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CHAPTER 2

APPROACHING THE CORE VOCABULARY

Literacy involves applying reading, writing, language, and critical-thinking skills. Vocabulary, a building block of literacy, describes events, plots, people, and places. Vocabulary explains actions, expands thoughts, and increases conceptual understanding (Sprenger, 2013). Some students have more exposure to vocabulary at home than others, so the instruction at school must attend to that diversity in exposure.

Vocabulary instruction includes more than memorizing definitions.

Vocabulary instruction includes more than memorizing definitions. Providing graphical representations of words, transforming unknown vocabulary into a student’s own words, mapping, reading selections aloud, performing skits, and playing cooperative word games all exemplify ways to connect vocabulary to students. The evidence-based practices in this chapter help teachers assist their students to explore and embrace vocabulary as they read, speak, write, think, and interact with text and people.

Figure 2.1 (page 20) illustrates the structure of this chapter.

Academic Language

Vocabulary is an indispensable part of language, whether a student is a first or second language learner (Wangru, 2016). Students with different reading levels and vocabulary exposure have different starting points when they enter schools, in terms of their exposure to vocabulary. Some learners have home environments with families who read to them, and other students have fewer words spoken and limited literacy experiences. Research shows that developing vocabulary skills facilitates richer listening, speaking, and writing abilities (Jose, 2015). However, ways to effectively incorporate vocabulary instruction within a given class period often challenges teachers (Robb, Sinatra, & Eschenauer, 2014). Vocabulary navigation is therefore complex, but as this chapter shows, it is also very navigable when a teacher utilizes RTI and systematic strategies.

Figure 2.1: Plan for approaching the core vocabulary.

Identify Vocabulary for Students With and Without IEPs

Like RTI, vocabulary is divided into three tiers (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002); however, these are not related to tiers of intervention but instead, to content. Tier1 includes frequently used words, or basic vocabulary words that generally have one meaning. Tier 2 words are found across content areas with multiple meanings, and Tier 3 words are subject specific. Respectively, words such as book, happy, love, or friend would be considered Tier 1 words, while compare, justify, draft, and exemplify would be categorized as Tier 2 words. Finally, Tier 3 words would be discipline related, such as constitution, meiosis, circumference, and witticism.

Students require mastery of academic language to achieve literacy success (Soto & Calderón, 2016). This means teachers must select strategies that teach appropriate high-frequency and discipline-specific words across the curriculum, whether that text is informational or fiction. Vocabulary instruction is not incidental but must include explicit strategies that allow students to own the academic language in print and non-print conversations and interactions.

Vocabulary instruction is not incidental but must include explicit strategies.

Acquiring academic language is often difficult for students with and without identified differences, including those with IDEA disability and cultural diversity. Physically demonstrating a word or a visual can assist an English learner (EL) to better understand a word that may not even exist in his or her own language or have a multiple meaning (Colorín Colorado, 2015). Students with and without individualized education programs (IEPs), ELs, and those with varying language, literacy experiences, and acumens need to construct meanings for written and spoken words.

This knowledge is within all students’ reach when instruction faithfully uses evidence-based practices with multitiered instruction. RTI is a complex process involving (1) determining student levels and (2) selecting appropriate interventions.

Determine Student Levels

Responsive vocabulary interventions include whole-class, small-group, and individual instruction. Teachers can determine a student’s vocabulary knowledge through informal and formal written and oral measurements, inventories, and assessments of words in isolation and in context. They collect data on student progress with identification and word meaning to guide and adapt instruction. Vocabulary tests may follow various formats—standardized, teacher created, or online. The following websites offer examples of vocabulary tests and exercises that focus on definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, antonyms, and vocabulary usage in sentences.

➢ VocabTest.com (www.vocabtest.com)

➢ VocabularySize.com (http://my.vocabularysize.com)

➢ Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary (http://learnersdictionary.com/quiz/vocabulary-start)

Select Appropriate Interventions

Varying the engagements, representations, actions, and expressions honors learner diversity. For example, varying representations means that the information is not just displayed one way, whether that is auditory or visual. Multiple media representations expand students’ transfer and application of language and concepts. Teachers should use specific tools and strategies to build fluencies and motivation to honor students’ varying prior knowledge and inspire interest. The following research-based interventions connect to individual students and multitiered groupings (Jose, 2015; Maiullo, 2016; Rimbey, McKeown, Beck, & Sanora, 2016; Robb et al., 2014; Wangru, 2016). Teachers can:

➢ Provide informal and frequent understanding checks

➢ Implement daily, weekly, and monthly reviews of prior learning

➢ Offer students ways to figure out unfamiliar vocabulary with each step explained, such as:

• Read the word in the context of a sentence.

• Read the sentence with a blank used in place of the word.

• Substitute a word that makes sense.

• Look up the word with an online tool (such as WordHippo [http://www.wordhippo.com]), a handheld dictionary, or a text’s glossary.

➢ Appropriately scaffold literacy instruction

➢ Value diverse representations

➢ Pace the delivery of content

➢ Provide modeling

➢ Offer direct, guided instruction and then independent practice

➢ Show examples and nonexamples

➢ Practice think-alouds

➢ Ask students to explain their work

➢ Personalize vocabulary with individualized student lists and pictures of words next to their definitions (Pics4Learning [www.pics4learning.com])

➢ Instruct on phonemic awareness and structural analysis

➢ Monitor reader response journals

➢ Provide compartmentalization (for example, character perspective charts)

➢ Reinforce self-questioning

➢ Offer detailed and timely feedback

➢ Reteach and enrich as necessary

Evidence-Based Practice

The National Reading Technical Assistance Center compiles research on vocabulary acquisition and instruction (Butler et al., 2010). Research synthesis highlights the merits of direct instruction and learning beyond definitional knowledge, which means learning a word’s definition as well as what it means in context. Students need to have a command of vocabulary when they speak, read, hear, and write. This involves receptive language in which students are interpreting words, and using or producing language in conversation as well as in print (Kamil & Hiebert, 2005). This understanding includes, but is not limited to, hearing abundant vocabulary that may or may not be within a student’s prior knowledge or interests.

Students also need to know how to interpret vocabulary on standardized testing. Active learning, personalization of word learning, increased word knowledge, and repeated exposure to the words help learners understand vocabulary (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000). Implementing effective vocabulary instruction and supporting early literacy skills allow students to understand the core vocabulary (Rimbey et al., 2016).

Vocabulary Instruction

Academic and behavioral growth within the general education classroom requires students to access and master core vocabulary. Skills such as identifying academic vocabulary, citing text-based evidence from literature and informational text, creating dynamic essays, evaluating algebraic expressions, and solving multistep word problems all require good teaching practices that connect the reading, writing, mathematical, and cross-curricular vocabulary to students in motivating ways. Applying the vocabulary to build conceptual knowledge is imperative because of curriculum demands and reading complexities as students advance through the grades.

Academic vocabulary enhances students’ understanding of the disciplines. A broader term—academic literacy—is dependent on the contexts within which students practice the literacy (Baumann & Graves, 2010). In school settings, academic literacy connects to the reading proficiency required in content-specific texts and literature (Torgesen et al., 2007). Therefore, effective vocabulary instruction should offer repeated exposure to words, definitional and contextual information, and active, meaningful engagement.

Early Literacy Skills

Teachers must assess students’ early literacy skills through phonological and print awareness with guided questions, oral reads, and word identification to ensure that the next step of appropriate instruction follows. Screening and progress monitoring at set times during the year then steer the tiered instruction. Phonics inventories include teachers synthesizing and analyzing how students pronounce academic vocabulary, which then shed light on students’ basic phonemic skills.

These inventories assess skill levels with phonemic awareness, fluency, and the comprehension of fiction, narrative, and expository text. Informal reading inventories analyze skills such as oral reading, comprehension, and word identification. This may include activities such as reading graded word lists, real and pseudo words, and passages. Teachers assess students on their responses to oral questions and vocabulary comprehension within passages and sentences and from word lists. Every content area and concept has its own vocabulary that teachers must identify and analyze for students with diverse reading skills and levels.

Every content area and concept has its own vocabulary that teachers must identify and analyze for students with diverse reading skills and levels.

It is vital that families provide a literacy-rich environment at home to reinforce skills and objectives with their children. Families can encourage their children to identify, pronounce, decode, and encode letters and sounds in isolation and within words in road signs, recipes, grocery stores, and newspapers. For example, while cooking spaghetti, parents can have their child identify final sounds of words, practice phoneme segmentation, and read the box directions.

Daily and functional reads of fiction and nonfiction genres partner schools and homes, with students gaining many transferrable literacy skills. Functional reads include students’ everyday interactions with words displayed in books, video games, websites, newspapers, and more. The idea is for the reading to have function and meaning for each student, with school reads being fun ones too, not just viewed as assignments. Families can encourage good reading practices by modeling reading for their children, whether it is a newspaper, paperback book, or electronic device. Families can also read together, with schools offering book lists and strategies to promote increased literacy.

The reproducible “Phonemic Awareness and Fluency Record” (page 35) is a tool to help students begin, advance, and fine-tune phonemic awareness skills, while the reproducible “Comprehension of Fiction, Narrative, and Expository Text” (page 36) helps teachers evaluate students’ skills in comprehending fiction, narrative, and expository text. These tools increase teacher knowledge of student levels as they plan their lessons.

Teachers can collect this information to help develop student phonemic awareness, fluency, and reading comprehension profiles to identify learners’ baseline levels. They then use this knowledge to select interventions that address the specific areas that challenge students as they read more difficult vocabulary. Teachers can always advance and fine-tune students’ literacy skills, but identification is the initial step that begins the process.

Teachers can always advance and fine-tune students’ literacy skills, but identification is the initial step that begins the process.

Multiple Curriculum Entry Points

The following curriculum examples help teachers identify students’ vocabulary needs and then engage students in productive application of the words across disciplines, without allowing complex vocabulary to interfere with conceptual understanding. A student may not understand a word because he or she does not know how to pronounce it. The teacher might then offer strategies to help that student decode a multisyllabic word, identify syllable types, pronounce consonant digraphs, or determine structural analysis. Students might know how to decode a word but cannot categorize or apply meaning in context. Teachers can portray words in deeper ways that allow for increased internalization. Establishing the proficiency levels determines the remediation required. Three steps—(1) identify knowledge, (2) intervene, and (3) ensure internalization—ultimately lead to strategies that allow students to prioritize, relate, and own the vocabulary.

How to Identify Knowledge, Intervene, and Ensure Internalization

With RTI, the teacher identifies students’ vocabulary knowledge, intervenes with strategies, and ensures that students internalize the core vocabulary. He or she can accomplish this through whole-class instruction in Tier 1, smaller targeted groups in Tier 2, and more intensive instruction in Tier 3.

Identify Knowledge

Teachers can use the chart in figure 2.2 to note word-identification levels with a step-by-step approach, showing proficiency as well as need for remediation. Teachers listen to students read individually, in small groups, and during whole-class instruction. However, teachers should never ask a student to read aloud if he or she will be embarrassed. Due to time parameters, another option is to allow students to read into digital devices that staff, such as general and special education teachers, reading interventionists, speech-language pathologists, paraprofessionals, and the students themselves can review to note proficiencies. Hearing specific examples helps students develop metacognition.

Hearing specific examples helps students develop metacognition.

Teachers jot down words or sentences that raise concerns. For example, if a student reads the word wildlife as filewild that would indicate that he or she is transposing words; or if a student reads grandma’s seventieth birthday as grandma’s seventeenth birthday, this word error most certainly affects comprehension. The chart does not include every word-identification skill, but it encourages teachers to think about what errors mean in terms of their next instructional steps.

Figure 2.2: Word identification, concepts, and vocabulary skills exercise.

Intervene

Teachers intervene and monitor with strategies that provide systematic and explicit vocabulary instruction. They share fiction and nonfiction books with oral reads, along with guided and independent practice across genres, disciplines, and multimedia formats, including vocabulary pictures and examples of word relationships. Students highlight words in text to increase recognition and appropriately demonstrate their ownership of the vocabulary across disciplines. Teachers activate the text-to-speech feature for online sites to increase fluency with models and offer feedback, guidance, and instruction.

Ensure Internalization

Finally, teachers must ensure students achieve and own vocabulary competency with transfer and application to other reading materials. Students establish personalized vocabulary connections through writing, conversation, and diverse engagements. When students internalize the vocabulary, they own it. This occurs through interactive vocabulary practice with words that include, but are not limited to, reflecting on prior knowledge from KWL (what I know, what I want to know, what I learned) charts, word mapping, and other graphic organizers, and practicing word usage with peers, songs, games, and skits.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) offers concrete, visual ways for students to internalize vocabulary with word mapping and more on their ReadWriteThink website (www.readwritethink.org). Playing games such as Balderdash to determine correct word meanings, solving crossword puzzles, or pantomiming words are also viable ways to ensure vocabulary internalization beyond a skill-and-drill approach.

MTSS Lesson Connections

The following elementary, middle, and high school lessons apply the identify knowledge, intervene, and ensure internalization approach across multiple content areas. (Visit go.SolutionTree.com/RTI to access more free reproducible lesson examples.)

Grade 3 Lesson on Viking Culture

A third-grade social studies class is studying Viking culture. The topic may not be in students’ prior knowledge, so when a learner completes a KWL chart, it helps teachers find out what students know or think they know.

Identify Knowledge

The teacher asks students to list everything they know about the Vikings, want to know, and learned at the end of the unit in the KWL chart. See figure 2.3 (page 26). For example, students responding that the Vikings football team from Minnesota chose its name to emulate the fierceness of a group that lived centuries ago might lead to a motivating discussion on Viking history.

Then, students use the tasks and guided questions in figure 2.4 (page 26) to practice the vocabulary they acquire during the lesson. The teacher identifies learner decoding and word application skills and levels. Just as the Vikings explored new lands, students need to explore and conquer these academic words to then understand the social studies content.

Intervene

The teacher might decide to subdivide the tasks or guided questions with additional scaffolding, so he or she can provide lists of word blends and have students practice the words in text. Teachers can use the graphic organizers in figure 2.5 (page 26) and figure 2.6 (page 27) as models to assist students with differing reading abilities and executive functioning skills to categorize words and syllables.

The teacher gives students fiction and nonfiction passages, ranging from those in a social studies text to online reads, such as ReadWorks’ (2015) “Long Live the Vikings” (www.readworks.org/passages/long-live-vikings) to fictional stories and fables about Viking gods with multimedia presentations, such as those at BrainPOP Educators’ (n.d.) “Lesson Ideas: Vikings” (https://educators.brainpop.com/bp-topic/vikings). He or she presents the concepts in sequential and manageable steps, from simple to complex, to minimize confusion.

Figure 2.3: KWL chart for Vikings lesson.

Figure 2.4: Tasks and guided questions for Vikings lesson.

Figure 2.5: Categorization chart for Vikings lesson.

Ensure Internalization

Finally, the teacher allows students to practice their new vocabulary in various ways to ensure they internalize the learning, including performing arts with Viking collages, skits, interpretive dances, and songs. Some students write captions for Viking clipart (Classroom Clipart [http://bit.ly/2eiELKH]).

To help students internalize their learning, teachers invite them to participate in a think-pair-share activity. Think-pair-share is a cooperative way to engage learners in small-group structured discussions to help them understand the content (Rubinstein-Avila, 2013). Teachers give students time to independently engage with the text and then connect or pair with another student or group to expand their knowledge. Linguistic engagements accompany the textual ones. Think-pair-share is effective for increasing intrinsic motivation and also has implications for students with different language proficiencies (Shih & Reynolds, 2015). In this case, students read brief passages and have small-group discussions about what they read and learned—the Viking takeaways. Of course, this example includes invited application across multiple subjects and grades.

Figure 2.6: Syllables chart for Vikings lesson.

Grade 8 Vocabulary Lesson on the Federalists

I once observed an eighth-grade social studies teacher lecture her students on the Federalist period in U.S. history. Slowly, she began to lose the students’ attention. They somewhat listened as the teacher and other students read the history text. The teacher periodically stopped the reading to ask low-level comprehension questions.

Later, I had a coaching session with the teacher and asked if she ever thought about engaging students in an activity to better help them understand the Federalist period and its relevant vocabulary words. She responded that she used to do a Federalist tug-of-war activity, show videos, and assign group research projects, but there was no time for that anymore. Ouch! I shared that students would not remember the words or concepts in a unit unless they are actively involved with multiple experiences. I encourage teachers to try the following steps to help students learn the Federalist concepts and vocabulary.

Think-pair-share is a cooperative way to engage learners in small-group structured discussions to help them understand the content.

Identify Knowledge

Figure 2.7 (page 28) offers various ways a teacher can engage students with historical words and events through word exploration and critical-thinking activities.

Figure 2.7: Federalist word tasks and guided questions.

Intervene

Teachers ask students to reword and divide more difficult questions into their components for students. For example, instead of asking students to delineate why Hamilton objected to the constitutional proposals for civilian rule and military strength, the teacher could say, “Explain who Hamilton was and why he did not want civilian rule. Offer examples of constitutional proposals at this time and how Hamilton felt about the U.S. government’s military strength.”

Ensure Internalization

Finally, teachers can have students participate in a kinesthetic debate to explore the concepts and share viewpoints to ensure they internalize the learning. Students stand by corresponding numbers on a number line that is posted on the floor to express their agreements and disagreements. The teacher uses sticky notes or sentence strips with the negative and positive numbers listed. As students share text-based statements, they listen to their peers and move to a different location on the number line if the fact-based opinions they hear sway them. This movement generates a vocabulary-rich class discussion and debate. The teacher instructs students to reference text-based vocabulary posted on a Federalist word wall.

Figure 2.8: Federalist kinesthetic number line.

Figure 2.8 shows how to set up the number line in the classroom. Algebra teachers will appreciate the mathematics reinforcement of negative and positive numbers in the social studies classroom. Teachers verbally and visually present statements to the class to assist students with different levels of listening and reading skills. He or she posts one descriptor at a time on an interactive board or PowerPoint slide. Students then move to the number that indicates their level of agreement or disagreement. The teacher can use the following debate prompts.

➢ Alexander Hamilton was correct to say that the Federal government should take over the unpaid debts of the states during the American Revolution.

➢ Thomas Jefferson was right to believe in the power of individual people, such as farmers, in favor of a strong central government.

➢ Federalists strengthened our government at the people’s expense.

➢ Antifederalists were correct in thinking that more power should be placed with state and local governments.

During the debate, the teacher displays a word wall with an A–Z vocabulary list and asks students to select words and write a paragraph that demonstrates understanding (see figure 2.9). The A–Z listing offers students a way to plan and collect their thoughts. Students can also branch out with words other than nouns and add prefixes and affixes. After completing the list (there does not have to be a word next to every letter), students can use their words to generate a paragraph about the Federalists. The reproducible “A–Z Vocabulary List” (page 37) provides a blank template of a vocabulary list teachers can adapt to any lesson.

Figure 2.9: Federalist word wall example.

Grade 10 Vocabulary Lesson on Global Warming

Sometimes lessons require warm-ups, including this one on global warming. Structural analysis and word identification require specific, discrete steps. Teachers can strengthen vocabulary identification with structural analysis and academically engaging activities. In this lesson on global warming, the teacher includes guided questions, multimedia presentations, and technology tools.

Identify Knowledge

Students may have an interest in global warming but be turned off during instruction due to the complexity of the words. In this lesson, the teacher instructs students how to break up the multisyllabic words into their parts with structural analysis, syllabication rules, lessons about consonant blends, and so on. Students complete the tasks and answer guided questions so the teacher can identify student strengths and weaknesses, as shown in figure 2.10.

The teacher also gives students National Geographic’s (2016) global warming quiz (http://on.natgeo.com/1hfGRSW) to help assess their prior knowledge.

Teachers can strengthen vocabulary identification with structural analysis and academically engaging activities.

Intervene

The teacher offers the following interventions to enliven the vocabulary with visuals, music, and study skill tools. These interventions engage students, pushing them to learn more. Some online and print articles and multimedia presentations the teacher offers include the following.

Figure 2.10: Global warming words and questions.

➢ Students read the online article, “What Is Global Warming?” (National Geographic, n.d.; http://on.natgeo.com/2dxH7CG) to provide additional information with digital formats, with the text-to-speech feature activated. The teacher asks students to highlight key vocabulary using digital tools or prints out the article for students to manually highlight the terms.

➢ The teacher shows clips from Al Gore’s (Guggenheim, 2006) video An Inconvenient Truth (www.pbs.org/now/shows/304) while referencing key vocabulary.

Ensure Internalization