DIRECTIONS
1) Locate vocabulary words that are critical to comprehension and understanding of abstract concepts in text.
2) Record these words in the chart below, including the paragraph where they are located.
3) Examine each word’s structure and context to identify the appropriate instructional approach.
VOCABULARY PLANNING CHARTParagraph # / Target Words / Instructional Approach / Teacher Modeling
What will I explicitly point out to students? / Student Tasks
What will I ask students to do?
3 / EXAMPLE: transport / Word Part Meanings / (trans = across)+(port = to carry) = to carry across / · Highlight root word; circle prefix
· Record word part meanings in journal
5 / EXAMPLE: diminish / Context
Clues / clues in text include:
decrease, shrink, dropped off over time / · Circle target word
· Highlight context clues
Vocabulary Instruction
Plan and record the following:
· Teacher modeling: How to derive word meaning(s) from word parts, context, or both.
NOTE: Locate meanings of word parts at www.dictionary.com. Type target word in search window. Look for the “Word Origins” section under the target word to find meanings of prefix, root, and/or suffix in the word.
· Student tasks
PLANNING A COMPREHENSION LESSON: Vocabulary Task
Vocabulary InstructionComprehension is both a journey and a destination. Text is its driving force because the roads of comprehension are paved with the language of text. Quality instruction carefully weaves both vocabulary and comprehension together. In order to effectively plan vocabulary instruction, it is necessary to align the instructional approach with the language features of the specific text selected for the lesson.
Selection of Target Vocabulary Words
Words used in vocabulary instruction need to target student comprehension of the text and, therefore, need to be carefully selected. The number of target words identified for instruction will vary across texts and will depend upon the learning needs of the students. It is highly likely that a group of students will need larger amounts of instructional support for some texts and less for others. Therefore, the first planning question to ask is: Which words in this specific text do students not know but need to know in order to understand:
· big ideas of the text?
· relationships that are crucial to the text (i.e., comparison/similarities, contrast/differences, cause/effect, etc.)?
Words from text that relate to or answer these questions can emerge as target words for vocabulary instruction. They are key to students’ overall comprehension of the text they are about to read. Additional target words can be identified by thinking about other questions such as:
· Does the text contain concept words that are crucial to broad conceptual understandings?
· Does the text contain a supportive word that needs to be clarified in order for students to fully
understand the target word?
Examination of the Selected Words
Once a set of target words has been identified, the teacher will need to align the vocabulary instructional approach with the text in order for it to be effective. The instructional approach can be identified by carefully examining each target word’s structure and context.
Ø Word structure: Does the word contain a prefix, root, or suffix? Prefixes, roots, and suffixes are word parts referred to as morphemes, the smallest unit of meaning. Using science terminology as an example, the word transpiration contains the prefix trans which means “across,” the root spire means “to breathe,” and the suffix tion means “an act, condition, or process.” Instruction that focuses on the meanings of word parts or morphemes is called morphemic analysis. It shows students how to unlock unfamiliar word’s meanings by combining the individual meanings of a prefix, root, and suffix. Using the same word to illustrate, students can analyze the meanings of the various word parts that the teacher has taught them in order to hypothesize that the word transpiration means “the process of breathing across.” Research has identified morphemic analysis as effective in empowering student vocabulary development.
Ø Context: Is the word surrounded by clues to its meaning?
Everyone comes across words they do not know as they read, particularly, while reading complex text. To find out unfamiliar words meanings while reading, a common strategy of efficient readers
is the use of clues the author uses, called context clues. Context clues are words, phrases, sentences, and punctuation surrounding an unfamiliar word that can explicitly define the word or hint at its meaning. These clues can be small words or phrases: or, in other words, known as, also called. Readers can find enough information in text to figure out the meaning of an unknown word. Using an excerpt from a complex text as an example, examine a paragraph from Joy Hakim’s The Story of Science: Newton at the Center. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Books: 2005, cited in the Appendix B, pg. 137 of the Common Core Standards. Think about the clues to the meaning of the word probability.
The clues within the passage alert readers to understand that probability refers to gambling, mathematical odds, a level of uncertainty, and the likelihood of outcomes. Unfortunately, students can have difficulty locating or using such clues effectively. Therefore, it is important that teachers prepare to model and provide explicit examples in the effective identification and use of clues in a wide variety of different contexts.
Texts used in elementary classrooms contain a variety of general academic vocabulary words that would require the teacher to explicitly model context analysis in his or her instruction. The first text example in the box below is extracted from a September 2009 National Geographic Explorer article, Seeing Eye to Eye. Three of the sentences contain three vocabulary words, one per sentence, that lend themselves as opportunities for contextual analysis instruction. The target words for vocabulary instruction are in italics: reflects, refracts, and absorbed. In bold font, the signals that provide clues to the meanings of each of these words are the same: a comma immediately behind the target word, followed by the word or. This pair is one of the most common set of signal clues, and the definition is not far behind. The definition for each target word is underlined.
Following this same contextual pattern across the grades, an effective means of contextual analysis instruction is an oral approach that focuses on oral language development. This approach is particularly helpful at any grade level when using complex texts. To stimulate oral language development, students benefit from listening to text that contains:
· complex sentence structures
· general academic vocabulary such as the words listed in the text box above: reflects, absorbed
Texts that are too difficult for students to decode independently can provide an appropriate listening challenge that expands their oral language development and content area concepts. Typically, students’ listening comprehension is much higher than what they are able to read independently. Listening comprehension precedes their decoding ability levels; therefore, teacher read alouds of complex text are of paramount importance. During a read-aloud, teachers can capitalize upon students’ listening comprehension by orally inserting words or phrases that define the meanings of words in the text that are unfamiliar to them. Such an oral approach to contextual analysis can increase the rate of student vocabulary development.
Two examples of this oral approach come from the story, Boom Town, by Sonia Levitin. In the text box below, the first target word mending is in italics but the text does not contain any written context clues. Therefore, as the teacher reads the story aloud, an oral context clue and definition are inserted by the teacher with an emphasis in voice inflection so that listeners can clearly hear this embedded definition of an unknown word. The parenthesis in the text box identifies what was inserted during the read aloud. The inserted signal – or – is in bold font, and the definition is underlined.
From the same story, the second example shows another way to orally insert a definition with signal clues to help young listeners comprehend challenging texts and learn a new meaning at the same time. The inserted information is identified by the parenthesis in the second bullet of the box above. The information is inserted right before the target vocabulary word – prospector. Although the word “A prospector” were the first words in the sentence, the teacher reads the story as if the first words of the sentence are “Someone digging for gold . . .” This time, the signal words and target word prospector are emphasized during the read aloud.
I Located Some Target Words . . . Now What?
Examination of a word’s structure as well as its context will inform teachers which of these two approaches – or both – will be effective for vocabulary instruction. This analysis will result in one of the following possibilities:
· The target word requires a morphemic analysis approach because the word contains meaningful word parts (morphemes) but the text does not contain any clues to the word’s meaning.
· The target word requires a contextual analysis approach because the text contains clues to the word’s meaning but the word itself does not contain any meaningful word parts.
· The target requires both morphemic analysis and contextual analysis approaches because the word contains meaningful word parts and the text contains clues to its meaning.
· The target word does not contain word parts and is not surrounded by any clues in context. It is important that the teacher provide a brief explanation of the word’s meaning in student-friendly terms.
No matter what the resulting scenario, teachers can plan to use several tools to support their vocabulary instruction. A few of these tools include:
· text-marking,
· interactive word walls,
· vocabulary journals,
· pictures, and
· pantomime.
Text-marking utilizes a highlighter, pen, or pencil to point out relevant:
· clues in text for instruction in context analysis.
· word parts for morphemic analysis.
The teacher refers to the word or word part in text and thinks aloud to explain the context clue or word part meaning as he or she marks the text. For instance, using the example in the next text box below, the teacher could use a highlighter and a pen to mark text and model contextual analysis by:
· drawing a box around the target word censorship
· highlighting the clues (, or) to the meaning of the word censorship with an orange highlighter
· underlining the word meaning: restricting access to ideas and information.
Vocabulary Planning Scenario (See illustration located on page 5 of handout)
Mrs. Jones teaches fourth grade. She is planning a set of lessons using two complex texts:
· a book, Discovering Mars, written by Melvin Berger.
· a magazine article entitled Amazing Planets.
She knows that these particular complex texts will present challenging opportunities for her students to grasp content-area words and concepts. While examining the language of the texts, she locates several discipline-specific words such as astronomer, hydrogen, and ecliptic that are critical to the comprehension of each text. During instruction, she plans to introduce these words as they are encountered in text.
Next, Mrs. Jones preselects several general academic words from the story that are important to overall text comprehension and also unfamiliar to students: mammoth, radiate, integrate. These words are relevant for students’ future writing and reading about various topics across the curriculum.
Once these vocabulary words are identified, Mrs. Jones looks at both the structure and context of each word to determine the best instructional approach for teaching them. First of all, Mrs. Jones notices that many of these words have word parts -- prefixes, roots, and suffixes. For instance, Mrs. Jones can point out that the morpheme astro- means “star” in both of the words astronomer and astronomical. The structure of these words indicates that her instruction needs to include morphemic analysis. Prior to reading the story, Mrs. Jones plans to model for students how to analyze each word. [EXAMPLE: “In the word hydrogen, the prefix hydro means ‘water or fluid.’ ”]
Students will record the target vocabulary words in their vocabulary journals, highlight each word part, and record their meanings. Mrs. Jones prepares to post each word part, its meaning, and the target words on the vocabulary word wall. During reading, both she and the students will refer to their vocabulary journals and word wall. These tools serve as a reminder to use the words during text-based discussions and while writing. After text-reading, she plans to have students record various additional words that share the same word parts on graphic organizers. She will add the graphic organizers to their word wall for future reference in those times when students encounter these words in text or choose to use them in discussion or writing.
Next, Mrs. Jones looks for potential context clues surrounding each of the target words. She specifically searches for punctuation, conjunctions, or phrases that a good reader uses as clues to infer meaning of the word. She located several clues in nearby text and plans to model contextual analysis. For example, the comma following the word ecliptic signals a definition: “a shallow plane which is parallel to the Sun’s equator.” (See text box below)
Where possible, Mrs. Jones looks for opportunities to use a picture or an artifact. She has a picture that illustrates the target word ecliptic so she will place it next to the target word on the word wall after introducing it.
Vocabulary Instruction Across the Year
From lesson to lesson, whenever text permits, Mrs. Jones uses both morphemic and contextual analysis to support her students’ word learning skills. She explicitly models how to identify the meanings of words as they encounter them in text and displays the word on the word wall. Systematically throughout the week, Mrs. Jones asks the students strategic questions about these words to engage them in various thinking tasks, challenging student application. She communicates her expectation that students apply the target words at every opportunity during discussion and writing. As a result, Mrs. Jones has witnessed consistent increases in her students’ reading comprehension.