as it relates to selecting words for teaching explicitly. Tier 1 words are considered basic vocabulary. Tier 2 words are those considered as high utility, frequently used. Students will have many opportunities to read these words and to use them when speaking and writing. They occur frequently across texts and domains and in the oral and written language of mature language users. Words such as ecstatic, investigate, section, clumsily, separate, fortunate, and emerging are examples of tier 2 words. Tier 3 words are more technical and domain specific than tier 1 or tier 2. And although many may require direct teaching, it is usually in the context of the domain of a technical topic. While tier 3 words are important, they may not be as useful for other areas and contexts. Some examples include democracy, metamorphosis, taxation, chemical, and hypothesis. We want to use these tiers when thinking about explicit and direct vocabulary instruction. Later in the session, we will look at an instructional routine for tier 2 words. So, we're going to look at the tiers for English language learners. There are additional resources on the Padlet about this under the vocabulary session tab. So, tier 1, these are words that they may know in their primary language but may not know in English. For example, there are some basic nouns, verbs, and adjectives and prepositions such as bed, go, eat, brother, blue, and sad. Gerity Hudley, co-author of Understanding English Language Variations in U.S. Schools, explains, school English, both written and spoken, tends to use vocabulary items that are more literary than colloquial, such as entrance rather than door, beginning rather than start. Indeed, from elementary school spelling tests to vocabulary questions on standardized tests, cultural indicators suggest that to be educated in our society is to have a big vocabulary. Yet, students may not have been taught explicitly about contrast in vocabulary words. It is therefore important to instruct students, wherever possible, as to differences between academic terms and colloquial terms for the same concepts. So, tier 1 words are simple cognates. Other tier 1 words are simple cognates. Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation, like family and familia. These words may not require instruction to learn their meaning because children may know the word meanings in their primary language. We have some more on Spanish-English cognates in the palette as well. Tier 2 are the words that are important to teach explicitly and in context. For native English speakers, these are words that are high frequency, found across a variety of domains, and different types of text. They are important for reading comprehension and writing. There's words with multiple meanings and words that are not easy to decode and words used in oral instruction. For tier 3, for all our children, tier 3 words are low-frequency, content-specific vocabulary. These are words that are found in specific domains, such as academic subjects like history, science, or math. Some examples include divisor, photosynthesis, acrylic. We also want to include the instruction of our figurative language. We will now look at ways to teach vocabulary. Direct and indirect instruction. We will use individual words, word learning strategies, word consciousness, and orthography. Vocabulary can be taught indirectly and directly. Children's vocabulary learning is magnified when we combine indirect and direct vocabulary learning. For example, children's vocabulary learning is magnified when we combine indirect and direct vocabulary learning. For example, children's vocabulary learning is magnified when we combine indirect and direct vocabulary learning. For example, children's vocabulary learning is magnified when we combine Children's vocabulary learning is magnified when we combine indirect and direct vocabulary learning. Indirect vocabulary learning opportunities occur through wide reading and oral language. Here are some ways for indirect vocabulary instruction. In everyday conversations and discussions, small group discussion, independent reading, and read-alouds. Read-aloud is a great way to expose students to rich language. When we read aloud to children and show them how we notice words, try to define them in our own words, display them, and purposefully intend to use that word in our speaking and writing, we are supporting them to do the same thing when they encounter words on their own. We want them while reading independently to notice new and interesting words, write them in a word bank, and play with those words by comparing them to other words or categorizing them. Doing these things will help them to really know the word. We wanted to show you how indirect and direct word learning can occur together in read-alouds. We talked previously how important read-alouds are for fluency and now also vocabulary. Indirect word learning occurs during teacher read-alouds when students are read to and exposed to rich and descriptive language, teachers use different genres and texts, students are exposed to the same word through multiple texts. Direct word learning occurs during teacher read-alouds when students are exposed to picture walks with discussion, vocabulary is defined before reading, there's interactive conversations about the text, and there's multiple exposures to words and definitions. We want to understand how we can teach vocabulary in the most effective ways so that children can become better readers, writers, and thinkers. Our goal is not to have children memorize a bunch of definitions out of context. We want our students to really know words. Michael Graves, the author of the vocabulary book, provides us with a four-ply plan that includes both implicit or indirect vocabulary learning and explicit or direct vocabulary learning. Graves' four-part approach to vocabulary acquisition consists of the following components. Frequent, varied, and extensive language experiences, teaching individual words, teaching word learning strategies, and fostering word consciousness. With rich language experiences, we want to surround our students with rich and meaningful language and vocabulary. Graves, in his original plan, does not talk specifically about utilizing home language. That is also an important element to consider when thinking about the language experiences you are providing. Graves did update or add to his work and include more support about ELLs and in vocabulary acquisition. We want to show our students that their home languages have value in place in our classrooms as well. Teaching individual words. We need to think about the words we will teach and when we will teach them. We want to think about our tiered system of words and which ones are important for us for our students to know. We will look at strategies for teaching individual words next. Teaching word learning strategies. We know that a lot of words can be figured out by inferring their meaning from context. This strategy is often referred to as using context clues. Also, the meaning of 60% of the new words children encounter can be inferred by analyzing word parts or morphemes. Like the example tele for far or confer for talk or teleconference. We will look at more strategies in the next few slides. And then fostering word consciousness. Word consciousness is our awareness of the role and the power of words. Word conscious children enjoy words and are zealous about learning them. Some strategies include using a word wall, having vocabulary around the room, modeling and sharing your own excitement about words with your students, and then we will look at some additional strategies in the next few slides as well. Here are the three best opportunities we have to teach individual words. One, before and during our read-alouds. This is a great place to both point out and define some of the sophisticated language that authors use. When we give definitions for children, we want them to be child-friendly. We want to take opportunities to highlight words and the definitions in the read-alouds we do across the curriculum in science, social studies, and math as well. Some additional strategies or considerations for teaching individual words to English language learners include say the word to children and have them repeat it. Show a printed version of the word and notice the sounds and letters. Offer a child-friendly definition. Use actions and gestures or a picture to explain what the word means or use different examples of the word in different contexts. You can use before and during small group instruction. We can select words to highlight and focus on that are challenging for readers and should also choose words that contribute to the overall meaning of the text. You might also want to think about if these words are in any other part of our day during science or social studies, etc., and to help kids make those connections. You can have a word of the day or week. Having a word of the day or week, showing and teaching a word that is connected to the weekly themes will help children add new words into their schema. Just a note on dictionaries. Dictionaries can be a good and important tool, but it should not be the sole means of developing a stronger vocabulary. It may help them to figure out the meaning of a specific word when they are reading it in a text. When we think about all the words there are to teach, it can become overwhelming. We spoke about the different tiers earlier. Here's an instructional routine for teaching Tier 2 words. This is a strategy to teach individual words to students. First, introduce the word. Have the student say the word. Second, present a student-friendly explanation. Third, clarify the word's meaning. Fourth, actively engage students in using the word. Fifth, check students' understanding of the word. And finally, expand children's understanding and use of the word. The Frager model is another way to teach individual words to students. It is a graphic organizer that helps students determine or clarify the meaning of vocabulary words encountered while listening, reading, and viewing text. It can be used in different ways. If it is used before reading, it can help to activate prior knowledge. If it is used during reading, it can help to monitor vocabulary. And when it is used after reading, it can help assess understanding of the vocabulary. Now we're going to look at word learning strategies. We know that it is impossible to explicitly teach the meaning of all new and unfamiliar words to our students. We must give them tools to help them learn the meaning of words independently. When learning strategies alongside other direct and indirect instruction, it can be very beneficial. We need to teach students how to infer word meaning from context clues or to use word parts to figure out the meanings of words. We know that a lot of words can be figured out by inferring their meanings from context. This strategy is often referred to as using context clues. Also, the meanings of 50% of the new words children encounter can be inferred by analyzing word parts or morphemes. Another important part of word learning strategies is to understand parts of words, like root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Children who have an awareness of the meaning of word parts, like prefixes, suffixes, and roots, can make links between the pronunciation, spelling, and meaning of many challenging words. Here's a chart that highlights a few important Latin and Greek roots. Teaching this to students will empower them to tackle new words on their own and also build their confidence in reading and writing. It will help students become more independent readers, writers, and thinkers. On the Padlet, we have included a more extensive list of roots, prefixes, and suffixes under the Session Six tab. Like root words, teaching prefixes and suffixes will provide the students with more tools to tackle new and tough vocabulary. Again, a comprehensive resource is on the Padlet. Here are a few activities that focus on teaching root words, affixes, and helping students use context clues. All activities are linked in the Padlet under Session Six. The last component of this section is word consciousness. This quote says it perfectly and shows us how important vocabulary instruction is. Fostering word consciousness is helping students create an awareness and interest in words. Word consciousness is not an isolated component of vocabulary instruction. It needs to be taken into account each and every day. It can be developed at all times and in several ways. Through encouraging adaptation through word consciousness, it can help students develop an awareness and interest in at all times and in several ways. Through encouraging adaptation through wordplay and through research on word origins and histories. We want to encourage students to play and get curious with words. As a resource, we have included a model lesson that highlights word consciousness on the Padlet under Session Six. Here are two additional activities that can help foster word consciousness in the classroom. Again, the resources can be found in the Padlet. Now, we will look at strategies to support all learners. We have talked about strategies throughout the presentation as well, but here are a few more ideas and supports for ELL students and students with difficulties in reading. We must value the languages that our students bring. Here are a few strategies that can help us to use a student's home language. Show that all languages are valuable and important in translanguaging. Vocabulary from their home language and English and recognizing and highlighting cognates. With cognates, children can use their knowledge about a word in one language to help them figure out the meaning of another word in another language. There are many in Spanish and English. We have a list of cognates listed in the Padlet for your reference under Session Six as well. Here are a few additional strategies that can support all learners, specifically English language learners, with learning new words. Think about how we can pre-teach and focus on cognates throughout your instruction. Here are some strategies to help all learners. This may include students with dyslexia or a reading disability. Play games to help them build language skills in class. Preview difficult vocabulary to prepare students ahead of time. Multiple exposures in different contexts. Explicitly teach how to use context clues. Teach vocabulary explicitly and through independent readings. Use the vocabulary words often, frequent, and in different ways. Read aloud every day and have rich discussion. And then teach root prefixes and suffixes. Many students find this really engaging and fun. They can become word detectives and will start to make connections all around them. And let them become the focus of your classroom and celebrate students making cross-curricular connections and observations. We're going to take a few minutes to look at our Session Six check-in. Go ahead and try to answer the questions and go back to any of the other slides if you need to find some of the answers. You can also find additional answers and resources in the pamphlet. Thank you again for all your hard work today. This was our sixth session and we will be learning about comprehension next session and using all the knowledge from today and in previous sessions to build our understanding of foundational literacy skills.