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Learn Languages - Grammar and Vocabulary

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This website offers free learning lessons in 100 languages from Afrikaans to Zulu from grammar, vocabulary to phrases and quizes. Enjoy learnign with our lessons!

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Move 7 Comprehension: Vocabulary and Background Knowledge 

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Move 7 Comprehension: Vocabulary and Background Knowledge 

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This chapter supported my practice of building vocabulary with direct and explicit instruction. Using a word in context is not going to teach the meaning. The definition must be provided, multiple encounters across a variety of contexts, and students to interact with the word, its meaning, uses, and connections.

I appreciated the research note that 12 encounters are recommended to increase comprehension.

New ideas from this chapter include the routine for oral language (p. 134) and the keyword outline. This seems like a practical and efficient technique to support both comprehension and written expression.

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As an educator I know the value of comprehension and vocabulary, background knowledge, all of the reading comprehension strategies, but looking at vocabulary and the impact of vocabulary along with background knowledge that help to set the tone for understanding what is being read, is not something I truly focused on. I used the curriculum and followed the guide, but looking at the knowledge that is needed to understand what one is reading is valuable. That's the purpose of teaching children how to read, right?

Strategies for success was a section I stayed on a little longer because these strategies allow me as the teacher to understand my role in helping children understand what is being read, even the oral language acquisition, I dog-eared this page because this will be how I can set a path for creating background knowledge and vocabulary acquisition with my students and for my students.

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I agree with the text that reading aloud helps build vocabulary and background knowlege. I use texts in my classroom each week that follow the theme I am teaching each week. I use a variety of text that is rich in vocabulary and helps the students gain background knowlege of each theme I am presenting. From this chapter, I would like to implement the oral language routine for my younger students. I love the idea of naming objects and describing them prior to reading the read aloud. I think this will also enhance their writing in order to be able to describe the objects, not just name them. This will enhance thier ability to write as well, which helps with comprehension. I am currently reading "The Writing Revolution 2.0" and want to use this strategy of having students writing about comtent area as soon as possible.

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I'll never forget how I trully learned how much background knowledge effects comprehension. I was working with a fourth grade student. We were reading a book about zoo animals. At one point I asked the student what his favorite zoo animal was and he told me he had never been to the zoo. I just couldn't believe it! I assumed that this student had been to the zoo before because in my mind, that was just something you did.

Now, I'm very intentional about making sure my students understand what we are reading about. I will ask them if they know what a word means and will use technology to show them images. I also really love that my program uses background building in the oral reading procedure. Students are told what we're going to read about and are asked to share what they already know and what they thing we will learn. Then the text provides important vocabulary that students need to know and words to find in the text before reading that may be tricky.

My school has a very high hispanic population and we are expected to use EL strategies. One very popular strategy is TPR (total physical response) where students put an action to a new word to help remember it. Because I work with students at and below the 5th percentile on the MAP assessment, I am working on more of the SOR learning to read strategies. We really don't have the opportunity to work on comprehension. I did really like the paragraph shrinking procedure and will share it with the classroom teachers I work with.

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I enjoyed reading this chapter. We keep changing curriculums and I feel like vocabulary and writing has suffered. When I taught in a regular 2nd grade class, I read aloud, did a vocabulary word of the day and had a writing time every day. Now I am a reading interventionist and I was saying yesterday that the only teachers who read aloud to their students are the K-1st grade teachers. Our iready curriculum now uses the same text for weeks, so the students are not getting exposed to new vocabulary. Reading to students is such a critical component to build on vocabulary which in turn will help with comprehension. I like the idea of generating questions, teach three-column notes, and modeling academic language. I have heard the kindergarten teacher tell her students to sit on the perimeter of the carpet. Brilliant!

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On page 130 Kemeny states quite simply “ Background knowledge matters.” I couldn't agree with that more. Over the last several years, I have noticed students come with less and less of the background we would assume they had. I now approach lesson planning assuming that the students don’t have understanding of specific concepts (e.g.., geographical locations, sports, fairy tales) and build in visual support of a picture or a youtube video. There is a decodable text I read with my students about clams digging in the sand. I show them a video of the large clams digging in the sand and they always love when the sand comes out the other end. I can’t help them make meaning if they have never seen (1) a clam, (2) sand, (3) the ocean, and (4) why a clam could shoot out sand.

I really like the strategy explained on page 134-135 Implement a Routine for Oral Language. It gives repeated exposure to the word, and it also allows for students to build connection. And there is a read aloud component that I have been building into my classroom more. On page 136, Kemeny explained the Text Talk strategy and the teacher created Text Talk lessons. The reason I am focusing on the oral language component is I work with students who are also impacted by word finding speech language delays and multilingual learners. These strategies are also for usage of more language and create opportunities to meaningfully build in more words into a students vocabulary. This is a nice way to start creating more diverse word choice and for students to be comfortable asking and answering more open ended questions. I also feel like it would help with multimeaning words and homophones.

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Using Anita’s Archers guide for the Vocabulary Instructional Routine:   Introduce the word’s pronunciation, the word’s meaning, illustrate the word with examples and non-examples, and have frequent opportunities for students to respond by checking for understanding.  Background knowledge is key.  I had a goal each year to read 100 books to my students (some chapter, some picture).  Each book was an opportunity to introduce them to new ideas, increase their exposure to new vocabulary, and to teach them text and language structures.

Since reading this book, vocabulary is one area where I would rework my previous teaching strategies. I would definitely use Anita Archer’s model to introduce vocabulary.   I used slides in the past, but I would make it more of an active process using her four step model. I think the Three Column Note would be a good shift for third graders.  I used Frayer’s Model, but the Three Column Note would be better suited to 3rd grade.   I recently observed in a class where I suggested using the vocabulary skits with action words.   Students were motivated and the movement was great for all.   Since I was in a testing grade, I always modeled and taught academic vocabulary.  I would be more intentional about using vocabulary for everyday activities like classroom routines, behaviors, and performance.

For background knowledge, I always did a unit on generate questions and summarizing.  I would certainly implement the paragraph shrinking and I like the anchor chart that was included.  Last, but not least, since attending the Explicit Instruction Training by Anita Archer, being aware of opportunities for students to respond and providing ample retrieval pratice will be at the forefront of instructional time.

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I love how this chapter reinforces that comprehension is an outcome not a skill we directly teach (p130). To help students truly understand a text, they have to know something about what they're reading. so building vocabulary and background knowledge isn't optional, it's core instruction. One powerful approach is to have students write about what they're learning. The chapter's reference to 'The Writing Revolution' hit home for me. Writing and knowledge have a reciprocal relationship (131). When students write about content, they process and retain it. And the more knowledge they have, the stronger and more meaningful their writing becomes. I also use Reciprocal Teaching in small groups to strengthen vocabulary. As we ask questions, predict, summarize, and clarify, we stop to unpack new words and connect ideas to what we already know. Those small conversations add up to huge gains. Move 7'sfocus on the right amount of strategy instruction (p133), really stuck with me. It reminded me to be selective, choose the strategies that matter most and teach them well instead of tossing 20 strategies at kids and hoping something sticks. I'm already a fan of modeling strategies through think-alouds, then shifting responsibility to students, but this chapter encouraged me to tighten that up even more. The big reminder for me is that strategies should alwasy connect back to real content, knowledge-building, and writing. And tying this back to Move 6: when we improve fluency, we free up cognitive space so students can actually think about the text. Strategy, fluency, background knowledge, they all work together to make comprehension possible.

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This chapter reaffirmed for me that one way we can build vocabulary and background knowledge through reading aloud to children from a young age and later through direct and explicit instruction.

In my role as a K-2 reading specialist, my time with my tier 3 students is limited and we spend almost all of it on the word recognition strands of the reading rope. This chapter really got me thinking about comprehension and what I can do in my role to better address the language comprehension strands during my short time with my students.

New ideas from this chapter that I will be trying out with my students are keyword outlines, Anita Archer's explicit routine for teaching vocabulary, and generating questions. I have specific groups in mind to use each of these strategies with. I will use the keyword outlines with my tier 3 second graders. I think this will be beneficial for them because we will be addressing comprehension as well as writing skills - which are two areas the need help developing. They will also likely get some fluency practice because I suspect we will be rereading texts to select those key words.

I will use Anita Archer's explicit vocabulary routine with a tier 2 first grade group that I work with. It includes five students - three of them are ELL students, two of those ELL students are still building their vocabulary knowledge and I think they will really enjoy this strategy to learn new words.

Finally I will use generating questions with my tier 3 first graders. We have been working on what a sentence is and sentence comprehension. They have some difficulty identifying the difference between statements and questions. I think this strategy will help them with that as well as further developing their comprehension of text we are reading together.

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Vocabulary and background knowledge are extremely important when it comes to improving comprehension. That is one thing that I miss about not having my own classroom anymore, is read aloud. I will still do read alouds, but not like I used to. I currently do some push-in minutes for 4th graders during their ELA block. They are piloting the Wonders curriculum. After reading this move, I immediately started thinking about how I could implement the strategies for success with the story that we are currently reading. I also liked the idea of using 3 column notes. When I was a 4th grade classroom teacher, we were and AVID elementary school and we used note taking strategies a lot. I am going to implement the 3 column notes into my lesson tomorrow.

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This chapter resonated with me so much. As a teacher of older grades or previously, students in a gifted class, all of my preparation and support as a teacher had been about building students comprehension and abilities as a reader when they could already decode and were proficient at reading words. I have used many vocabulary building strategies in the past and currently use several that were covered in this chapter. A few new ideas were the 3-column notes. I have had students use an illustration to help support their knowledge of a new word before, but never set up in the 3-column format. I loved that it was then folded and with the musical chair-style vocab checks with peers.

Teaching and modeling academic and sophisticated vocabulary is a huge emphasis of my style of teaching and curriculum. Right or wrong, my school pivots from spelling (K-3) to vocabulary (without spelling or phonics focus) in grades 4-5. We use Wordly Wise to build this vocabulary. An additional practice I’ve used is having my students create a word card that shows a representation of an assigned word, each student gets a different word each week, and has to use the word in a sentence, showing meaning. These cards are then displayed in the room where other students lift the card to see the sentence on the back side. This gives an authentic audience and helps students learn from their peers' understanding. They are also so curious to see what their peers have done. Additionally, I encourage students to hunt for their Wordly Wise words in “real life”, identifying them when they spot them in a text or hear them in conversation. Students get bonus points using a Wordly Wise word when answering questions in class as well. I frequently use the words in our lessons or conversations as motivation. This translates to writing because I have the students aim to use current or past vocabulary words in their writing. We also put a heavy emphasis on using rich vocabulary in all of the written work they produce. We point out rich language and words in the texts we read aloud, always stopping to ask what they think it means, and then I fill in or correct any misconceptions they have. This has been a huge motivating factor in learning for my 4th graders.

The examples provided about paragraph shrinking and keywords outlines reminded me of Close Reading strategies that I use frequently from Sunday Cummins. Each year I teach my students how to identify “pasta words” to help them summarize and build sentences, orally and written. I have my students practice orally multiple times and with multiple versions of a sentence to build upon and make them stronger before putting them down on paper. I find that this repeated effort with the content also helps cement the concept and produces background knowledge for the future.

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Sunday Cummins is a literacy consultant and author. Her work focuses on supporting teachers, schools and districts as they plan and implement assessment driven instruction with complex informational sources.

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Move 7 - Comprehension: Vocabulary and Background Knowledge

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Move 7 - Comprehension: Vocabulary and Background Knowledge

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This is a personal area for growth in my teaching. I have placed such a strong instructional focus on phonological awareness, phonics, and fluency, particularly. This has resulted in meaningful gains for many students. However, through reflection, I recognize the need to be more purposeful and explicit in my instruction around comprehension.

To address this, I plan to increase the use of rich, intentional read-alouds. Many of my students with IEPs are reading well below grade-level expectations, which can limit their access to comprehension-focused instruction when working solely within decodable or instructional-level texts. By incorporating grade-level read-alouds during targeted sessions, I can intentionally focus on comprehension skills while leveraging students’ strong background knowledge and oral language. My students have so much background knowledge to offer, and I love watching them teach others with confidence.

Building on this, I plan to consistently implement a structured vocabulary instructional routine during read-alouds. I will pre-select and mark key vocabulary within the text and provide explicit instruction through student-friendly explanations, acting out words, drawing representations, and using the words in discussion.

Additionally, I am working to be more intentional with my use of academic language during instructional conversations. To support this goal, I have posted reference pages (pp. 145–146) in my classroom as a visible reminder to model precise language and embed it consistently into discussions with students.

Finally, I plan to incorporate vocabulary skits into my phonics groups as a way to reinforce word meanings in an engaging and memorable way. These skits will allow students to actively use vocabulary in context, strengthening both expressive language and comprehension while maintaining high engagement.

Overall, these intentional instructional moves reflect my commitment to continuous growth and to providing students with equitable access to rigorous comprehension instruction.