word build vocabulary development system

Isabel Beck suggests selecting three general academic words each time the teacher reads aloud a picture book or trade book these should not be esoteric or archaic terms, but words likely to come up in other academic texts.

For older children, excerpts from novels, nonfiction texts of various types, and content-area texts can all be used for anchored word learning. They expose students to words they would not typically read within leveled books or on their own.

It can also be used in the upper grades, especially with complex text that is being read aloud and discussed together as a whole class.įor young children, picture books provide excellent sources of higher-level, sophisticated words that are important for expanding vocabulary. Strategy 2: Anchored Word LearningĪnchored Word Learning (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) is ideal to use with elementary students where read-alouds are typically part of the daily routine. It also has potential for older students. This idea has great potential for non-instructional segments of the preschool elementary day like snack time, lining up to go to lunch, and restroom breaks. So asking questions of a student, receiving their responses, adding information, and asking them to reflect or add more information-in other words, keeping the conversation going-is important in vocabulary development. Recent research on conversational turns (LENA, 2017) indicates that the more turns a young child takes in conversation with an adult, the more they grow their vocabulary and verbal acuity in general. One of the most powerful things teachers (and adults in the home) can do is to have rich conversations with children. In every discipline, there are also domain-specific terms students need to understand and learn. These words cut across disciplines and help students speak, read, and write well in all the academic settings in which they’ll find themselves. This is why all teachers should address vocabulary instruction head-on.īut what words should be taught? In English language arts/reading classrooms, explicit vocabulary instruction should focus on general academic words (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2013). They risk reading less (both in volume and frequency), not understanding content-area texts or concepts well, writing lackluster essays and reports, and not being able to express themselves as well verbally. Their reading range is thus limited, their writing lacks specificity and voice, and their spoken language lacks range of word choice. Students who are deficient in vocabulary face numerous obstacles, including having much lower reading comprehension.

Even more surprisingly, Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) find that first-grade students’ vocabulary knowledge predicts their reading comprehension level much later, in the eleventh grade.

Kindergarten students’ word knowledge predicts reading comprehension in second grade (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999 Roth, Speece, & Cooper, 2002), and this persists through fourth grade (Wagner, Muse, & Tannenbaum, 2007).

Word knowledge is key for reading comprehension.

When older students know the meaning of specific words and are able to put related words together during a unit of study, they can connect to new content more readily and remember more (Marzano & Simms, 2013). Conceptual understanding, along with both general and specific word knowledge, impacts learning at every age level, starting with oral language development in preschool.

A rich vocabulary supports content knowledge in all disciplines.

This is supported by decades of research: I’ve been an educator for 36 years, and if there’s one thing I think every educator can agree on, it’s that increasing the number of words our students know is a good thing.

Word build vocabulary development system