Vocabulary Instruction

Synthesis:

The readings this week all dealt with vocabulary instruction. I learned through the readings just how important vocabulary instruction is for students in all levels of schooling. According to Hinchman and Thomas, “the words an author uses can cause many middle school students to stumble as they read conceptually dense subject area material.” Many texts that adolescents are exposed to in school are informational texts, which “require students to have a functioning knowledge of many conceptually loaded terms” (Harmon, Wood, and Medina). This means that no matter the subject-area, teachers of adolescents should involve vocabulary instruction into their daily teaching time. 

Despite the importance of students’ vocabulary development, statistics show that the time spent on teaching vocabulary in schools is not sufficient for many students. According to the Manzo, Manzo, and Thomas article, “research indicates that the vocabulary level of U.S. college-bound 18-year olds has dropped very sharply in recent years.” A lack of vocabulary knowledge can affect a student’s academic performance dramatically.  

Vocabulary in the text influences comprehension drastically. A student’s vocabulary knowledge can affect 70-80% of what students understand from the reading, according to the Hinchman and Thomas text. Many words that appear in the text will be words the reader is already familiar with. These words are tier 1 words (high-frequency words) and tier 2 words, which appear in a variety of subject areas. The main words that can be troublesome to students are known as tier 3 words. These vocabulary words are specific to a certain subject area. It can be difficult to determine the meaning of tier 3 words just by using the context clues. These words require direct instruction. This means that the instructor must educate the students in-depth about not only what the word means, but also how the word is used. The teacher can also associate the tier 3 words with other words the student knows to help the student fully comprehend the meaning. There are many strategies that were discussed in the reading that teachers can use to improve their vocabulary instruction. These strategies include peer teaching, using K-W-L charts, and educating students on how roots and morphemes can make analyzing word meanings an easier task. Also, different technology tools can be incorporated into instruction to motivate students when studying vocabulary. 

Responses:

(Text to Self)

I do not remember my teachers providing me with in-depth vocabulary instruction in middle school. Sadly, most of my vocabulary “instruction” memories involve the teachers telling us to write the definitions of words from the chapter that we were studying. We did not learn these words in a meaningful context. I wrote down definitions but never made any connections to other words. I realize now that there are so many other ways to teach words that would be so much more valuable to students.

(Text to Text)

I wrote a research paper while I was an undergrad about effective vocabulary instruction for beginning readers. Although this class and the readings discuss mainly adolescent literacy, I still made a connection this week to my readings and my paper that I wrote 3 years ago. In my paper, I wrote about strategies that teachers could use to help their young readers. I mentioned the importance of direct and explicit instruction, multiple exposures, and small group instruction, along with other techniques. These methods, when used appropriately in the classroom, were shown to improve vocabulary knowledge for students in various studies.

(Text to World)

I think the topic of vocabulary instruction is an important one to discuss. I think more time should be spent on developing vocabulary in schools, especially the vocabulary that is vital to comprehending texts. Each teacher needs to realize that he/she is still a reading teacher even if the subject is math, science, or history.

In the United States, there is such a large focus on standardized tests. Teachers have pressure to prepare their students for these high-stakes tests that show what they have learned during the year. In the article written by Manzo, Manzo, and Thomas, vocabulary development is described as “one of the most important things teachers can do for students cognitively, culturally, and socially and is good preparation for standardized tests.” There is no excuse for teachers to omit vocabulary instruction due to test prepping.

Questions:

1.     How can I balance tier 3 vocabulary instruction with tier 1 and 2 instruction (for my struggling readers)?

I think that sometimes struggling readers can get overlooked when discussing vocabulary instruction. Of course, it is important to learn content-specific words to understand subject area text. But for students who have a difficult time with reading, they may need instruction with more than just the low-frequency words. My goal is to be a reading specialist so I can help these kiddos learn the reading techniques and the high-frequency vocabulary they need to know to become successful readers.

2.     How do I make sure that students truly understand the words that I teach them?

I’m always afraid that no matter how I explain something, there may still be students who don’t fully comprehend the material. Especially if the students do not have the prior knowledge or experience with the word, it can make the explanation difficult.

Thank you all for reading my post!!! I look forward to reading your responses about vocabulary instruction.