VOCABULARY TOOLS
Participants will be exposed to guidelines and tips to follow before, during and after teaching vocabulary. c
Successful sample K-5 classroom activities will be modeled and practiced throughout the workshop. At the end of the session, the presenter will give suggestions and recommendations for implementing and adapting these vocabulary activities to different classroom environments.
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A Six-Step Process for Teaching Vocabulary -- by Robert J. Marzano
Step 1: Explain—Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term.
First, a teacher should provide students with information about the new term. There are a number of different ways that teachers can help students build their initial understanding of the term. Teachers can...
• tell a story using the term.
• use video or computer images as a source of information.
• use current events to connect the term to something familiar.
• describe their own mental pictures of the term.
• find or create pictures that exemplify the term.
Notice that some of these suggestions include providing images. Using both linguistic and nonlinguistic explanations of a new term will help students develop an initial understanding of the term, as well as help prepare them to create their own pictures or graphic representations in Step 3 of the process.
Step 2: Restate—Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.
During the second step, the teacher asks students to restate the meaning of the term in their own words. It is critical that instead of simply copying what the teacher has said, the students “own” the new terms by constructing their own descriptions, explanations, or examples. Their constructions need not be comprehensive, but efforts should be made to ensure they do not contain major errors. It is very useful to have students record their descriptions, explanations, and examples in a vocabulary notebook. For each term, the notebooks should provide a space for students’ descriptions (Step 2), students’ picture or representation of the term (Step 3), and room for additional information students might add as a result of Steps 4, 5, and 6. Step 3: Show—Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representation of the term. In Step 3, students are asked to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representation of a term; this forces them to think of the term in a totally different way. Written or oral descriptions require students to process information in linguistic ways. Pictures, symbols, and graphic representations require students to process information in nonlinguistic ways.
If students are not accustomed to creating pictures and graphics for ideas, they might initially need significant guidance and modeling. Even if they have experience with nonlinguistic representations, it is likely that they will still need help with terms that are difficult, new to them, or abstract.
Step 4: Discuss—Engage students in discussion activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabu lary notebooks.
During the fourth step, students are engaged in activities designed to help them discuss and review the terms in their vocabulary note books. These activities include having students compare and contrast terms, classify terms, identify antonyms and synonyms, and create analogies and metaphors using the terms. During this time, students should be provided with opportunities to add to or revise the entries in their vocabulary notebooks.
Step 5: Refine and reflect—Ask students to return to their note books to discuss and refine entries.
Both research and common sense suggest that interacting with other people about what we are learning deepens the understanding of everyone involved—particularly when we are learning new terms.
During Step 5, students examine the entries in their vocabulary notebooks to make changes, deletions, and additions. The teacher might ask students to do this in pairs or small groups. Students might:
• compare their descriptions of the term.
• describe their pictures to each other.
• explain to each other any new information they have learned or
new thoughts they have had since the last time they reviewed
the terms.
• identify areas of disagreement or confusion and seek clarification.
Step 6: Apply in Learning Games—Involve students in games that allow them to play with terms.
Games might be one of the most underused instructional tools in education. Many types of games can help teachers keep new terms in the forefront of students’ thinking and allow students to reexamine their understanding of terms. It is important to set aside blocks of time each week to play games in order to energize students and guide them in the review and use of important terms.
Direct instruction in vocabulary is a critical aspect of literacy development. Synthesizing research and theory on direct vocabulary instruction into an innovative six-step instructional process enables classroom teachers to teach and reinforce selected vocabulary terms with success.
References
Marzano, R.J. (2004). Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Vocabulary Graphic Organizers - West Virginia Department of Education
Graphic organizers help students to visualize the relationships between words and their possible meanings. Teachers can use these graphic organizers with their explicit vocabulary instruction. These tools may also be used as classroom assessment for learning because they give teachers a quick look at students' vocabulary knowledge.
Click here to view and access a variety of samples provided by the West Virginia Department of Education