Feature Article

How Remedial Teachers

Teach Vocabulary
Mary C. Shake, Richard L. AUington, Rob Gaskins, and Mary Beth Marr

Twenty experienced teachers, all with reading education

background, designed and implemented what they con-
sidered to be exemplary vocabulary lessons. Transcripts
of these audiotaped lessons were analyzed for the number
of statements relating to word recognition or conceptual
development. Conceptual development statements were
analyzed further to determine a definition, semantic
feature, or contextual usage focus. Additionally, teachers
wrote rationales for the vocabulary words and instruc-
tional strategies selected. Results indicate that the
majority of teachers provided dual-focused lessons,
although conceptual development statements pre-
dominated in over half of the lessons. Lessons aimed at
conceptual development, however, were shallow, and pro-
vided few opportunities for students to acquire a deep
understanding of words.

R ESULTS OF PREVIOUS research indicate that acqui-

sition of word meanings is a critical activity for the
developing reader and a major factor in achieving well-
developed comprehension skills. However, researchers
also indicate that elementary teachers infrequently de-
sign or select vocabulary instructional activities that
develop conceptual understanding during reading lessons
(e.g., Beck & McKeown, 1985, Blachowicz, 1987).
The goal of the present study was to describe the
nature of vocabulary instruction taking place in remedial
settings. More specifically, the study was guided by the
following four questions: (1) Do teachers focus on word
recognition, conceptual development (word meaning),
or both?; (2) Does instruction in conceptual develop-
ment emphasize definitions, contextual usage, or seman-
tic features?; (3) What rationales do teachers offer for
the words addressed or strategies employed in vocabu-
lary instruction?; and (4) Are such rationales congruent
with the above-mentioned focus of instruction?
It has been noted that degree of vocabulary knowl-
edge is related to degree of text comprehension (Ander-
son & Freebody, 1981). McCormick (1987) suggested
three types of vocabulary knowledge related to the com-
prehension of text: (1) the number of words to which
the reader can attach meaning, (2) the number of words
to which the reader can attach multiple meanings,
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(3) the number of multiple-meaning words for which the
reader can select the appropriate meaning to match the
context of the text.
Furthermore, Pearson (1985) noted that vocabulary
knowledge positively influences comprehension when
students " o w n " words. This ownership involves both
receptive vocabulary knowledge and the ability to use
words expressively in new situations or contexts. Sim-
ilarly, Stahl (1986) argued that deep-level processing is
needed if vocabulary knowledge is to enhance textual
understanding. Stahl's deepest level of processing, gen-
eration processing, is similar to Pearson's notion of word
ownership.
Others (e.g., Beck & McKeown, 1985; Speidel, 1985)
have suggested that vocabulary knowledge is not an all-
or-nothing issue. Rather, vocabulary knowledge is multi-
faceted, and probably ranges from zero knowledge or
familiarity to fluent and rich conceptual understanding.
Speidel (1985) noted:
There is much we still need to learn about the structure
and nature of different word meanings and about the pro-
cesses by which these different word meanings are learned
before we can map more succinctly the type of instruction
and
to the
at University of Manitoba type
Libraries of 20,
on June word
2015 meaning, (p. 35)

Remedial and Special Education 51

 There are two logical extensions of this viewpoint.
One is that not all vocabulary instructional procedures
are equally effective with all types of words (e.g., Beck
& McKeown, 1985; Blachowicz, 1985; Carr & Wixson,
1986; Ryder, 1986; Sorenson, 1985; Stahl, 1986). The
other extension is that there may be different goals for
vocabulary instruction, and that all words targeted for
instruction neither can be nor need be dealt with to the
point of deep-level processing.
The previous discussion has focused on teaching
vocabulary prior to having students read the selection.
Wixson (1986) noted that this is a common practice. In
contrast, Ruddell (1986) suggested that comprehension
and vocabulary development are interactive processes.
He stated: "Since many new words are encountered in
written text, comprehension of the text must occur
before vocabulary learning can take place" (p. 587). In
a related vein, Nagy and Herman (1985) and Herman,
Anderson, Pearson, and Nagy (1987) have argued that
much word learning must, of necessity, be incidental
in nature. Such incidental vocabulary learning grows out
of frequent opportunities to read various types of texts
on diverse topics.
Arguments could be made to support either side of
the controversy about whether meaning vocabulary or
text comprehension exerts the greater influence on the
other. It seems safest to conclude, however, that the two
components are related, and that if textual comprehen-
sion is the ultimate goal of reading instruction, then
some reading instructional time must be devoted to
vocabulary development.
Research designed to determine the effects of vocab-
ulary instruction on comprehension has produced
mixed results (Carr & Wixson, 1986; Ruddell, 1986).
How might instruction be delivered so that students
possess a more complete form of word knowledge?
One of the first steps teachers must address when
planning for effective vocabulary instruction is choos-
ing the words to be taught. Choosing these target words
for instruction is often a difficult task, particularly when
the selection students are reading contains many words
the teacher is certain are unfamiliar to most students.
Beck and McKeown's (1985) guidelines for target word
selection have been discussed previously. Stahl (1986),
Blachowicz (1985), and Beck and McKeown (1985) have
addressed the issue of target vocabulary selection in very
practical terms.
Stahl (1986) suggested three issues teachers might con-
sider when choosing the words to be taught: (1) Decide
how important the words will be to the students. If a
word is one that is neither important to the understand-
ing of the text nor one that students are likely to meet
again in other readings, it need not be taught. (2) Decide
whether the context in which a word occurs is rich
enough to allow students to gain meaning. If new words
occur in a rich context, and it is unlikely they will be
needed in other reading situations, they need not be-
come the target of instruction. (3) Decide whether it
would be more advantageous for Downloaded
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52
large number of new concepts or words, or focus more
thoroughly on a fewer number.
Stressing that teachers should focus vocabulary in-
structional efforts on "usable" words, Blachowicz (1985)
suggested that teachers ask themselves the following
questions: (1) Will it be important for students to know
the meaning of this word 5 years from now? (2) Will
knowing this word help the students figure out other
words related to it? and (3) Is the word's meaning cen-
tral to the understanding of the selection? Blachowicz
suggested that if only the third question can be answered
in the affirmative, instruction need not equip students
with a deep understanding of the word.
Furthermore, Beck and McKeown (1985) noted that
a mature, literate person's vocabulary contains three
tiers: (a) basic words, (b) words that are of high frequen-
cy and general utility for mature language users, and (c)
words that apply to a specific domain, or whose fre-
quency of use is very low. They suggested that words
contained in this second tier are those that most often
should be selected for rich vocabulary instruction.
Once target vocabulary words have been selected,
teachers' next decisions should focus on choosing the
instructional procedures that will best facilitate student
understanding of these words. It is in this realm that we
find a great disparity of viewpoints. While one might
argue the benefits of using, for example, semantic map-
ping (e.g., Johnson, Pittleman, & Heimlich, 1986), defini-
tions (e.g., Weiss, Mangrum, & Llabre, 1986), or defini-
tions plus context (e.g., Stahl, 1986; Weiss et al., 1986),
it has been noted that the type of instructional procedure
chosen should reflect attention to the goals of instruc-
tion, the types of words to be taught and learned, and
the characteristics of the learners (Beck & McKeown,
1985).
In an attempt to translate the results of vocabulary
research into classroom practice, several researchers
have suggested principles or guidelines for effective
vocabulary instruction. Below is a compilation of these
principles. Readers should refer to the cited references
for a more complete explanation.
1. Build a conceptual basis for words to be learned
(Blachowicz, 1985; Carr & Wixson, 1986).
2. Stress involvement of the students (Blachowicz,
1985; Carr & Wixson, 1986).
3. Create opportunities for students to make vocabu-
lary their own; that is, encourage the use of vocabu-
lary in students' own writing and speech (Blacho-
wicz, 1985; Graves & Duin, 1985).
4. Develop in students vocabulary skills that may be
employed independently and that are transferable
to all reading tasks (Blachowicz, 1985; Carr & Wix-
son, 1986; Nagy & Herman, 1985; Schwartz &
Raphael, 1985).
5. Help students develop elaborated word knowledge
(Carr & Wixson, 1986; Sorenson, 1986; Stahl, 1986).
6. Provide multiple exposures to words in various con-
texts (Sorenson, 1985; Stahl, 1986).
Volume 10 Issue 5 September /October 1989
 7. Focus extensive vocabulary instruction on words
that will be of long-term use to students (Blacho-
wicz, 1985).
8. Make vocabulary instruction a long-term goal of
school curricula (Blachowicz, 1985).
9. Familiarize students with resources to help with
word learning (e.g., books about words) (Blacho-
wicz, 1985).
10. Increase the amount of time students spend reading
(Nagy & Herman, 1985).
11. Give students an understanding of what it means
to really know a word (Graves & Duin, 1985).
12. Continuously monitor students' understanding of
word meanings through the reading of the text and
beyond (Sorenson, 1985).
13. Provide students with more concrete experiences
(e.g., show them a picture) before asking them to
abstract the meaning of a word from text (Ryder,
1986).
14. Encourage students to make sense out of the vocab-
ulary (Thalen, 1986).
The previous discussion represents a sample of the
theoretical and practical perspectives on the importance
of vocabulary instruction and the most effective ways
to teach students the meanings of new words. However,
results of observational research provide evidence sug-
gesting that teachers infrequently employ such instruc-
tional strategies when introducing new words in reading
lessons. For example, Durkin (1978-79) noted that class-
room lessons in reading or social studies rarely included
activities that developed word meanings. Instead, the
focus was on accurate pronunciation or simple word
recognition. In a later study, Durkin (1984) found that
only about 2 0 % of the elementary teachers used the
sentence context activities suggested in the teacher
manuals accompanying basal reader series when intro-
ducing new vocabulary. The remaining teachers most
often simply listed the new words on the board and
guided learners' pronunciations, though some simply
omitted any introduction of new words.
A recent observational study (Blachowicz, 1987) ex-
amined the nature of vocabulary instruction in six
average fourth-grade reading groups. It was found that,
on the average, 1 5 % of the reading group time was
devoted to vocabulary instruction. Of this vocabulary
instructional time, 4 5 % was spent dealing with target
words in context, 17% with definitions, 11 % with pro-
nunciations, and 11 % with personal context. On the sur-
face, these results appear encouraging, and in contradic-
tion to Durkin's findings. A closer examination, how-
ever, reveals that the contextual activities usually in-
volved words in a single sentence, and these sentences
were frequently unrelated to the selection to be read.
Blachowicz detected a heavy influence of basal reader
manual suggestions in these single-sentence contextual
activities. Reliance on a single-sentence context is prob-
lematic, since it does not foster knowledge of multiple
meanings of words, nor does it allow students
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Remedial and Special Education
portunity to practice selecting the most appropriate
meaning of a word to pick for a particular context. Such
reliance also negates the instructional guideline that
students need multiple exposures to words in multiple
contexts.
Given the recognized importance of vocabulary ac-
quisition generally, and the role that acquiring new word
meanings plays in understanding much curricular ma-
terial, the reports describing classroom vocabulary devel-
opment are distressing. While the longstanding debates
continue in the literature about the most effective ways
to develop conceptual understandings for new terms,
there seems little evidence available that these issues
have yet reached the classroom. In this study, we at-
tempted to optimize various instructional conditions in
order to assess what a sample of experienced teachers
would offer as an ideal vocabulary lesson. We hoped
that by observing vocabulary instruction under these
conditions, we might learn more about classroom vocab-
ulary instruction.
Method
Subjects
The 20 experienced teachers we studied were grad-
uate students at two universities in two regions of the
country. These teachers were enrolled in a clinical read-
ing course that required a tutorial component, and all
volunteered to participate. None of the participants,
however, held remedial reading teaching positions in the
public schools. The lesson planning formats were iden-
tical for the tutorials in both settings and required an
indication of what types of prereading, reading, and
postreading activities were planned and why. The vo-
cabulary lesson assignment was one of several that were
taped or directly observed for later analysis and discus-
sion with the teachers.
Procedure
The ideal teaching lesson paradigm was borrowed
from Garner (1984), who argued that this approach pro-
vides a useful shortcut for studying instructional activi-
ties that may occur only infrequently in classrooms.
Garner's paradigm allows the teacher to optimize in-
structional conditions and plan what he or she would
consider an exemplary lesson if no restrictions were
placed on time, materials, and so forth. We hoped to
optimize instructional conditions in four ways: (1) Our
sample teachers included those with several years of
teaching experience, and with both undergraduate and
graduate preparation in the teaching of reading (at least
12 semester hours total). This, we felt, should provide
a sort of expert sample for observation. (2) We assigned
the vocabulary lesson in advance and informed the
teachers that we would be recording the instruction.
Thus, the teachers had ample time to prepare what they
felt was an adequate and appropriate lesson for develop-
the op-
ing vocabulary knowledge. (3) Though we restricted the
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53
curricular material on which these lessons should be
based to trade books, this still allowed the teachers to
select from a diverse range of materials. (4) Although the
instruction was offered in a tutorial setting rather than
a classroom, the students and teachers knew each other.
Teachers planned, implemented, and audiotaped what
they considered exemplary vocabulary lessons. They
were told that the lesson should be related to the book/
story being read. They were asked to write their reasons
for selecting particular words and strategies for
instruction.
Audiotapes were transcribed and transcripts analyzed
for the number of statements relating to word recogni-
tion or conceptual development. Those statements in
the latter category were further divided into definitions,
contextual usage, or semantic feature focus. A statement
was defined as an utterance of any length, by a single
person, with a particular focus.
The following classification system emerged upon ex-
amination of written rationales: (1) Unfamiliar (word rec-
ognition)—the student would be unable to pronounce/
decode the words; (2) Unfamiliar (meaning)—meanings
of words were essential to text understanding, yet
unknown to the student; (3) Strategy—the words pro-
vided appropriate practice of word recognition and/or
meaning vocabulary strategies being introduced or
reviewed. Dual- or tri-focused strategies were coded
under multiple categories. All written rationales were
reviewed by two of the researchers. Interrater agreement
was 91 %. Differences in coding were resolved through
discussion.
Results and Discussion
Vocabulary lessons varied in length, ranging from 6 6
to 359 statements. All lessons contained some off-task
conversation. The percentages of vocabulary-related
statements within these lessons ranged from 4 2 . 6 % to
9 7 . 3 % ( M = 7 1 . 7 % ) . The number of words dealt with
in these vocabulary lessons ranged from 4 to 21 (M= 10).
The summary data, by lesson, derived from transcript
analyses are found in Table 1. Table 1 will serve as our
primary reference point in answering the first two re-
search questions.
Focus of Vocabulary Lessons
Our initial analysis involved determining whether the
vocabulary-related statements within these lessons re-
flected primarily pronunciation/decoding, conceptual
development, or both aspects of vocabulary instruction.
An examination of Table 1 reveals that all but two les-
sons (Teachers 5 and 6) contained both pronunciation/
decoding and conceptual development statements. Five
teachers (Teachers 1, 7, 10, 11, and 12) were found to
conduct lessons in which greater than 6 0 % of the vo-
cabulary-related statements focused on word pronun-
ciation or decoding. Eleven other teachers conducted
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54
lessons in which greater than 6 0 % of these statements
emphasized conceptual development. In summary, then,
we found that in vocabulary lessons that participating
teachers designed as exemplary, vocabulary-related state-
ments focused, generally, on both pronunciation (37.6%)
and conceptual development (62.17%). Conceptual
development statements were in the majority in over
half of the lessons.
Categories of Conceptual
Development Statements
In light of the research on effective methods of vo-
cabulary instruction, we further analyzed conceptual
development statements to determine whether they em-
phasized definitions, contextual usage, or semantic fea-
tures. Again, an examination of Table 1 reveals that 10
lessons had the greatest percentage of conceptual de-
velopment statements emphasizing definitions; six
lessons emphasized contextual usage, and four empha-
sized semantic features.
Analysis for this purpose revealed a mismatch between
teacher and student statements. For example, one
teacher stated: "Use harpoon in a sentence." The stu-
dent response was: "Well, it's long, and sharp, and used
to kill whales." While the teacher statement was coded
under the contextual usage category, the student state-
ment fell under the category of semantic features.
Table 2 contains the average percentages of teacher
and student vocabulary-related statements categorized
as pronunciation, definition, contextual usage, and
semantic features. An important observation that can be
made from this table is that the lessons were teacher
dominated. That is, approximately 6 0 % of the task-
related statements in these lessons were uttered by
teachers. In two lessons (Teachers 6 and 13) roughly
three-fourths of these statements were accounted for by
"teacher talk." It must be remembered that these lessons
were conducted in individualized settings that lent
themselves quite well to the direct instruction format.
The modeling and explanation aspects of direct instruc-
tion lessons generally lead to a large amount of teacher,
as opposed to student, talk. On the other hand, if the
goal of vocabulary instruction is to provide students with
"ownership" of the words or to encourage deep-level
processing, one would expect to find ample opportun-
ities for students to talk about and use the words dur-
ing the lessons. In four of these exemplary lessons, the
percentages of teacher and student talk were nearly
equivalent, but a majority of student talk was not evi-
dent in any lesson.
A second observation that may be made from Table
2 is the mismatch in the average percentages of teacher
statements and student statements coded in each of the
four categories. In this respect, the most glaring mis-
match occurs with teacher and student statements em-
phasizing definitions, since on the average twice as many
teacher statements as student statements were coded in
this category.
Volume 10 Issue 5 September/October 1989
 Table 1 . Distribution of Teacher and Student Vocabulary Statements by Team

Note, a = Student's chronological age; b = Student's instructional reading level; c = pronunciation; d = definition; e = contextual usage;
f = semantic features; g = total statements; h = vocabulary-related statements. * Records are incomplete. These values are estimated
from an analysis of goals, materials, instructional transcripts, and other clinical records.

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55
 Table 2. Classification Averages for Teacher
Statements and Student Statements
Rationales for Vocabulary Selection
The rationales these teachers offered all centered on
vocabulary selection and represented three categories:
word recognition (pronunciation and decoding); words
whose meaning would be unfamiliar to the students, yet
central to the overall understanding of the text; and
words that lent themselves to the practice and/or appli-
cation of a particular vocabulary strategy. The rationales
varied in their specificity, the majority representing
multiple categories. The following are two of the more
explicit rationales offered.
There are a number of reasons for the strategies and words
used in pre-reading. Sue has problems identifying words
out of context. The use of the compare-contrast and Glass
Analysis will help her identify words out of context without
relying on a lot of rules and individual letter sounds which
seem to bog her down. The transfer of these strategies to
identifying individual vocabulary words in her independent
reading is slow and will take much more practice. The pro-
cess of transfer is just beginning. Much review is needed
beyond the introduction that has taken place in the reading
clinic.
The purpose behind selection of the vocabulary words is
threefold. One is for identification through clinician model-
ing and student proper responses. The use of either compare-
contrast or Glass Analysis is part of the word identification
process. The second is for understanding. This again is
through modeling of usage in a sentence by the clinician.
The student uses the word in a sentence of her own for
understanding of the word meaning. If the student still has
problems with word meaning, going over the meaning of
the word out of context may be necessary. It will then be
used in sentences. The third purpose, and most important,
in my estimation, is to have the student, through the vo-
cabulary list, put together a picture of what she will be
reading. The vocabulary is chosen to help the student have
an idea of what the total story or part of the story is about.
This is very important because of the independent level of
reading I am asking the student to do during the tutoring
session. After all, the basic purpose of reading is to gain
understanding. (Code: pronunciation, meaning, strategy)
These words were chosen for vocabulary development
because:
a. Most of these words are not likely to be part of the stu-
dent's sight word vocabulary.
b. Some of these words have more than one meaning such
as "station" and "company." It is important to know
the proper meaning to understand their use in the story.
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56
c. Knowledge of these terms and their meanings is essen-
tial to the comprehension of the story.
d. The words are appropriate to use for structural analysis
procedures.
(Code: meaning, strategy)
Analysis of the rationales offered by teachers indicated
that 12 teachers mentioned the importance of being able
to decode/pronounce the new words. Sixteen teachers
(80%) mentioned that target words were chosen, at least
in part, because their meaning was unfamiliar to stu-
dents, while eight teachers noted that such words lent
themselves to the practice or application of a particular
strategy (e.g., Contextual Redefinition, List-Group-Label).
Eight teachers offered dual-focused rationales for vocab-
ulary selection, mentioning both the pronunciation/
decoding and meaning of new words (Categories 1 and
2). An additional four teachers stated dual-focused ra-
tionales reflecting meaning and the fact that the words
lent themselves to the practice and application of par-
ticular strategies (Categories 2 and 3), while only one
teacher's rationale was targeted at Categories 1 and 3.
Similarly, only three teachers supplied rationales for
vocabulary selection that addressed all three categories.
Congruence Between Rationales and Instruction
We noted earlier that 18 of the teachers (90%) pre-
sented dual-focused lessons that contained both pronun-
ciation and conceptual development statements. It was,
therefore, unexpected to find that only eight teachers
(40%) mentioned both these goals of vocabulary instruc-
tion in their rationales. When teachers mentioning tri-
focused rationales are also considered, the total percent-
age of teachers mentioning both pronunciation and con-
ceptual development in their rationales increases to
5 0 % . Based on these data, it is unclear whether teachers
inadvertently included parts in their lessons that they
did not anticipate including, or whether they geared
their rationales to their ultimate goal, but decided in
either the preactive or interactive phase of instruction
that activities with another focus were necessary as
prerequisites or supplements.
Conclusions
When these teachers were asked to design exemplary
vocabulary lessons, all focused either exclusively on con-
ceptual development or presented dual-focused lessons
centering on both the pronunciation and meaning of
new words. Also, the majority of the teachers mentioned
in their rationales the importance of learning the mean-
ing of new words. We find these results encouraging.
A closer look at these lessons, however, indicated
some negative results as well. In several instances, the
task required by the teacher and the response offered
by the students did not match, yet the teachers accepted
these responses. Schwartz and Raphael (1985) noted that
Volume 10 Issue 5 September/October 1989
in order to properly develop definitions of words, stu-
dents need to ask themselves three questions about the
words: What is it? What is it like? What are some exam-
ples? Perhaps the student participating in these lessons
would have benefited from such instruction.
Close examination also revealed that vocabulary in-
struction aimed at conceptual development was often
shallow. That is, the instruction was frequently domi-
nated by teacher talk, and students were given com-
paratively few opportunities to use the words in ways
that would encourage deep processing (Stahl, 1986) or
ownership (Pearson, 1985) of words. Rarely were the
guidelines for effective vocabulary instruction, as listed
previously, followed. We found little evidence of instruc-
tion that involved students actively in word learning,
helped them relate new vocabulary to their background
knowledge, or aided them in developing strategies for
independent vocabulary acquisition.
While the rationales teachers offered for the words
they selected for instruction were interesting, and in
many cases very explicit, they did not often reflect the
types of vocabulary selection decisions recommended
by Stahl (1986), Blachowicz (1985), or Beck and
McKeown (1985). For example, teachers often chose
words for instruction that were surrounded by rich con-
text in the text being read. Stahl suggested that such
words could be dealt with by students independently.
We believe that these teachers exerted effort and care
to present lessons that included a balance between the
two major goals of vocabulary instruction: pronuncia-
tion/decoding and conceptual development. It could
very well be that the teachers who participated in this
study were unaware of guidelines researchers have iden-
tified for vocabulary instruction. Another possible ex-
planation for the type of data presented here is that the
teachers were aware of vocabulary instructional guide-
lines, but were unsure of how to implement them in ac-
tual lessons. We suggest, therefore, that vocabulary in-
struction that encourages higher levels of conceptual
development and ultimately, higher levels of compre-
hension, is an issue that deserves much attention in
reading methods courses. Perhaps this is the optimal
place to influence positively the type of vocabulary in-
struction that reaches classrooms. £L
Mary C. Shake received her EdD from the State
University of New York at Albany in 1984. She is
currently an assistant professor in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of
Kentucky, where she teaches undergraduate and
graduate level reading and language arts methods
courses. Her research interests include classroom
and clinical reading instruction and teacher and
student questioning patterns. R i c h a r d L. Allington
received his PhD at Michigan State University and
is professor of education in the Department of
Reading at the State University of New York at
Albany (SUNYA). Dr. Allington's research focuses on
remedial and special education interventions.
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Remedial and Special Education
Gaskins is a clinical supervisor and doctoral stu-
dent in the Department of Reading at SUNYA. He is
currently completing his dissertation research on
affective components in prose comprehension. Mary
B e t h Marr received her PhD from the University of
Minnesota. She was on the faculty at SUNYA during
the period of data collection and now is lecturer in
education at the University of North Carolina-
Charlotte. Dr. Marr's research interests are in the
area of analogy and prose learning. Address: Mary
C. Shake, College of Education, Department of Cur-
riculum and Instruction, Dickey Hall, University of
Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0017.
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