Understanding Vocabulary

By Francie Alexander

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Teaching
Vocabulary
in the K-2
Classroom
by Karen Kindle

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 Teaching
Vocabulary
Words With
Multiple
Meanings
(Grades 4—
6)
by Rebecca Lamb

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These quick and easy

activities help intermediate-
grade students build
vocabulary and
comprehension by learning
to use the right word in the
right place at the right time.
Research-based lessons
include daily, formatted
"word-of-the-week"
activities designed to
systema $12.74 You save:
25%
Professional Book | Grades
4-6

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We asked Francie to answer questions we thought you would have about vocabulary:

Why is vocabulary s-o-o important?

Vocabulary is critical to reading success for three reasons:

 1. Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean. Since comprehension is
the ultimate goal of reading, you cannot overestimate the importance of vocabulary
development.
2. Words are the currency of communication. A robust vocabulary improves all areas of
communication — listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3. How many times have you asked your students or your own children to “use your
words"? When children and adolescents improve their vocabulary, their academic and
social confidence and competence improve, too.

What words do I teach?

Knowing what words to teach is the first step in providing effective vocabulary practice. I have a
favorite mnemonic device that helps me remember the types of words I want to teach explicitly:

 Type A Words: These words are like Type A personalities. They work hard in order to
convey the meaning of the text being read. There are two sources for these words:
Academic Language and the Content Areas. Academic Language describes the language
of schooling — words used across disciplines like genre and glossary. Content Area
words are specific to the discipline — words like organization in social studies and
organism in science. If you want your students to “get it,” these are the must-know
words.
 Type B Words: These words are the Basics. There are hundreds of high-frequency
words. The basics make up a large percentage of student reading and writing. Students
must be able to read words like the, is, and, are, been and because — well, because.
 Type C Words: The Connectors act as signal words. There may be some overlap with
the basic words. Students need to understand the signals for cause and effect
relationships, sequence and other important indicators of how text is organized.
 Type D Words: D is for Difficult — words with multiple meanings are challenging for
all students and may be especially so for English-Language Learners. You may have
students who simply freeze when a question is asked such as “What are the factors that
contributed to the Civil War?” However, they could have answered the question correctly
if asked, “What were the causes of the Civil War?” Students may think they know the
word factor — from Fear Factor on television or from factors in mathematics and yet
they may be challenged when the word is used in another context.

When considering words with multiple meanings also pay attention to the consonant-
vowel-consonant words children encounter when first learning to read — words like jam
and ham. These words have accessible meanings if you think of the sweet, sticky stuff on
toast (jam) or something you may eat with eggs in the morning (ham). It is a lot more
difficult if you “elaborate” as Dr. Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University describes:
So learning to decode should not be meaning-free, but should provide a great opportunity for
teaching the meanings of words including multiple ones. This kind of experience with words
improves comprehension.

 Type X Words: X is for the eXtras. These are the words that will not be encountered
frequently but in a certain story or context are important to meaning. A good example of
this type of word is spindle in “Sleeping Beauty.” It is important to the fairy tale, but it is
not a very high-utility word. I just tell kids what words like this mean without any special
teaching.

How do I teach?

Words! Words! Words! A student’s vocabulary — the words he or she can understand when
reading and listening and use when writing and speaking are critical to success in school. This is
the reason vocabulary is an essential element of effective reading programs as described in up-to-
date research documents. The importance of vocabulary is made clear by Dr. Catherine Snow
when she presents the following on what teachers need to teach:

 26 letters of the alphabet

 44 phonemes
 75,000 words

It is clear that teachers must teach the sounds and letters systematically and explicitly — the
challenge is how to teach 75,000 words.

Most basal reading programs teach about 20 words a week for about 24 weeks. If students learn
480 words for 12 years of schooling, it will not add up to the 75,000 to 120,000 (according to
various estimates) words students need to succeed. To help students develop a robust vocabulary,
all teachers, at every grade and in every subject, are vocabulary teachers. The following methods
are supported by the research provided in the next section.

 Direct Instruction: Explicit teaching of carefully selected words improves

understanding and helps students’ vocabulary grow. Often, it is best to pre-teach key
words.
 Wide reading: Reading of texts helps expose students to many words including rare
words — not high in frequency but high in important meaning. “Time on text” will have
the highest payoff in terms of helping students learn many, many words.
 Words In Context: Students will learn most new words in the context of reading and
writing. The two best ways I can think of to enrich the context for word learning is to
read and discuss books.
 Books: My favorite book of the moment for teaching vocabulary is Alvie Eats Soup by
Ross Collins. Even though is it is a picture book, it could be used from kindergarten
through the early middle grades with concrete words like soup to abstract ones like irony.
One of my favorite parts is the many words used to express concern about Alvie’s soup
diet. Students need to be systematically exposed to book knowledge by being read to and
by reading text on their own. The text must be carefully selected in order to connect
students’ content from all of the arts and sciences.

 Talk: Try to infuse formal and informal conversation to model effective use of language
and to focus on the introduction of new vocabulary. I used to write particular phrases or
words to introduce each week in my lesson plan book. On one occasion when no one
seemed to be doing well independently I said, “I am at the brink of my endurance!” I had
everyone’s attention as they wanted to figure out what I meant. After our talk, I heard the
phrase used on the playground and the individual words used in a variety of ways.
 Word Study: When students learn about the parts of words, prefixes and suffixes, and
about root words, they are able to figure out many new words. Also, looking at the origin
of words — words from other languages — increases word and world knowledge.
 Word Consciousness: Being on the lookout for words, finding out what they mean,
engaging in wordplay, looking for multiple meanings and looking up words in the
dictionary all support the acquisition a powerful vocabulary.

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Teaching Vocabulary: Lesson Plans and Activities from Scholastic Professional Books
Ready-to-go lessons and activities for you to use in your classroom, each from an outstanding
professional book for teaching vocabulary.

Frequently Asked Questions about Teaching Vocabulary

Get answers to the most frequently asked questions about teaching vocabulary from Francie
Alexander, Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Scholastic Education, former teacher
and district reading consultant, and author.

Books for Teaching Vocabulary Building Strategies

This teacher created book list includes tips for classroom use.