Vocabulary thinking skills for all content areas

Here's a great quote from Janet Allen that explains why vocabulary research and development make a difference for students in all content areas.

The Reading Club thinks vocabulary graphic organizers are excellent tools to help all students improve the thinking skills found at the critical/independent level of Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy. 

Please try and use a vocabulary graphic organizer by April 15 and then complete a brief evaluation of the activity.  The Reading Club will post teachers' experiences so we can all gain knowledge and insight in helping our students better comprehend content in all areas.

Let the Reading Club know if you have any questions: Haupt, Kleine, Schlump, Harris, Carson, Brandt

Professional Development: Vocabulary

"Students need strategies they can use, not words they can memorize." - Jim Burke from his book, Reading Reminders: Tools Tips and Techniques

Please bring 5 vocabulary words, your students will discover before June, to Friday's professional development opportunity.  We will experience and apply various vocabulary strategies to these words.  The goal will be to discuss strategies that lend themselves to the learning goal for the unit or daily lesson using those words.


"Students cannot read what they don't understand."  Jim Burke, Reading Reminders: Tools Tips and Techniques

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"  Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

"Knowing what didn't work was easy.  Finding and reading the research related to word knowledge was also not very difficult.   Knowing how to implement that research in effective interesting ways turned out to be the hard part." Baumann and Kameenui. "Research on Vocabulary Instruction: Ode to Voltaire."

"According to some researchers (Baumann and Kameenui 1991) students in grades three totwelve acquire an average of threee thousand new words each year through osmosis or the context that their studies provides." Jim Burke, The English Teacher's Companion

Janet Allen's book, Words, Words, Words can be used in all content areas.  It's a great resource and best of all it's free.  In fact, my cousin Posterous, would chuckle if he knew I was including the link to the book.  Check it out and give it a read if you are looking for strategies to strengthen vocabulary learning.

Reading Strategy Overload?

Sorry about the dearth of Reading Club posts.   My cousin, Posterious has been putting me to shame lately.  However, shame can be a great motivator.  At any rate, there is a great article in the March 2011 issue of Educational Leadership, entitled, "Let Strategies Serve Literature."  Our library subscribes to the magazine and I've placed a copy on the faculty bulletin board for your perusal.

March 2011 | Volume 68 | Number 6
What Students Need to Learn    Pages 52-56

Let Strategies Serve Literature

Diana Senechal

Reading strategies are helpful guides—but we should keep students' attention on the literature.

Suppose someone tells you that the way to peel a fruit is to break the stem and pull away the skin. You find that this works well with bananas and you adjust it for oranges. Then you discover that it doesn't work with apples; you need a paring instrument, or perhaps you need not peel it at all. The skin is scrumptious, as it turns out. With melons, you hit a new obstacle. You can't peel them or bite into them; they must be cut open. But it's worth it— especially for cantaloupes! When you come to pomegranates, the original method slips your mind in your eagerness to try the fruit—look at those dark gems, those rivulets of red.

Eventually, you develop methods of getting into any fruit that depend on what you know and what you can intuit. The original strategy applied to a few fruits only—which is fine because it wasn't a grand theory, just a means to the fruit itself.

...Over the past few decades, a scenario like the latter has become a common way for many students to partake of literature...Reading strategies, taugth carefully, can help readers make sense of literature. But when the literature is subordinated to strategies...

Truly, it's a compelling read about the need for using reading strategies effectively.  Look it over when you get a chance and post a reaction or two here. 

Txtng imprves spllng?

"And while sure, it's not the same as having students exposed to 'great works of literature' on the weekends, it looks like texting is a good influence nonetheless."

                   -Audrey Waters, Read Write, Web

It's been awhile since I've posted something on the Reading Club blog but here's an interesting article that discusses how texting may have a positive impact on spelling sklz, skilz, skillz ......skills

Agree?  Disagree?  Add a comment to share your opinion.

Be sure to take the poll on the right side of this page.

Reading Humor from the Reading Club

Fear not, this boy simply needs the right reading strategy.

KWL: Horvath Style

Brian Horvath recently used a KWL reading strategy in Applied Christianity. 

"I made two blank columns on the white board. One column was named, ‘don’t know,’ and the other, ‘I know.’  Students were processing information from chapter 1 in The Case for Christ. The students were asked to, at any time during the class period write down a word they did not know on the board. The rest of the class, while noticing one of their classmates wrote down a word, if they  knew the word, would walk up to the front and write a quick definition of that word.

Students were to do this without talking and distracting the class. They had 100% freedom as to go up to the front or not."

 On a scale of 1-10 Brian rated this experience an 8, explaining, "It has potential." 

What would he change or tweak if he repeated this strategy?   I’m not opposed to using it again. I think it’s valuable because students find the courage to come up and write down a word they don’t know. The other students who know the word are able to assist another student based on their prior knowledge. And the student who didn’t know the word, now has a better idea.

Brian found a unique way to blend this reading strategy with technology:

 I would tweak it this way (and did in one class): Students were hesitant to go in front initially and I knew they knew what a word meant. In one class, I used Polleverywhere and the question was, ‘what does exemplary mean?’  I went from having no definition to have 10 definitions. Apparently, there is more stress related to going in front than I thought.

Vocabulary Strategies

Reading strategies strengthen students' abilities to comprehend and understand what they read. Vocabulary strategies do the same and that's why this year we are shifting our focus from reading strategies to vocabulary strategies.

The National Reading Panel offers some great insights into the importance of effectively teaching vocabulary:

"First, vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly. Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important. Learning in rich contexts, incidental learning, and use of computer technology all enhance the acquisition of vocabulary."





In his book Reading Reminders, Jim Burke offers some guidelines for teaching vocabulary:

Teach the words that are most useful now and in the future

• Teach the words they need before reading; review them after they are done; reinforce them when they come up in the subsequent readings


• Provide multiple exposures to these words in different contexts over time
  
• Help students activate their prior knowledge when learning new words
  

Burke also offers a warning with vocabulary instruction:

• Don't spend too much time preparing students to read a text; too many vocabulary words and too much review of prior knowledge will intimidate the readers and undermine their interest in the reading selection.

Here are some strategies Burke recommends: word walls, Semantic maps, Modeling, Words as ideas, Vocabulary square, Linear array, Concept target.We will have a closer look at these Wednesday, October 13. If you would like to borrow my copy of Burke's book, I'd be more than happy to share.

Word wall: Keep a running display of words you have introduced so they can be referred to or reviewed by students. Model using the words yourself. When students see you consulting the word wall for just the right word, they will be more likely to do the same.