From Kelly Gallagher’s To Read Stuff You Have to Know Stuff
When it comes to acquiring vocabularies, time spent reading clearly gets the biggest bang for the buck. One reason for this is that we are much more likely to learn words when we see them in context, as opposed to encountering them in isolation (Tulving and Gold 1963; Nation and Snowling 1998; Perfetti, Goldman, and Hogaboam 1979; Stanovich 1984). But there are other ways teachers can help their students broaden their vocabularies. Following are some of them.
1. Don’t Fall into the Test-Prep Trap
When students learn less about history and science (and other subjects), for example, their future in reading is hampered. If a student doesn’t know anything about economics, she will have a hard time understanding a chapter on inflation.
Narrowing the curriculum leads to a negative snowball effect—students who score low are funneled into a narrower curriculum so that they have extra time to work on their reading “skills.” This creates a death spiral that ensures they will never catch up. Instead of narrowing the curriculum, we should be broadening our students’ reading lives as much as possible. Every year, when my high school students were getting ready to take the SAT, I already knew who would score high on the verbal section. Almost without exception, it was those who had been reading for years.
2. Ditch the Weekly Vocabulary Lists
Giving students a list of vocabulary words to study each week is not good practice.
My friend Cory, a nonreader, is learning this the hard way. He is preparing to take the GRE. He wants to become a physical therapist, which requires an advanced degree, but he is having trouble passing the practice tests. In one short passage that he read, he was confronted with three words he did not know: garb, belied, and jejune. Yes, he could have studied vocabulary lists prior to the exam, but out of the thousands and thousands of possible words, what are the chances he would have studied (and remembered) these specific words? Highly unlikely.
3. Teach Targeted Academic Vocabulary
Sometimes, we need to explicitly teach words. Take the concept of ecology, for example, which is taught in high school. The teacher will need to teach not only the word ecology but other words closely related to the concept. It is hard to understand ecology at a deep level without also knowing other terms such as biodiversity, biomass, trophic levels, ecosystems, autotroph, and symbiosis. With this in mind, I suggest the following proven strategies to help students acquire targeted academic vocabulary.
- The Frayer Model is a graphic organizer. Students write the word to be learned in the center oval and then complete the outer boxes (which are self-explanatory categories such as “definition” and “examples”).
- A word chart is tailored to helping English language learners.
- Vocabulary illustrations. Have students draw illustrations to represent new words or cut and paste digital images under the words.
- Word predictions. This approach to learning new words, which I learned from Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert, begins by having students see the word in context in two different sentences. This pairing of sentences adds a richer level of context that helps students predict the meaning of the word. Once students make their predictions, the teacher gives them a nondictionary definition of the word and asks them to brainstorm related words. Last, the teacher gives students the word in different languages.
- Cheat sheets. Before reading, the teacher selects some key terms and provides students with nondictionary definitions. The students did not spend valuable class time looking up the meaning of these words. The definitions were provided for them. They then kept this cheat sheet alongside the text as they read. If you teach in a school where students are subjected to a lot of standardized testing, you might also consider teaching keywords associated with these exams.
4. Teach Readers to Be Active When Faced with an Unfamiliar Word
So, what should a reader do when encountering an unfamiliar word? I wanted my readers to be active, not passive. When they didn’t know a word, I wanted them to do something.
- Attack the word. To teach students word-attack skills, I grouped students and asked them if they could figure out the meaning of the following word: *Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. This activity teaches students to pay close attention to word parts (e.g., pneumono refers to the lungs; micro means small).
- Look at the context. To help my students understand how context clues can help us derive meaning, I gave them a sentence with a nonsense word in it and asked them to answer one question. I was also sure to create nonsense words that could not be broken down by word parts—again, this accentuated the importance of context.
- Decide their reading is good enough and move on. When reading just-right or challenge books, it is likely you’ll encounter many unfamiliar words. If you stopped at every word you did not know, the act of reading would become overly burdensome. The key is to develop a sense of when you should stop and when it is OK to keep moving.
- Read next to their phone. I often read with my phone next to me so I can look up any critical unknown words. Again, I stop only if I have determined that the unknown word is essential. The Dictionary.com app is one of my most frequently used apps, and I encourage students to use this or similar tools. One important caveat that I tell students: If you are going to use your phone while you read, turn your notifications off. Really.
5. Build a Love of Words
I love words, and I want to build a culture in which students love them as well. Here are some ways I have celebrated words in my classroom.
List of words I like and don’t like. In my notebook, I keep a list of words I like and words I do not like. As students read their independent books, core works, and book club selections throughout the school year, have them generate their own lists of words in their notebooks.
Favorite word or least-favorite word. Each student identifies a favorite word and writes a one-page informational piece. They may address some or all of the following: Why is this word your favorite? Is there a story tied to this word? What is the derivation of the word? What is your history with this word?
Word of the day. When students walked into class, I sometimes had a word of the day (and its definition) on the document camera for all to see. I didn’t often refer to it—it was just there as a daily reminder that words are cool, something to ponder before class started. No note-taking. No quizzes. Just fifteen seconds of word appreciation.
*Yes, this is a real word. Pneumono refers to the lung. Ultra means extremely. Microscopic means tiny. Silico is sand. Volcano is self-evident. Coniosis is scarring. Put them all together and you have a lung disease caused by breathing volcanic dust. You also have the longest word in the English language.
