Vocabulary

“Vocabulary Lessons” by Blachowicz and Fisher focused on the main ways teachers can improve students’ vocabularies and improve reading.  The article states that it has long been understood that a reader’s vocabulary enhances their reading comprehension, but that recent information on literacy has devoted little time to the idea of teaching vocabulary.  Research has shown that a student’s reading vocabulary usually runs about two years behind their oral vocabulary, and also that exposure to written materials is crucial to vocabulary development during the school years.  Blachowicz and Fisher propose four ways teachers can approach vocabulary development.  The first is developing word awareness and love of words through word play.  The second is delivering explicit instruction to develop important vocabulary, which is accomplished through the STAR method which stands for Select, Teach, Activate, and Revisit.  The third way to help students increase vocabulary is by building strategies for independence.  The final suggestion is to engage students actively with a wide range of books.  Blachowicz and Fisher conclude by saying that teachers can instill an appreciation for words and motivate students to build their vocabularies for the rest of their lives.  The Lane Allen article talked about how to promote vocabulary growth and word consciousness in the classroom.  The article began by telling two stories about two different teachers who exemplified vocabulary development.  Like the article by Blachowicz and Fisher, this one points out that vocabulary is a critical factor in the development of reading skills; but it also points out that receptive vocabulary is a predictor of decoding skills.  Research quoted in the article has shown that to have an effect on reading, vocabulary instruction should include several exposures to a word, both definitions and contexts, and engaging students in deep processing.  More research is presented stating that vocabulary can be divided into four parts, and that receptive vocabulary plays a key role during the years children learn to read.  Lane and Allen discuss how developing vocabulary isn’t just about how many words students know, but also about how well they know those words, and most researchers have divided the understanding of a word into four or five levels from no knowledge to rich, decontextualized knowledge.  Accordingly, the goal for vocabulary instruction should be an emphasis on breadth and depth.  Lane and Allen go on to say that research has developed a three-part model on selecting what words to teach based on level of utility.  One important idea is to select words that are more sophisticated labels for familiar concepts because it will expand breadth, but also depth because it will help enhance understanding of both the new and familiar words.  Another point the articles makes is that incorporating new words into daily routines will create an atmosphere where children become motivated and competent in word usage, thus increasing their word consciousness.  The authors also discuss the importance of modeling sophisticated words use and trying not to use over-simplistic language with students.  The overall idea is that explicit instruction is the best way to make sure that students learn words and their meanings, and that through promoting incidental learning and word consciousness by modeling sophisticated vocabulary teachers can add breadth and depth to their students’ vocabularies.  “The Early Catastrophe” by Hart and Risley discusses a study they conducted which demonstrates the vocabulary gap that occurs in children from different levels of socio-economic status by the age of three.  The article details the study and how it was performed, and then it draws the conclusion that some type of intervention is needed in an attempt to do the best we can in equalizing children’s early experiences in order to minimize the gap as much as possible.  Chapter 6 in our book focuses on building valuable vocabularies.  The chapter mentions that copying and memorizing word definitions has no effect on reading comprehension, which is the main purpose in building vocabulary.  The chapter goes on to describe in detail and give examples of how teachers can directly teach vocabulary, use read-alouds and independent reading to help student learn new words, teach how to use context, morphemes, and dictionaries to help students figure out words they don’t know, teach students how to assess their own vocabulary knowledge, and to encourage a sense of word wonder for seeking new words and building vocabularies. 

“Vocabulary Lessons” was filled with facts I did not know, and other ideas that I hadn’t given much thought to before.  I think it’s definitely true that someone is considered educated if they have a strong vocabulary, and I have even made comments myself about how my good vocabulary is related to all the books I’ve read, or that I read a lot to increase my vocabulary.  I also did not know that a student’s reading vocabulary runs about two years behind their oral vocabulary, although it makes sense when I think about the things that come out of my nieces mouths sometimes and I wonder where do a 6 and 7 year old get this stuff?  I was also encouraged by the studies that show how much more reading students do when they engage in daily independent reading in the classroom.  I can really relate to Blachowicz and Fisher’s idea that vocabulary is built through word play, and that the key component to this idea is the word “play.”  I implemented this strategy when I worked with a group of first graders who were struggling with their sight words, and I was shocked by the progress they made.  A couple of the kids I worked with went from dreading learning their sight words to loving them and being proud that they had learned so many.  My work with them really instilled in me the strong opinion that one of the most important ways you can teach anything to young children is through “play” with fun and interesting activities.  I was also able to see firsthand how playing with words turned them into objects they could use and examine.  This also relates to Allington’s idea that teachers should be enthusiastic about teaching new words and help to encourage that mindset in their students.   The STAR method discussed in the article looks like a great guideline for developing instruction on vocabulary words.  The concept of rereading is brought up again in this article, which further stresses how important it is for students since it not only builds fluency, but it can also enhance vocabulary.  I thought “The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom” article was great.  I loved how it sucked you in from the start by describing the activities that took place in two classrooms and demonstrated what vocabulary instruction might look like.  This article points out that the gap between low-performing and high-performing students will widen if vocabulary does not become an integral part of literacy instruction; I have not previously thought about this gap in relation to differences in vocabulary and what that can mean for students.  The breakdown of vocabulary into the concepts of breadth and depth is new to me, before I had strictly thought about vocabulary as how many words you know.  Even though as a teacher you know you will be introducing new things and developing reading and writing skills, it was interesting to put a number to it by reading that students typically learn between 3,000 and 4,000 new words each year.  Once I stop to think about it, it makes sense that the acquisition of word knowledge happens through oral communication and casual reading.  Again, when I think about some of the words and phrases my nieces know it shocks me, but it makes sense because they have heard these words in context and can understand what they mean and how to use them, if they know nothing else about them.  It also goes along with the idea that we should not “dumb down” our language for children because they truly do have a unique ability to grasp things, like vocabulary, even when we don’t think they can.  Even though children can pick-up on the things you least expect them to, this article helped me understand that over-simplifying things can have negative consequences.  My favorite part was the end where the authors point out that any teacher can accomplish what the two teachers in the article did by creating word-rich classrooms with sophisticated models, this really helped encourage me to think that this is something I can accomplish and that when I do have a classroom of my own I can have students that learn things beyond what anyone besides me expects.  The idea of a knowledge gap between students was first mentioned in the Lane and Allen article, but the “Early Catastrophe” article goes into much more depth.  This article was really interesting to me because it seems like the idea of children from lower socio-economic status having more trouble in school has been mentioned before.  However, it is truly shocking to see this put into numbers and to see just how great the difference is.  It makes sense that everything children learn in those early years they learn from their parents, but I think it’s a reality check for a teacher to realize that no matter how hard you try, you may not ever be able to make up for what children missed in those first years.  This article also really impresses upon a teacher how much a student’s home environment will impact their learning.  I feel this is a very important point for teachers to remember when they are designing their classroom and their instruction, especially if they have a large number of children from one socio-economic status, since this might drastically change how the teacher operates.  I also find it interesting that this article essentially states that it appears any type of intervention could only really just slow down the widening gap and keep those in the lower socio-economic groups from getting further behind, but yet the Blachowicz and Fisher article makes the claim that high-literacy classrooms can reverse the trend in literacy learning for students from low-literacy homes; I would be interested to find out what accounts for these differences.  I like how the chapter starts by pointing out that copying definitions is not really helpful or effective, because I did a lot of that when I was younger and now I don’t feel so bad that it didn’t help me learn anything.  The analogy Allington uses to describe how learning new words is like getting to know people was really effective for me.  I think keeping this in mind will go a long way to helping me teach students new words once I become a teacher.  When the chapter discusses how effective it is to bring in real things that students can connect with new words they are learning, it reminded me of the Lane and Allen article that talks about the two teachers and all the things they did to give their children direct experience with words.  The scale Allington mentions for helping students assess how well they know a word is similar to the scale presented in the Lane and Allen article describing the different levels of understanding one can have for a word.  The chapter also had a section on promoting word wonder which I also think is important as I really think you can encourage your students to be excited about learning and to enjoy things if you model that enthusiasm yourself as a teacher.