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Minilesson Management
Obviously, you’re interested in what you can do to help your students embrace word learning and enlarge their vocabularies. This book can be a handy resource for you and for other professionals in the building who want to address students’ critical need for high levels of vocabulary knowledge. By addressing this critical need, you will be helping students move more clearly toward success in academia and in the world of work.
Vocabulary in a SNAP can fuel teacher inquiry and data collection. After using some of the minilessons, ask your students if they feel they’re learning more words. Ask them if they are excited about word learning. Analyze their speaking and writing for improved word choice. Along with trusted colleagues, determine which minilessons, instructional strategies, and digital tools work best, and continue refining vocabulary instruction at your school. This chapter lays out the research basis for the SNAP minilessons, highlights the flexibility and adaptability of this framework, clarifies the structure and components of the minilessons in depth, and explains the logistics of implementing the minilessons in your classroom.
Research Basis
This book does not purport to be the one, end-all, be-all collection of words that will guarantee students finish their K–5 years prepared for all that lies ahead of them. In fact, no such word list exists, and even if it did, it would not take into account all that good teachers bring to instruction in order to meet their students’ needs.
The excellent teachers I’ve observed and supported as a professional development provider heavily influenced this work. The teachers and students I’ve worked with in settings as dissimilar as West Valley City, Utah, and Zwolle, Louisiana, were first and foremost in my mind. What would I say and do if we were teaching these lessons to their students? How would I work with teachers to adapt the lessons?
I consulted several credible resources to decide which words to include in this book, in addition to consulting many dedicated educators who have been studying vocabulary instruction with me. The following published works have most influenced word selection in this book.
• A New Academic Word List by Averil Coxhead (2000)
• The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (5th ed.) by Edward B. Fry and Jacqueline E. Kress (2000)
• Vocabulary for the Common Core by Robert J. Marzano and Julia A. Simms (2013)
All word definitions appearing in the minilessons are my own paraphrases and have been developed mainly by consulting the following online resources: Merriam-Webster (www.merriam-webster.com), Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com), Thesaurus.com (www.thesaurus.com), Cambridge Dictionary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us), and The Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com). I have also often turned to WordHippo (www.wordhippo.com) as a go-to resource for synonyms and example sentences. The instructional strategies throughout align with either the seminal work Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001) or other influential syntheses of effective instructional strategies.
I suggest that you use this book as only one resource to help plan effective vocabulary lessons. Other resources that should impact your decisions about which words to teach include the core instructional texts that you use (textbooks and other texts), the high-stakes tests your students need to prepare for, the wisdom of colleagues who are joining you in this endeavor, your expertise about the most critical content-area words your students need to know, and your experience in effectively meeting your students where they are in their learning.
Flexibility and Adaptability
These minilessons are not a curriculum. They’re not a program or a series of lessons that you should use in any particular order. You can use any minilesson at any time and adapt it as you see fit for your curriculum and your students. The minilessons are highly flexible. The text shows only one of many ways to use the framework to teach specific words. While the minilessons in this book are organized thematically, I recognize that there may be other ways to group them. If you and your colleagues want to take the ideas herein and totally reorganize them, you can do so without compromising effectiveness. Make things make sense for you. Remember, the ultimate goal is for students to see the words, make the words, associate them, tinker with them alongside peers, and individually apply them. All these steps are designed to increase the “stickiness” of the target words so that when students encounter unfamiliar academic vocabulary, they aren’t so flummoxed that they can’t move forward—the word will have stuck with them. I also encourage you to use the framework to design your own minilessons when appropriate. So consider this book a book of possibilities.
Vocabulary in a SNAP consists of enough minilessons to use a different one several times a week during the entire school year if you wish. I’m not recommending that you implement the minilessons in any specific number or sequence, however. Use your best judgment and, if possible, undertake this work with colleagues and find what kind of implementation works best for your situation. Also, just because you teach a minilesson once doesn’t mean that it can’t be repeated later for review. Multiple exposures to unfamiliar words are important for long-term memory. Any minilesson can also be a part of your word study instruction when it might best make sense. In short, there are many ways to use these lessons along with your current literature series, balanced literacy model, and so on.
Structure and Components
Each minilesson contains four core steps, which the acronym SNAP represents.
1. S: Seeing and saying each word
2. N: Naming a category or group each word belongs to or noticing connections to related words or word families
3. A: Acting on the words (engaging in a brief task or conversation about the words)
4. P: Producing an individual, original application of the words
Each minilesson also contains a Scaffolding section with suggestions for providing additional support, and an Acceleration section with suggestions for offering enrichment opportunities. Additionally, some lessons contain a Beyond the Lesson section to offer ideas for how to reinforce knowledge and use of target words beyond the minilesson itself. Scaffolding, Acceleration, and Beyond the Lesson sections are not technically parts of the lessons themselves—they are offered as extra, optional information to support teachers if they determine these adaptations are necessary in their classrooms.
Minilessons are assigned an estimated difficulty level—either level 1 or level 2. Level 1 is appropriate for lower grade levels (K–3), many English learners, and students in grades 4–5 who struggle with language. Level 2 is appropriate for upper elementary (4–5) and some English learners. However, these are estimates, and each student and classroom will have different ability levels and needs. Many lessons may also be appropriate for some middle school students who are below grade level or who are English learners, but for the majority of students, lessons in this book are applicable for grades K–5. Readers should feel free to use this book with older students as they deem appropriate. See Vocabulary in a SNAP: 100+ Lessons for Secondary Instruction (Peery, in press) for lessons designed for secondary-grades students. Teachers may also want to adjust the content of the examples to fit their students’ maturity levels and experiences. For example, recent school events might be easily connected to the content of lessons. Teachers will know what’s best in their individual classrooms. Allow your students to be your guide, and consider the designations and content in this book only as broad suggestions. Lastly, each minilesson uses icons to identify its components, as the following sections show.
Estimated Difficulty Levels
Level 1: Lower grade levels (K–3), many English learners, and students in grades 4–5 who struggle with language
Level 2: Upper elementary (4–5) and some English learners
Seeing and Saying
S represents seeing and saying each word. It’s essential that every student see how the word is formed and spelled. Visual representations of words can aid in memory and help students connect their current phonological knowledge to the new words (Marzano, 2004). The teacher must also provide a correct pronunciation in this first step, repeatedly if necessary. Each student should then create a pronunciation with his or her own mouth. In this way, each student “owns” the word because he or she can say it aloud. Just as babies and toddlers repeat what adults say in order to practice with new words, so should students in this step. This way, they become active learners and shapers of their vocabulary knowledge.
The recommended strategy for students saying the word is often a choral response in several minilessons throughout this book. However, choral responses can be hard to monitor for individual participation. Do what you feel works best with your students, but do all you can to get every student to form the target words with his or her own mouth. As most of us who teach language know from experience, moving muscles and making sounds with one’s own mouth are important in mastering new words.
Naming and Noticing
N stands for naming a category or group that each word fits into, noticing a connection to other words or concepts, or making other associations with familiar information. Students need to make initial connections in order to get at least a surface-level or temporary meaning of the target words. These meanings are the building blocks on which the next two tasks depend. Also, because comparing and contrasting are basic cognitive operations, having students compare and classify unfamiliar words alongside known words or word families is likely to support them in their first grasp of new vocabulary. Being able to place words into a category or connecting them to other words starts creating cognitive relationships that can be strengthened and expanded. A bonus: this step also addresses connotation in many instances. In the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students I’ve worked with over the years, students with smaller vocabularies struggle mightily with connotation.
If you feel you’re running short on time for any SNAP minilesson, finish the first two steps and save the following two for later in the day or the next day. The first two steps blend fairly seamlessly into each other, so try to do both of them (at a minimum) for any partial SNAP minilesson.
Acting
The third step, A, is for acting on the words by engaging in a brief conversation or some other task using the target words. These activities should be collaborative and engaging. Thus, this segment of instruction generates positive feelings that enhance cognition and increase the students’ enjoyment of language in general. The ultimate goal here is to heighten awareness of words while having fun. This segment should be low-stakes, low-stress, and enjoyable enough for even your most struggling and low-literacy students to engage. You want every student to engage in conversation about words at this step of the instructional sequence.
Producing
Lastly, step P is for producing an original application of the target words. This is the individual practice piece. Each student uses at least one of the target words in speaking, writing, or both. Teachers can integrate useful digital tools well within this segment. And with this closing piece, the minilesson includes explicit instruction, guided practice, and independent practice, all facilitated with the teacher using proven instructional strategies, and all within only a few minutes of precious class time.
Scaffolding
The ladder icon represents ideas about scaffolding instruction for learners who need more support, especially during the independent practice piece (step P) and sometimes also for the guided practice piece (step A). English learners and students with identified disabilities might benefit from the suggestions here. However, you know your students best. If you don’t feel the suggestions the minilessons provide would work well with your struggling, reluctant, or resistant students, devise something that may work better. Keep the ideas that work well; tweak or toss the others.
Acceleration
The rabbit icon represents ideas about accelerating instruction for learners who may already be familiar with the words in a minilesson or who can learn them quickly. The acceleration suggestions help advanced students apply the target words immediately and authentically or use them in novel ways. Most often, acceleration suggestions are made for steps A and P.
Sometimes, this section will share words related to the target words. These are words that students should understand fairly easily but are perhaps more difficult or used less frequently than the minilesson’s target words.
The suggestions in this section help prevent our high-achieving students and those who are especially interested in words from growing bored because instruction is not meeting their specific needs. The recommendations also spark continued interest in developing advanced students’ already well-developed vocabulary. They need to be learning new words, too!
Beyond the Lesson
In some lessons, you will see a section titled Beyond the Lesson. This text provides suggestions about how to apply the content outside the minilesson or after its conclusion. These suggestions appear intermittently throughout the book to extend concepts that have clear and logical cross-curricular applications; however, it is simply not practical to make suggestions for each lesson. Consider with every lesson what you might do to review, apply, or associate the words across the curriculum. Teachers know from experience and from research (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2013; Marzano, 2004) that students need multiple exposures to new words in order to be able to understand and use them.
One minilesson will not guarantee that any student can apply any of the target words; however, it will guarantee that students are exposed to new words in an engaging, low-stakes situation. In order to move the words into your students’ expressive vocabulary (their verbal and written output), consider how you can provide multiple exposures in multiple contexts. You may want to do only one to two minilessons each week, and then commit to using the target words yourself in as many contexts as possible. You’ll see that if you use the words repeatedly in talking with students, they will start to use them, too. Think of how babies learn their first words. We all mimic on the way to mastery. Allow your students to do this.
In summary, each SNAP minilesson is a well-planned, flexible, research-based, instructional segment that teachers, paraprofessionals, tutors, and other adults can apply in varied ways for the maximum benefit to students. The structure can fit any words that you want to teach, whether they are general academic words or content-specific words.
Logistics for Implementing SNAP Minilessons
Before delving into the logistics of teaching the minilessons, it’s important to reiterate that authenticity and flexibility are built into these lessons. In many places in this book, one minilesson could possibly turn into a short series of minilessons. You could take one minilesson that contains five target words and break it into two minilessons. You can also add related words to any minilesson. Each minilesson’s outline or sketch aims to be helpful but again, not prescriptive.
This book is about coulds, not shoulds. I recognize that you will bring your own passion and artistry to each minilesson you choose. This is a critical part of teaching—responding in the moment to what you see in front of you. If a suggested strategy doesn’t sound like it will work with your students, or if it falls flat as you attempt it, adjust it or replace it with your own strategy. Having said that, there are a few basic tenets to follow when implementing these lessons.
Each minilesson in this book should take no more than twenty minutes of instructional time. Instruction needs to move swiftly, and students will need to be familiar with how to transition from a whole-group setting to small groups and to individual work. You should always approach minilesson steps in the order presented (S, N, A, P) and should always include each step. Don’t omit any of these steps. If time runs short, cut the minilesson off wherever you are and continue at a later time in the day, the very next day, or as soon as you can. As noted earlier, steps S and N of the minilesson would ideally be done on the same day to give students an initial understanding of the target words. Steps A and P can then be done together as soon as possible (or even at separate times if time dictates). The key is to do all steps so that students have ample opportunity to add new words to their lexicons.
Conducting Step S
This is the visualization and pronunciation step and consists of brief, direct instruction. Step S should take no longer than three minutes. Teachers should write each word and definition in large, clear print on a chalkboard, dry-erase board, poster paper, or similar surface, or display it via interactive whiteboard or projector. Each word must be clearly visible to every student, so sit in the seats in the very back of the classroom before class to ensure the shortest student who is farthest away can still see the words on the board. Do not print the words on handouts and distribute them. Do not have students copy the words into a notebook; this will take too long and slow the minilesson’s pace. You may choose to display the words on an ever-evolving word wall or other display, but the point of this part of step S is for students to see the words in their minds, not to engage with the words in a way that seems like a normal, everyday assignment. You want an aspect of novelty here; you want to call attention to these words and do all you can to make them seem special.
Ensure that you write the part of speech, as each minilesson notes, alongside each word. The word meaning used in the minilesson is the one for the specific part of speech it notes. For example, if the target word is transmitted, the definition given will be for the verb transmit in the past tense. The definition or use of the word transmission would not be part of the lesson; the lesson would focus on transmitted, the verb. Seeing the parts of speech repeatedly helps students become increasingly familiar with how words work grammatically and syntactically and supports much of what happens in the next step of the protocol (noticing associations among words).
Lastly, each student needs to say the words aloud in this step. This can occur a number of ways. You could pronounce all the words first and have students then pronounce the entire list after you. This might be preferable at times if you attach a certain rhythm or cadence to the vocabulary list. Alternatively, you could pronounce a single word, have students repeat it, and then do the same with the other words. Or you could combine these methods. For example, you could say each word clearly and have them listen, then repeat each individual word, and have them repeat. You could do any of these things several times. The goal is for the majority of students to say each word correctly out loud so that their brains and their mouths have experience with producing the word.
If technology is readily available, you may want to have each student speak his or her work into a device and record it. Collecting words said aloud this way can help students even further if they periodically play the words back and listen to themselves. Rudimentary tools such as whisper phones (made of curved PVC pipe that students can speak quietly into to hear themselves read aloud) can also be employed to make the saying aloud of the words more dramatic and memorable.
Conducting Step N
Ideally, the first two steps (S and N) are always done together. They (and you!) provide a model to students of correct pronunciation and enunciation and allow students to form the words not only in their minds but with their mouths and while hearing their own voices. Seeing the words, pronouncing them oneself, and making initial connections to prior knowledge and personal experience are what the first two steps are all about.
If it takes more than ten minutes to accomplish those goals, then save the rest of the minilesson for another time. If you are in the middle of step S or N and see that the minilesson may take more than twenty minutes, stop and continue with the other two steps at a later time. Remember, each minilesson should be short and memorable. If a minilesson turns into more of a standard lesson, then the benefits of brevity and novelty may be lost, and the target vocabulary becomes just more information awash in the sea of words that bombard students each day.
Step N relies on brief, direct instruction, and describes the student cognition that teachers should facilitate. In this step, you will help students connect new information to familiar information by focusing on the parts of speech, word components, morphology, etymology, associations, and other connections. The teacher assumes the active role in the classroom during this step, explaining word categories and associations for students and presenting examples. How teachers present this information and what students do with it during the N step are at the teachers’ discretion—teachers will know best what is appropriate in their classrooms. You really have a wide variety of choices about the connections and associations you make for your students here, and you can encourage them to make their own associations as well. Susan Neuman and Tanya Wright (2013), vocabulary researchers who have created a complete vocabulary curriculum, note that “clustering words within categories facilitated children’s comprehension and provided promising evidence of accelerating word learning” (p. 12). Therefore, organizing words into groups that are semantically or conceptually related in step N should support student learning.
The strategies that you use to help students connect the new to the known in this step can certainly vary, but some methods are almost always appropriate. Using gestures, having students engage in kinesthetic activity, sketching out a quick visual, or showing images—you can employ all these methods successfully here to immediately improve depth of understanding. If you don’t feel that the suggested strategy in a given minilesson will work for you, substitute another that will. The most important consideration is that you feel confident presenting the associations and that you do so in an engaging enough way to help students build more context around the words.
Often in step N, you will give examples based on school, home, or community so that students can immediately get at least an initial idea of word meaning. This second step of each minilesson should take only about three minutes but can be incredibly worthwhile. The bulk of students’ active engagement in discussing the words and producing meaning will occur during the next two steps of the lesson to deepen students’ initially incomplete understanding.
Conducting Step A
A refers to acting on the words (engaging in a brief task or conversation about the words). This step is meant to be collaborative and engaging; it is a quick, guided practice piece. This part of the minilesson should last no longer than five minutes. During this step, the teacher should circulate, monitor, and support students as needed. Students are supposed to be talking about, writing about, or playing with new words in this part of the minilesson as a foundation for using the words independently in the final step.
In many of the minilessons, small groups of students will be asked to write something during this step. Be sure that you have the necessary materials ready to go before you begin the minilesson so that this step can be accomplished quickly. Anything written during this step (and in the next one) should be collected but not graded. What students do during the entire SNAP minilesson is formative practice designed not only to enhance vocabulary but to increase student enjoyment of learning about words. Giving a grade or score on any of the tasks would undermine the minilesson’s overall goals.
Conducting Step P
This step is the independent practice piece that follows the cooperative learning step (step A). During this step, each student should authentically use at least one target word (but ideally two or more). Each student may use the word or words in a sentence or paragraph or may perform some other task with them. This step should last about five minutes in most cases. It is usually done in writing but can be adapted to be done orally per teacher discretion. You can meaningfully incorporate digital tools during this step to enhance engagement and further support student learning and transfer of knowledge.
Conducting Scaffolding, Acceleration, and Beyond the Lesson
The lessons in the book offer ancillary suggestions for scaffolding and acceleration, and ideas for supporting word learning beyond the lesson also appear from time to time. There are no specific logistics for implementing these pieces. These are intended to be used flexibly as you best see fit for your students.
Final Thoughts
Nothing is hard and fast here; I encourage you to use the lessons in the ways that best fit you and the learners before you. The purpose remains that we are trying to familiarize students with as many academic words as possible. Keep the end in mind, and do the best you can do with the ideas here, but feel free to revise as you see fit. I hope you will find the SNAP minilesson framework and the specific minilessons in this book useful. The remaining chapters include brief introductions and then launch into dozens of minilessons that you can shape to fit your needs. Enjoy!
