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EAR checklist for teachers

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Practice SQ3R in Fiction

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From Chapter 2

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:

"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood."

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.

Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:

"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout him?"

"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to do-everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson-they could kill her. Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper. Q1

"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"

"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.

"But who are we going to rob?-houses, or cattle, or-"

"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."

"Must we always kill the people?"

"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them-except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

"Ransomed? What's that?"

"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do."

"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"

"Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?"

"Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?-that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?"

"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead."

"Now, that's something like. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot they'll be, too-eating up everything, and always trying to get loose."

"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"

"A guard! Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?"

"Because it ain't in the books so-that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you?-that's the idea. Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?" Q2

"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more."

"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired. Q3

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CommonLit | Excerpt from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American author and humorist. His book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1885, was called the "Great American Novel." The setting of the novel is antebellum Mississippi. Huckleberry or "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer, narrates the entire book.

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Notice & Note Guiding Questions Template.docx

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Common Morphemes

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SQ3R is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps: survey, question, read, recite, and review. Follow the steps below to learn how to glean as much information as possible from the text requirements from any class.

Remember: The information you gain from reading is important. If you just "do it," without learning something, you're wasting a lot of your time. Train your mind to learn while reading with SQ3R.

SURVEY
Gather the information necessary to focus and formulate goals

Read the title - Help your mind prepare to receive the subject at hand.

Read the introduction and/or summary - Orient yourself to how each chapter fits the author's purposes, and focus on the author's statement of most important points.

Notice each boldface heading and subheading - Organize your mind before you begin to read and build a structure for the thoughts and details to come.

Notice any graphics - Charts, maps, diagrams, etc. are there to make a point. Don't overlook them.

Notice reading aids - Italics, bold face print, chapter objective, and end-of -chapter questions are all included to help you sort, comprehend, and remember.

QUESTION
Help your mind engage and concentrate
Turn the boldface heading for each section into as many questions as you think will be answered in that section. The better the questions, the better your comprehension is likely to be. You may always add further questions as you proceed. When your mind is actively searching for answers to questions it becomes engaged in learning.

READ
Fill in the information around the mental structures you've been building
Read one section at a time with your questions in mind and look for the answers. Recognize when you need to make up some new questions.

RECITE
Retrain your mind to concentrate and learn as it reads
After each section, stop and recall your questions and see if you can answer them from memory. If not, look back at the text again (as often as necessary), but don't move to the next section until you can recite the answers from the previous one.

REVIEW
Refine your mental organization and begin building memory
Once you've finished the entire chapter using the preceding steps, go back over the questions you create for every heading. See if you can still answer them. If not, look back and refresh your memory and then continue.

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SQ3R is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps: survey, question, read, recite, and review. Follow the steps below to learn how to glean as much information as possible from the text requirements from any class. Remember: The information you gain from reading is important.

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Six Syllable Types in English Orthography.docx

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article  teaching vocabulary across the curric.pdf

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The Frayer Model is a graphic organizer for building student vocabulary. This technique requires students to define target vocabulary and apply their knowledge by generating examples and non-examples, giving characteristics, and/or drawing a picture to illustrate the meaning of the word.

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Linking the Language: A Cross-Disciplinary Vocabulary ApproachBy: Susan M. Ebbers

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Linking the Language: A Cross-Disciplinary Vocabulary ApproachBy: Susan M. Ebbers

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In theory, it should be relatively easy for educators to link the language by introducing related vocabulary in clusters that cross content domains. Rather than introducing a word in isolation, we might surround it with family members that share the same root. This approach should help diverse learners, including English-minority students, make important vocabulary connections and transfer core ideas across content.

Students are exposed to an abundance of terms across the K-12 continuum - words that might be linked in the mental lexicon to promote retention and retrieval (Reichle & Perfetti, 2003). For example, the word thermometer may appear in a second-grade science curriculum, the related words thermal and geothermic several years later, and exothermic reactions show up in middle school. Adolescents may read about hypothermia in literature selections or in health class. The high-school science text may include thermonuclear or thermoelectricity. Meanwhile, at home, families might speak of a thermostat or a thermos. At which point across the K-12 continuum does the learner recognize the pattern inherent in these meanings and spellings? Some may naturally figure out that all these words share the same root ( therm) and pertain to ' heat'. Others may never make that connection without help. They are unlikely to independently determine the meaning of thermodynamics through analysis of word structure. Such students are stymied until they learn the fundamental building blocks of the English language. We might begin teaching commonly occurring roots by fourth grade:

The end of third grade is the time to introduce students to the Latin roots and Greek combining forms used frequently in social studies, math, and science texts... Learning these important patterns provides strategies for not only decoding and spelling but also for expanding expressive and receptive vocabulary. (Henry, 2003, p. 101-102)

The English language is potentially overwhelming. About 70% of the words derive from Latin, French, or Greek, and about 22% from German (Finkenstaedt & Wolff, 1973). Furthermore, the language is large, with nearly one million meaningful lexemes, including words, idioms (we can't overlook figurative language), prefixes, roots, and suffixes (Crystal, 1995, Global Language Monitor, 2009). Given the scope and complexity of the language, it behooves us to help learners process and classify related concepts. One way we might do this is through meaning-bearing morphemes, such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Approximately 88,500 distinct root families of words appear in school texts ( credible, incredible, credibility, credulous), and about 60% of the words encountered in varied textbooks may be deciphered by analyzing the morphemes inside the word and the context in the surrounding sentences (Nagy & Anderson, 1984).

To promote this process, educators might expose the root in clusters of related words. For example, in Figure 1 each word shares the same root -prim- meaning 'first or before.' This is a morphological family of words, and such relationships have been shown to facilitate reading (Carlisle & Katz, 2006).

Seeking connections

With just a little practice, recognizing roots becomes relatively easy. For example, the words bat, battle, battalion, combat, combatant, combative, battering ram and debate contain the root -bat- meaning ' to beat.' Approaching these related words through their shared root offers a way to decode, encode, and decipher meanings. In fact, most states publish academic standards that require students to analyze the morphemes to determine word meaning. However, there is inconsistency between academic standards and pre-service teacher education, so some educators do not understand morphology (Moats & Foorman, 2003) but they may enjoy learning with their students. Thus, "Even while they teach, men learn" (Seneca).

Teaching new words was subordinated to the goal of teaching about words - various kinds of information about words that could help [fifth-grade] children figure out meanings on their own. (Carlo et al., 2004, p. 205)

Students needn't become linguists - they need to become curious. A good deal might be accomplished by simply seeking root relationships in words. Each teacher thinks beyond his/her domain to broad common usage, providing for transfer of ideas and revealing root families. For example, the math teacher may expose the root -equi- meaning 'same or equal' in the terms equate, equation, equidistant, and equivalent, and link it to the geography term equator or the civics terms equal rights and equity. Likewise, the history teacher might draw from that same bank of words - including the math terms - when discussing equality or inequity. As applicable, the Spanish cognate igualar could be linked to its English counterpart equal. Working together, educators help students bridge the language by drawing attention to the root and revealing families of related words, as illustrated in Figure 2 for photo, meaning 'light.'

Gradually, intermediate and secondary students should begin to understand that most words are structured according to logical patterns of meaning and spelling. Coupled with context clues, a morphological approach may benefit diverse learners, especially English Language Learners (Carlo et al., 2004; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2007). From a classroom perspective, Gloria Ramirez, ELL teacher, has successfully capitalized on morphemes and cognates in middle school instruction:

Personally, I have found that my intermediate-level ELL students can feel successful and are successful when they have learned the meaning of affixes and roots. I find that their spelling improves as well as their vocabulary. Cognates are very important. For instance, sincere in Spanish is sincero, sincerity is sinceridad and sincerely is sinceramente. The roots are the same and just as we add different suffixes to change the grammatical part of speech in English, so we do also in Spanish. The concept transfers easily. (personal communication, March 2, 2004)

Prefixes

Students benefit from learning the most common prefixes (Graves, 2004). These affixes contribute a great deal to meaning, as seen in the difference been the words benediction (blessing) and malediction (curse). Again, consider the power of the prefix in the related academic words interior, exterior, posterior, anterior, and ulterior. Science teachers might reinforce these prefixes as students examine and label parts of the brain, the atom, etc. Literature teachers might bridge to ulterior motive, while history teachers link to Department of the Interior, interior exploration, etc. Some of the more common prefixes are shown in Table 1.

Note: Adapted from Carroll, Davies, and Richman, 1971.

English teachers might introduce common prefixes (such as trans- in transfer) and content teachers reinforce them. For example, history teachers may expose the prefix and reveal the relationship between transportation, Transcontinental Railroad, Transatlantic Exploration, and Transcendental Meditation, helping students deduce that all terms contain the prefix trans-, meaning 'across' or 'through.' Health teachers could discuss transfections, trans fatty acids, and blood transfusions, while in science, students build lexical bridges to transmitters and transponders. All teachers would link the targeted vocabulary to related words beyond their domain. They needn't know what other teachers are teaching; they simply need to make connections to related words. With this kind of 'transdisciplinary vocabulary outreach,' the language may shrink as the learner's vocabulary grows.

Numeric Prefixes

As they naturally teach their subject matter, math and science teachers are strategically positioned to point out the meanings of numeric prefixes, such as mono, bi, tri as shown in Table 2. They might begin with easier words ( tricycle, triangle, monoxide) and advance to more complex vocabulary ( triaxial, trilobite, trisoctahedron, polycarbonate). Likewise, mythology teachers could expose the three prongs of Neptune's trident while music teachers explain the difference between monotone, duet, trio, and quartet. History teachers could link to the Roman triumvirate. Taking another root, they might explain that the words century, centurion, centipede, and percent all share the root centum meaning 'hundred.' With instruction in morphology, students might note the numeric prefix in words like bicentennial, decades, and hemisphere. Time invested in learning numeric prefixes should be worthwhile.

Suffixes

A few suffixes appear frequently in social studies. For instance, the suffix '"ism meaning 'belief or practice' occurs in well-known words like alcoholism or vandalism and in lesser-known terms like feudalism, fanaticism, and capitalism. History students need to become comfortable with the derivational suffixes '"ist and '"istic, as in separatist, abolitionist, communistic, socialistic. Crossing domains, art teachers reinforce this suffix with the terms photorealistic, pointillism, and impressionism. There are at least a dozen derivational suffixes that appear frequently in words (see Ebbers, 2004; Henry, 2003; Moats, 2000).

Linking Morpheme Clues and Context Clues

Proficient readers look at context clues as well as morpheme clues to determine word meaning when reading independently. However, older students may not naturally know how to do this - some may not even realize that such clues exist, or they may not utilize context and morphemic clues together (Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987). In every domain, teachers might model this strategy. They could guide the process, encouraging learners to access the context outside the word and the morphemes inside the word. This strategy has been proven somewhat effective in reading subject-matter texts (Baumann et al., 2002). For an example of this method, see also Ebbers and Denton (2008).

Word-savvy student

Word-conscious students are somewhat primed to learn vocabulary. They are motivated, interested in language, and inquisitive about words. English or reading teachers might ignite such an attitude by sharing the humorous yet educational chapter book Frindle (Clements, 1996). This fast-paced plot is suitable for grades 4-8 and ought to motivate and engage the class. Motivation and engagement may well optimize instruction, resulting in higher achievement (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). In fact, according to Tseng and Schmitt (2008) motivation permeates all phases of the vocabulary learning process, including the mastery phase, and success promotes not only the skill to learn new words but also the will to do so. This may depend somewhat on the ability to self-regulate, or to purposefully select the best vocabulary approach for the unknown word. Since a morphemic approach may only work for about half the words encountered in text, teachers could model self-regulation by thinking aloud as they decide which vocabulary tactic is best for a particular word.

"Vocabulary instruction needs to be more explicitly metalinguistic; word consciousness is an obligatory, not a optional, component" (Nagy, 2007, p. 54)

Thus, vocabulary lessons that engage and motivate the learner are likely to prove effective. By modeling an attitude of curiosity about language, educators could generate linguistic insight. To promote such a spirit, we strive for a learning atmosphere that is both lighthearted and directed. Students discuss word relationships, invent words, sort words, compare and contrast meanings, and simply enjoy the sounds of speech. Because the activated mind seeks word associations, lessons do not focus on isolated words, or dictionary lists, but on relationships. Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) encourage discovery in forming word associations:

Another entry point for adding words to the environment is morphological relationships. For example, challenge students to compare Tyrannosaurus and tyrant; pedestrian and pedal; duplicate and duplicity. It can also be valuable to discuss when relationships seem to exist but do not, as in the case of gargle and garden... Including such ideas in discussions of words lets students see language as an open book rather than as mysterious and impenetrable with authority over them. (p. 128)

Planning for Success

Working collaboratively, all teachers help students discover morphological links. The more systematic the plan, the more likely it will succeed. Content teachers could focus on the roots that apply to their domain. For example, science roots include bio, therm, phono, photo, geo, hydro, etc. This type of cross-content instruction is feasible, takes little time, and eventually becomes habitual. One middle school in Florida has been using this approach to vocabulary for several years. The assistant principal, M. Vertrees, explained the benefits:

One of the most important benefits of this type of instruction is that it gave students a deeper understanding of the word and it helped them remember it. For example, when I taught Mediterranean Sea, I taught it as medi = 'middle' and terra = 'earth' - The sea in the middle of the earth. Then they knew how the people felt about their world back then. That was the known world; it was all they knew. (interview, June 14, 2006)

Schools might focus on an academic word family each week. Academic words might be selected from the first five sublists of the New Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000). For example, the academic word benefit could include beneficial, benefactor, benevolent, benign, and benediction. The meaning of the prefix bene- ('good') would be taught in English class but students would encounter related words across the curriculum, in science, math, art, etc. Every teacher would find a way to relate at least one of the words to a lesson that week. Schools might display the family-of-the-week in the halls, the library, and on classroom walls. This may yield positive school-wide community effects as well as vocabulary growth.

Cross-domain linkage is not likely to occur by happenstance. At first, this type of approach will require leadership, an interdepartmental focus team, collaboration, planning, and professional development - at least a professional learning community. Instructional leaders will need to promote and prioritize the vision. They will serve as metaphorical torchbearers, keeping the flame alive amidst the myriad distractions that occur over the school year.

Affirmation and validation is key. Teachers need to see that this approach is working and students need to feel more capable and confident around language. However, monitoring vocabulary growth is a thorny issue, as vocabulary grows slowly. One early indicator may be a heightened level of interest in words. Progress is evident when students spontaneously identify morphemes during shared reading: 'Look! There's bio- again!' Furthermore, as students learn to recognize the shared root in large families of words, spelling and reading may improve. This is another indicator of progress. Gradually, eventually, growth in reading comprehension and perhaps in disciplinary knowledge should be reflected on summative state achievement tests.

Resources are necessary. Teachers may need a dictionary that includes word origins. In schools populated with English Language Learners, cross-language dictionaries may be needed to find cognates ( insect-insecto). Much of this information is available online (see appendix). For parsing out essential roots and prefixes across the departments by grade level, see Henry (2003). See Moats (2000) for lists of common morphemes and a variety of teaching suggestions and exercises.

Patience and Practice

Vocabulary growth may not be immediately appreciated, just as a few drops in a bucket are easily overlooked. If progress is slow, resist the temptation to feel discouraged. Unlike learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet, vocabulary is an ongoing growth construct, not quickly mastered. Adolescents may first need to overcome their sense of frustration and failure, which may manifest itself as apathy or anger. An accepting, humorous, engaging atmosphere of playful discovery is optimal. Validating partial knowledge (the student understands the word when hearing it, or knows something about the word) and demonstrating that meanings are somewhat flexible - as used in context - may offset years of intimidation. Also, ongoing review will secure a stronger sense of success. Distributed practice is more effective than massed cramming because retention of information is higher (Willingham, 2002). Eventually, with multiple exposures over time and through varied vocabulary strategies, a new level of linguistic insight, possibly even a new sense of self, should emerge.

Limitations

A morphology approach is one important strategy in the vocabulary teacher's toolbox; it does not take long and it can be - and should be - integrated easily with context clues. But it is not the only approach and it will not work for every word. Some words do not make sense through the root or do not belong to a large morphological family. Furthermore, morphology research, while promising, is not yet conclusive, especially with respect to learning disabilities (Reed, 2008). Moreover, the concept of a school-wide interdepartmental approach is theoretical, albeit based in principles of effective instruction. Thus, the vocabulary plan should include a variety of strategies, such as specific word instruction, semantic mapping with partner discussion, and wide reading. A comprehensive, multipronged vocabulary model has been hypothesized by Graves (2006) and confirmed in the classroom by Baumann, Ware, and Edwards (2007).

May you have the hindsight to know where you have been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far (Irish blessing)

Finally, it's possible to go too far with morphology, to the point of diminishing returns. To avoid this, teach only the most common roots and affixes. A root approach should not overwhelm inquiry-based science or history lessons; rather, it should support such instruction. Norborn Felton, Emeritus Professor of Geology at San Jose State, explains the value of morphology even as he advises restraint:

Kids don't need to learn all of the prefixes and roots. They need to be exposed to enough of them so they can see how useful they are. That's the important thing. And they can make up new scientific words. It should be engaging. (interview, June, 2006)

Online Resources for Morphology

About Susan Ebbers

Susan Ebbers is a doctoral student at the University of California and an educational consultant and speaker. She is the author of Vocabulary through Morphemes: Suffixes, Prefixes, and Roots for Intermediate Grades as well as Daily Oral Vocabulary Exercises: A Program to Expand Academic Language (Sopris West, Cambium publishers).

As a middle school teacher and literacy coach, she received the district teaching award and the county literacy award. For more information, go to www.readingway.com or email her at [email protected]

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Linking the Language: A Cross-Disciplinary Vocabulary Approach

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In theory, it should be relatively easy for educators to link the language by introducing related vocabulary in clusters that cross content domains. Rather than introducing a word in isolation, we might surround it with family members that share the same root.