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Explicit Vocabulary Routine - INSTRUCTION

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SWI @ The Nueva School: A Grade 2 classroom

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Grade 1-Investigating grapheme-phoneme correspondences — with the context of morphological word sums.

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Grade 1-Investigating grapheme-phoneme correspondences — with the context of morphological word sums.

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Word Connections: A Multisyllabic Word Reading Program

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Word Connections: A Multisyllabic Word Reading Program

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This reading intervention was developed and tested by Dr. Jessica Toste and colleagues at The University of Texas at Austin. The program materials were redesigned for open access by the Toste Team in October 2022. We are excited for you to use the Word Connections program! We look forward to continued feedback from teachers and students.

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Kinder Morphology- Introducing morphology with word matrix

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Kinder Morphology- Introducing morphology with word matrix

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Morphemes for Little Ones K-3 provides systematic, structured literacy lessons to help teachers teach morphological awareness appropriately to young students.

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Morphological awareness helps students decode, improve fluency, develop vocabulary, and build comprehension skills-yet some educators are hesitant to teach it. Join us on Thursday, May 2 to strengthen your confidence and skill with morphology.
Thursday, May 2 at 6:30 p.m. CT All live attendees will be automatically entered in our Morpheme Magic Sweepstakes. Three lucky educators will win a complete Morpheme Magic Combo Set or Morphemes for Littles to use in their classrooms.

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Student Reading Achievement & Teacher Development

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Hundreds of thousands of teachers have used this highly practical guide to help K-12 students enlarge their vocabulary and get involved in noticing, understanding, and using new words. Grounded in research, the book explains how to select words for instruction, introduce their meanings, and create engaging learning activities that promote both word knowledge and reading comprehension. The authors are trusted experts who draw on extensive experience in diverse classrooms and schools. Sample lessons and vignettes, children's literature suggestions, "Your Turn" learning activities, and a Study Guide for teachers enhance the book's utility as a classroom resource, professional development tool, or course text. The Study Guide can also be downloaded and printed for ease of use (www.guilford.com/beck-studyguide).

New to This Edition
*Reflects over a decade of advances in research-based vocabulary instruction.
*Chapters on vocabulary and writing; assessment; and differentiating instruction for struggling readers and English language learners, including coverage of response to intervention (RTI).
*Expanded discussions of content-area vocabulary and multiple-meaning words.
*Many additional examples showing what robust instruction looks like in action.
*Appendix with a useful menu of instructional activities.

See also the authors' Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples , which includes specific instructional sequences for different grade ranges, as well as Making Sense of Phonics, Second Edition: The Hows and Whys , by Isabel L. Beck and Mark E. Beck, an invaluable resource for K-3.

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Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

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Amazon.com: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction: 9781462508167: Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, Linda Kucan: Books

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Praise for Heidi Anne Mesmer's Big Words for Young Readers Big Words for Young Readers fills a huge void in the field of early literacy! Dr. Mesmer has artfully translated the research on learning to read big words into easy-to-use practices. Her book provides a teacher-friendly roadmap for incorporating instruction in morphology and multisyllabic word reading. It is a terrific professional learning resource."-HOLLY LANE , Ph.D., Director, University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI), Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Oregon Research Institute is for anyone who teaches young children how to read. The first chapter alone could be used to prepare preservice teachers, and the remaining chapters contain practical research-based strategies compiled into one easy-to-use resource. Those strategies address critically important skills that are often absent in early literacy curricula.", Ph.D., Rose & Irving Fien Endowed Professor of Special Education, Assistant Director of University of Florida Literacy Institute will make its mark by serving teachers well., Ph.D., Professor, University of Delaware, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Elementary Literacy, Michigan State University, Ph.D., Professor, San Diego State University, Teacher and Early Learning & Literacy Consultant, Ph.D., Director Emeritus, University of Utah Reading Clinic, College of Education
-PATRICIA VADASY Big Words for Young Readers

"Heidi Anne Mesmer offers a principled approach to teaching big, more complex words. She begins with a clear, concise explanation of morphology and, from there, devotes chapters to specific word parts, following a sensible scope and sequence. Written with busy teachers in mind, her book contains useful objectives and activities enhanced by figures, tables, and real-world examples."

" -MATTHEW BURNS
Big Words for Young Readers -SHARON WALPOLE

"Wow! -LAURA TORTORELLI
Dr. Mesmer makes complex ideas about words accessible by connecting them.
It's high time we link decoding, spelling, and meaning from the start of school.
I predict teachers who once shied away from this content will feel empowered."

"This is exactly the book we need as a field right now! Dr. Mesmer explains how even our youngest students can learn to read long words and make meaning from them, highlighting evidence-based practices across the elementary grades. Her focus on morphology is especially important, as children are often frustrated by long words in the texts they want to read, particularly informational texts."

"'I can read big words!' If you want students who can confidently shout that from the rooftop, this book is for you. With the instructional moves Mesmer suggests, your students can read words with multiple syllables and morphemes. Her book is a practical resource, grounded in evidence from research and classroom implementation. I highly recommend it for developing decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension skills."
-DOUGLAS FISHER

"A gem! Heidi Anne Mesmer brilliantly merges word recognition and language comprehension, creating a seamless approach to teaching multimorphemic, multisyllabic words. She not only unravels the 'why' behind language learning, but also the 'how' through engaging instructional techniques. A must-have treasure for every teacher seeking to infuse the classroom with big words."

"Dr. Mesmer makes clear that 'big words' can and should be taught to young readers, and offers tools for doing that. Her book is all the more welcome given current policies mandating phonemic awareness instruction through third grade. Thank you, Heidi Anne, for widening the lens of classroom instruction!"

-PARVINA PANGHALI -KATHLEEN J. BROWN

Heidi Anne Mesmer, PhD, is a professor of literacy education at Virginia Tech. Her research, grant-funded programs, writing, and consulting focus on beginning reading materials, text difficulty, phonics, and struggling readers.

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Big Words for Young Readers: Teaching Kids in Grades K to 5 to Decode―and Understand―Words With Multiple Syllables and Morphemes (The Science of Reading in Practice)

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Phonics instruction shouldn't end when students can decode short words. From an early age, they also need to be able to decode "big words"―words with multiple syllables (sound units) and morphemes (meaning units)―to read proficiently. The key is to teach them systematically and explicitly, in dev...

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Search for words to see their morphemes and meanings.

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The morpheme mapper lets you type in a word and see its morphemes and meanings mapped out.

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Multi-Year Morphology Plan Example - The Six Shifts    .pdf

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Routine for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

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Routine for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

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Our library provides effective, research-based classroom strategies to help strengthen your students' skills in phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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Knowledge helps you remember new information, and people who know a great deal about a topic also know its vocabulary. One critical finding from research is that word learning takes place most efficiently when the reader or listener already understands the context well. In fact, we learn words up to four times faster in a familiar context than in an unfamiliar one (Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Hirsch, 2006). Vocabulary instruction that compares and contrasts word meanings and that activates prior knowledge not only helps students learn new words, but also has been shown to improve comprehension of a reading selection (Graves, 2006). Therefore, an important goal of instruction in any subject grade, in any grade, should be to help students acquire the vocabulary associated with the content and to make connections between known and unknown words.

There are four activities that are part of my professional development program titled The Key Vocabulary Routine that are designed to teach words in relation to other words: Semantic Mapping, Categorizing, Semantic Feature Analysis, and Opposites (sometimes called Scaling). This post will provide details for how to use Semantic Mapping (Heimlich & Pittelman, 1986) which is a well-researched activity that helps students draw on background knowledge of a topic and see connections between ideas and words related to that topic. It is highly interactive and offers opportunities for rich, collaborative discussion among students.

There are two steps for generating a semantic map. First, the teacher chooses a key concept word that is central to the topic covered in the reading or classroom lesson and writes this word in the center of a page or on the board. Students are then asked to brainstorm as many words as they know associated with the key word. This brainstorming is best done as a whole class or in smaller cooperative groups. The teacher or a scribe writes the words generated on the board. The visual below is an example of semantic map that was generated in a fifth grade classroom related to text students were reading that had information about baseball.

Once a significant number of words has been generated, students are asked to make connections among the words and group them into categories. See the visual below of the categorized baseball words. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this task! Sometimes one of the words on the map becomes the word for a category (e.g., uniform), and sometimes a new word needs to be generated for the category (e.g., referee, equipment). Once the categories are identified, students can be asked to add more words to each category. Sometimes there will be words that are not easily grouped into a category (e.g., innings, game, summer, dugout). This is a simple example, but semantic mapping can be used with any grade level, right up through high school, using a sophisticated key content word and more advanced academic vocabulary.

Scaffolds
Sometimes a new concept word will be so foreign to students that they are unable to generate many of their own words. For example, the background information for students growing up in a city may not be sufficient to brainstorm many words related to the word harvest. When this happens, teachers can provide some background knowledge about the topic to get the brainstorm going. Another scaffold is to provide a list of words that includes some that are related to the key word and some that are not. Students consider each word to determine if it should be added to the semantic map. The categorizing part of the activity can also be scaffolded by the teacher providing category topics. If you are working with young children who have not yet developed solid reading and writing skills, you can use a picture in the center of the map instead of a word, an the brainstorming can be done orally with the teacher transcribing the words.
A Before and After Activity
A semantic mapping activity can begin before students read or learn new information as a way to help them access what they already know about a topic. It also serves as a great "after" activity to extend the vocabulary learning. The teacher can bring back the semantic map or the words listed in categories and ask students to add any new words they have learned about the topic. As noted above, one advantages of semantic mapping is that it is a collaborative task that provides lots of opportunities for the students to talk about words and how they are related, using real-life contexts to explain the words they generate. It also is engaging and motivating, and important part of developing a word conscious classroom in which students enjoy learning words!

I'll end this post by showing several classroom examples of semantic maps. The first one from a grade 2 classroom is interesting because you can see that the words at the top of the map were generated before the students listened to a read aloud about snails. Word such as slow, slimy, small, and slithery are words the students already associated with snails. The words on the bottom of the map were generated after the read aloud. Words such as gastropod, herbivore, and mollusk represent new, academic words that the students learned.

References:
Graves, M.F. 2006. The vocabulary book. New York: Teachers College Press

Heimlich, J.E., & Pittelman, S. D. (1986). Semantic mapping: Classroom applications. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hirsch, E.D. (2006). The case for bringing content into the language arts block and for a knowledge-rich curriculum core for all children. American educator. Spring, 2006.

Landauer, T.K., & Dumais, S. T., (1997). A solution to Plato's problem" The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review, 104 (2).

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Semantic Mapping to Grow Vocabulary - Keys to Literacy

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Knowledge helps you remember new information, and people who know a great deal about a topic also know its vocabulary. One critical finding from research is that word learning takes place most efficiently when the reader or listener already understands the context well.

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Connections - Group words that share a common thread

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Group words that share a common thread. A new puzzle is available each day.

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Create custom puzzles based on the Connections New York Times daily game

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Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.