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3 Simple Ways to Give Students Input on What They Learn

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3 Simple Ways to Give Students Input on What They Learn

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by Susan Verner 7,558 views

Even if someone knows all the rules of pronunciation and grammar, without knowing what individual words mean, they will not be able to communicate with other English speakers. Perhaps that is why vocabulary is such a big part of any ESL class. Or perhaps it is because there is always new vocabulary to learn. Even native English speakers work hard to increase their vocabularies. It is an inexhaustible subject. Whatever the reason, as an ESL teacher you will teach new words to your students. Sometimes the words are given to you, and sometimes you come up with the vocabulary word lists on your own. If you are doing the latter, you might want to consider involving your students in the process. Here are some ideas of how you can do just that.

3 Simple Ways to Give Students Input on What They Learn

1. What Do You Know?

Though it is often use for other purposes in the ESL classroom, a K/W/L chart is a good way to get your students' input when it comes to vocabulary. If you have never done a K/W/L chart with your students, it's really quite easy. Divide your board or paper into three columns. Label the first column K. In this column, you will brainstorm with your students what they already know about a certain topic. Work together as a class. As your students offer what they know about the topic, make note of any grammar or topic specific vocabulary that comes up, and include those words on your chart. You might want to circle or underline any of these words as well. If your students offer information for the chart but don't know the most efficient way to saying it, you should so feel free to supply the correct words, or lingo. The advantage to coming up with a vocabulary list this way is that students are introduced to the words in context from the start. They are also able to relate these new words to words they already know in meaningful context - what they know about the topic. Now that you have completed the first column with your students, fill out the second column. W stands for what they want to know. This column will contain questions about the topic. You are less likely to come across appropriate vocabulary words here, but it is possible. After you finish the unit, complete the third column. L stands for what your class learned about the topic. You might want students to fill this column out on their own and then hand their work in to you. This way you can see if they are using the vocabulary words comfortably and if so which ones.

2. Natural Encounters

It always amazes me when students bring me unfamiliar words they have encountered outside of the classroom. The set of words they bring have great variety, and I often ask students where they chanced upon these words. Often they hear these words on a television show or movie, or they might hear people using them in public. It doesn't really matter where they hear the word; it just matters that they make note of it and then make efforts to learn it. You can use the natural encounters your students have with unfamiliar words to your advantage. Instead of keeping the word themselves, encourage your students to share these interesting and unusual words with the class via a vocabulary bulletin board. That is, when students run across words they do it know, make a way for them to share with the class. Designate one bulletin board in your class for unexpected word encounters. Keep a supply of paper strips near it along with some markers. You might even title the bulletin board "Word Encounters". Then when students run across a new word either in conversation, the media, or other another venue, have them write the word on one of the strips of paper and post it on the board. Give your students a chance to show what they know on the bulletin board by writing the definition or meaning of a posted word on another slip of paper and posting it under the original word. Just having these words displayed in your classroom will give your students a chance to learn them. But you can also collect the words periodically and compile them into a vocabulary list. Then use these words as one of your vocabulary units. Your students will already have seen them posted in your classroom, and that will give them a leg up when it comes to gaining academic knowledge of the words on your new vocabulary list.

3. A Picture Is Worth...

A picture is another good source for coming up with vocabulary, and you can invite your students to share what they see as part of your vocabulary development process. You can use pictures to generate a vocabulary list with your students two different ways. One way involves your entire class in one brainstorm session. Show a picture to your entire class. The picture should relate to whatever thematic unit you are planning on teaching. Then have your students brainstorm words that they know that are related to ten picture. It may be objects or actions they see in the picture or others that relate to what is happening in this particular picture. Write these words on the board as your students offer them. You might also want to encourage your students to use their bilingual dictionaries for this activity. They can look up words that they do not know in English but are still related to the picture. List all the vocabulary your students come up with, and feel free to add your own ideas. You can also feel free to define new words or explain the small differences between words they might find in their dictionaries. Once the brainstorm is complete, choose your final vocabulary list from the collection on the board.

A second way to generate vocabulary lists from picture is to have students work in small groups. Give each group of around four students their own picture. Make sure all the pictures relate to the same topic. Have each group work together to come up with their own list of words related to the picture. Then compile all the lists together. Since you are using multiple pictures in this exercise, you may get a more diverse set of vocabulary than you would from only one picture. Either way, this exercise is particularly interesting when one or more of your students is very knowledge the topic in the picture.

When students have input into what they learn in class, they take ownership of the material. This motivates them to learn it better, and it naturally becomes a part of their English knowledge. Why not let your students have a hand in your next vocabulary list and see what happens?

These are just a few ways to give students input into what they are learning.

What other ways have you used successfully? Please share them in the comments section below.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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Choose Your Own Vocabulary: 3 Simple Ways to Give Students Input on What They Learn

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by Susan Verner 7,558 views Even if someone knows all the rules of pronunciation and grammar, without knowing what individual words mean, they will not be able to communicate with other English speakers. Perhaps that is why vocabulary is such a big part of any ESL class.

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Doing It Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary

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Doing It Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Find Definitions & Meanings of Words | Britannica Dictionary

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Clear and simple definitions in American English from Britannica's language experts. More usage examples than any other dictionary.

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Oxford Learner's Dictionaries | Find definitions, translations, and grammar explanations at Oxford Learner's Dictionaries

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE

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Longman English Dictionary - the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.

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The most popular dictionary and thesaurus. Definitions & meanings of words in Learner English with examples, synonyms, pronunciations and translations.

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Teaching vocabulary: making word families work

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Teaching vocabulary: making word families work

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Word lists are a widely-practised teaching tool for vocabulary study, but any student who has worked with them will tell you that memorising lists of words is a very time-consuming method that does not really help students to learn words deeply, or to use them appropriately. The main problem with lists of words is that they are decontextualized, often grouped by abstract criteria designed by the teacher rather than in a meaningful way for the students themselves.

A step towards meaning-based vocabulary study is the use of word families rather than word lists. A word family relates words by their meaning, word class and structure.

The four columns in this image arrange words which contain the stem photo-/photograph, which are categorised by their word class (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs). A simple concept, and one which can be found in many coursebooks, but do we use these tables to their fullest, to help students retain the range of forms that they contain?

Simply going through the words one by one and dealing with the meaning of each in turn is pretty repetitive, and just treats the words like items on a list, so let's rethink some ways of grouping / tasking the words differently.

Get students to work out the rule (inductive classification)

Choose several words from the same word class and present the students with the target words in the context of sentences which give clues to meaning:

1. I looked at a photograph of my family

2. I want to be a photographer when I grow up

3. Sam studied photography at university

Instruct students to substitute the bolded words with other words into the sentences which keep the same overall meaning (perhaps giving them some words to choose from in each case). What kinds of words have the students used? They will be the same word class as the word first given, and will give clues to meaning.

Ask students to generate patterns of morphology

Give the students some other words which follow similar patterns (geography / biography / calligraphy are all nouns too); ask the students whether they follow the same verb / adjective / adverb pattern. This will generate a larger group of words which can be processed together as following the same pattern.

Blanking out one column for each word can help students to make educated guesses about how similar word families are structured. Notice that there is also a pattern of pronunciation at work here, with the stress falling on the same syllable in each set of word classes.

Exploiting vocabulary by adding collocations

Adding a column of words which commonly appear together with the members of a word family can aid retention by providing context, as below:

Once students have worked with these words from a structural and meaningful point of view (as in the activities above), they will have a much deeper understanding of how they work, and how they can be used in different situations.

As a final note, not all words can be expanded into families in this way. Typically words which come from Greek or Latin, meaning words which often use prefixes and suffixes, can be played with in families. Look for this kind of word and do some word family work every week, to keep your students' word bank ever increasing both in breadth and depth.

Tom Garside, EfA's Director of Teacher Training, has 18 years of teaching and training experience in Europe, New Zealand and China. He holds a degree in Linguistics and French, Cambridge CELTA and DELTA qualifications, a Post-Graduate Diploma in TESOL and an MATESOL. He has trained teachers in Europe, as part of the European Union Comenius teacher development project, provided initial training for the Trinity CertTESOL and provides in-service training for native and non-native-speaker teachers in a wide range of teaching situations. He is the author of the essential CertTESOL course supplement, Tesol: A Gateway Guide for Teachers of English.

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Teaching vocabulary: making word families work

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Word lists are a widely-practised teaching tool for vocabulary study, but any student who has worked with them will tell you that memorising lists of words is a very time-consuming method that does not really help students to learn words deeply, or to use them appropriately.

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Vocabulary Basics: Word Families - Page 1 (A-F)

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EnhanceMyVocabulary.com's section on building better vocabulary through learning word families; studying groups of words that share common roots. Page 1, A-F.

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Building Vocabulary—Word Families and Word Roots ListWhat Is Taught at Each Level?

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Building Vocabulary—Word Families and Word Roots ListWhat Is Taught at Each Level?

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For the New Year: Five Simple Vocabulary Resolutions for Educators

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For the New Year: Five Simple Vocabulary Resolutions for Educators

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For the New Year: Five Simple Vocabulary Resolutions for Educators

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Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus: Wordshop - Teachers: it's a new year, a time to buy gym memberships and to overhaul your vocabulary instruction. Just do it.

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Response: Vocabulary Instruction Is More Than Giving 'A List of Words'

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Response: Vocabulary Instruction Is More Than Giving 'A List of Words'

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Education Week - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo

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This week's question is:
What are the best instructional strategies for vocabulary development?
We started-off in Part One with suggestions from Katie Brown, Jane Fung, Marilee Sprenger and Karen Bromley, and you can also listen to a ten-minute conversation I had with Katie and Marilee about this topic on my BAM! Radio Show.

Today's segment highlights commentaries from Camille Blachowicz, Charlene Cobb, Katherine S. McKnight, Nicole Zuerblis and Susan Chenelle.

In addition, you might find my recent piece for the British Council useful: Five Strategies For ELL Vocabulary Instruction.
Response From Camille Blachowicz & Charlene Cobb
Camille Blachowicz is co-director of The Reading Leadership Institute and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at National Louis University. Charlene Cobb is Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at East Maine School District in Des Plaines, Illinois. Camille and Charlene recently co-authored No More "Look Up the List" Vocabulary Instruction for Heinemann Publishing:
The best instructional strategies for vocabulary development are grounded in an evidence-based model of vocabulary instruction. As a result of both our research and practice, we understand that vocabulary instruction requires more than simply asking students to look up a list of words, define them, and use them in a sentence. Vocabulary instruction needs to enable students to develop an interest and curiosity about learning words, provide students with rich and varied language experiences, provide instruction on specific words, and teach students strategies for approaching new words. These four components comprise a comprehensive model of vocabulary instruction. Students develop an interest and curiosity about learning words in classroom environments filled with books, magazines, and word games with opportunities to use them on on a daily basis. Students learn many more words than those that are directly taught through reading widely and deeply on topics of interest, having chances to use new words in discussion and writing, in keeping personal word journals, and in playing with words. We ask teachers to try 3X5---take three minutes a day, 5 days a week to share a word riddle, a pun or a word puzzle. This helps students develop interest and curiosity about word learning making them likely to engage with instruction on specific words and strategies for approaching new words. Effective instructional strategies for vocabulary are those that are rooted in helping students develop a conceptual understanding of the words they are learning.. There are many evidence-based instructional strategies for teaching specific words. Some that we consistently use include word sorts, knowledge ratings, word maps, and vocabulary frames (Cobb & Blachowicz, 2014). These strategies provide students with opportunities to actively engage with and manipulate words. They can also serve as diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments to giving teachers clues to guide instruction. Students also need to develop word-learning strategies. This includes teaching the range of context clues, (i.e., definition, synonym, antonym, example) and helping student learn to look around the word (context clues) as well as within the word (word parts) when they are trying to determine the meaning of a new word. Most importantly, vocabulary instruction needs to be consistent and intentional. Students need multiple opportunities to encounter words in a variety of contexts. Teachers need to embed vocabulary instruction into all subject areas and make time for engaged vocabulary instruction each day.
Response From Katherine S. McKnight
Katherine S. McKnight is an educator, award-winning author, and consultant specializing in adolescent literacy. She is the author of Common Core Literacy for ELA, History/Social Studies, and the Humanities: Strategies to Deepen Content Knowledgeand Common Core Literacy for Math, Science, and Technical Subjects: Strategies to Deepen Content Knowledge. Follow her on Facebook or Twitter:
Language learning, at its most effective, is active and engaging. It taps into a student's natural desire to communicate. Passive activities like writing a vocabulary word five times, copying the definition from a dictionary or glossary, and then using it in a sentence quite simply don't work very well. At their best, those kinds of activities encourage students store personally meaningless words in short-term memory, spit them out on a quiz, and then forget them. In addition, there's plenty of reason to believe that such brain-numbing work actually teaches students to think they dislike academia in general and our class in particular. And that is enough to break the heart of any teacher! The fact is, we all need a vocabulary in order to find the perfect word to express a specific thought. It begins when a toddler struggles to ask for a half glass of apple juice in the yellow plastic cup (My goodness, think of all the vocabulary that's necessary to get that idea across.) and it continues as long as there are new thoughts and ideas to be conveyed. Vocabulary development, ideally, is a lifelong process. So how, as teachers, can we exploit our students' need to communicate? Let them play with language. Encourage it. It might seem counterintuitive, but messing around with language is learning language! You can be sure that the student who says, "The dude was acting all pachyderm on the outside but he was all mollusk on the inside," knows that pachyderm means thick-skinned and mollusk means soft-bodied! For those circumstances where long lists of words simply must be learned and memorized, try utilizing organic methods that embrace students' individuality and encourage their creativity. Personal dictionaries let students record definitions in their own words, with their own illustrations and memorization tricks. Visualization is a particularly powerful tool. Experiment with graphic organizers, hand crafted notebooks, index cards, and even digital tools until you find a style of personal dictionary that works for your class. I like to use Vocabulary Slides, graphic representations of words that prompt students to use and manipulate new words in a variety of ways. They're particularly effective when students work in small groups. Remember, language is more naturally learned when using it to communicate! But the most important way for a teacher to develop students' vocabulary is by demonstrating his or her own passion for words. As much as possible, use a wide variety of words creatively, precisely, and well. They'll notice. Response From Nicole Zuerblis
Nicole Zuerblis is a National Board Teacher certified in Literacy: Reading/Language Arts and a fellow of the National Writing Project. She is a member of ASCD's 2011 Emerging Leaders class and is currently the K-5 Instructional Coach for Neshaminy School District (PA):
We want students to develop a love of reading, and wide reading will boost their passion, comprehension and vocabulary. There are times when explicit instruction is necessary to further develop vocabulary. We have a responsibility to make effective decisions in how and what words we introduce to students. The ultimate goal in learning is always transfer. It's easy to lose sight of this, and like vocabulary's cousin, spelling, assign words for Friday's test, only to be forgotten or seldom applied. So what words are worth our time (and our students' time,) and how do we increase the chance of lasting learning? The real key is for students to transfer vocabulary into their spoken and written language. There are different tiers of words and reasons for learning them. The content specific vocabulary necessary to conduct and describe a science experiment, for example, may be explicitly introduced. It's not as effective for students to "look up" these words; we can define them together in context. As teachers, we need to structure conversations so that students have opportunities to discuss reading and procedures using these content words. Never underestimate the power of modeling. If we want students to use these words in conversations, we need to use them. It sounds simple, but we need to demonstrate how words are part of our growing academic vocabulary, and that vocabulary doesn't end at the end of the latest science unit. Here's where we get the most mileage out of words that can cross curriculum. Words like evidence, derived, process, variable, dominant, and parallel will appear in many contexts and are well worth our time and our students' time in adding them to our academic vocabulary. Vocabulary word walls are effective in promoting academic conversations and are an excellent tool for students to use in their writing. These words should be a result of real reading in authentic context, not a pre-purchased list. We can increase the likelihood of students using words by making word walls interactive. Invite students to draw or digitally create a picture to represent each word's meaning. By letting students create cues to help remember meanings, word walls are even useful for secondary students to illustrate higher level concepts like subsequent. Then, teachers model use of the word wall by referencing it in discussions and promote students' use as a reference in their speaking and writing. Our ultimate goal is to encourage transfer of learning, so we must teach students about words. Instead of focusing on long lists of words, carefully choose some to explicitly introduce, but focus instruction on using context and other resources to figure out meanings. Most importantly, model and give students the opportunities to absorb words into their spoken and written vocabulary.
Response From Susan Chenelle
Susan Chenelle is in her seventh year of teaching English and journalism at University Academy Charter High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. She is co-author, with Audrey A. Fisch, of the Using Informational Text to Teach Literature series from Rowman & Littlefield Education:
The best instructional strategies for vocabulary development are those that support students in mastering new words. Mastery means they can use them fluently when writing and speaking and understand their meaning and purpose when reading and listening. These goals require varied and engaging activities that give students "massive practice" (Moffett) in using them and "promote word consciousness" (Antinarella). I have borrowed many of the strategies that I use in my classroom from Bringing Words to Life by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan. These activities include asking questions that require students to use the words thoughtfully. For example, "Would you rather be known as preeminent or decadent? Why?" or "Do you expect candor from your friends? Why or why not?" In accordance with the Common Core State Standards, I have students practice their dictionary skills to define a word and/or determine how a word is being used in a particular context. On other days, I give them sample sentences so that they can practice using context clues. I use fill-in-the-blank questions to reinforce student awareness of various forms of a vocabulary word. Rigorous and meaningful vocabulary activities can also be fun. The vocabulary skits my students create and perform skits are often quite hilarious, but also allow the class to hear our new words used in various ways in a short timeframe. And the vocabulary squares (Burke) and illustrations (Antinarella) my students create provide visual reminders of word meanings all around my classroom. To accomplish this, we focus on five high-frequency words per week. We don't do every type of activity each week; I rotate activities - based on student needs and my instructional goals - in order to reinforce a variety of vocabulary skills on a regular basis and to provide rich, meaningful encounters that support word mastery.

Thanks to Katherine, Camille, Charlene, Nichole and Susan for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post. I'll be including readers' responses in Part Three.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] .When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Anyone whose question is selected for weekly column can choose one free book from a number of education publishers.

Just a reminder -- you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader... And,if you missed any of the highlights from the first three years of blog, you can see a categorized list below. You won't see posts from school year in those compilations, but you can review those new ones by clicking on the monthly archives link on this blog's sidebar:
Classroom Management Advice Student Motivation Implementing The Common Core Teaching Reading and Writing Parent Engagement In Schools Teaching Social Studies Best Ways To Begin & End The School Year Teaching English Language Learners Using Tech In The Classroom Education Policy Issues Teacher & Administrator Leadership Instructional Strategies Assessment Teaching Math & Science Brain-Based Learning School Relationships Author Interviews Professional Development
Education Week has published a collection of posts from blog -- along with new material -- in an ebook form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Watch for Part Three in a few days....

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Response: Vocabulary Instruction Is More Than Giving 'A List of Words'

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This week's question is: What are the best instructional strategies for vocabulary development? We started-off in Part One with suggestions from Katie Brown, Jane Fung, Marilee Sprenger and Karen Bromley, and you can also listen to a ten-minute conversation I had with Katie and Marilee about this topic on my BAM!

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Before Reading, During Reading, After Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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A Semantic Feature Analysis improves students' comprehension, vocabulary, and content retention. This strategy helps students to examine related features or concepts and make distinctions among them. By analyzing the completed matrix, students are able to visualize connections, make predictions, and better understand important concepts.

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connect two vocabulary strategy - Google Search

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Connect Two Learning Strategy. In a Connect Two activity, students think of any connections they want between any two of the new vocabulary words. They use the words on an analytical level, and make connections to them, before they encounter them in the new reading passage or the BrainPOP ELL movie.

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Brief Description

A student in the "hot seat" asks questions to figure out a secret word.

Objectives

Students will

use critical thinking skills as they ask thoughtful questions to narrow down a large list of words to one "secret word."

word wall, vocabulary, game, spelling

Materials Needed

No special materials needed

Lesson Plan

This activity can be used as a whole-class activity. If you teach students who can work independently, you might use it as a small group or pair activity once students are familiar with the activity's rules.

In this activity, one student is selected to come to the front of the class and take the "hot seat." The hot seat is located a few feet in front of a chalkboard, whiteboard, or chart. The student sits in a chair facing his or her classmates and with his or her back to the board or chart. The student also should have a clear view of the class word wall.

The teacher or a classmate selects a word from the word wall (or from students' spelling or vocabulary lists) and writes that word on the board or chart. The student in the hot seat is unable to see the word, but it is his/her job to guess the word by asking questions that help to narrow down the possibilities. For example, the student in the hot seat might ask

Is it a noun?

Does it have fewer than 10 letters?

Does it have more than two syllables?

Is the vowel a found in the word?

Would this word be found in the first half of the dictionary?

As the student narrows down the word, the questions might get more specific. For example, if the students gets a positive response to the question Is it an animal?, then the follow-up questions might include Is it bigger than a fox? or Does this animal live in the rain forest? If the clues help the student narrow down the word to a handful of possibilities, the student might ask questions to narrow down those possibilities, such as Does the word mean the same thing as [a definition of the word]? or Does the word rhyme with [another word]?

Keep a tally of the number of questions/clues it takes for the student to guess the word.

Assessment

Which students guess the word in the fewest number of clues?

Lesson Plan Source

Shari Medley (adapted from an unknown original source)

Submitted By

Shari Medley; Shari also contributed to the Education World article, Teachers Say Word Walls Work!

National Standards

LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.6 Applying Knowledge
NL-ENG.K-12.12 Applying Language Skills

Click here to return to this week's word-wall lesson plan page.

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facebookbadge] Brief Description A student in the "hot seat" asks questions to figure out a secret word. Objectives Students will use critical thinking skills as they ask thoughtful questions to narrow down a large list of words to one "secret word."

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Brief Description

Students use clues to narrow down a "mystery word."

Objectives

Students will

practice using words on the classroom word wall (or a vocabulary or spelling list).

use clues to narrow down the possibilities.

word wall, vocabulary, spelling, mystery word, game

Materials Needed

scrap paper; a mini whiteboard, or a mini chalkboard.

writing implement (pencil, marker, or chalk)

list of word wall, vocabulary, or spelling words with clues to help students guess them (see Examples in Lesson Plan below)

Lesson Plan

In this game, students use clues to figure out a "mystery word" that appears on the classroom word wall.

Provide each student with a small piece of paper; this is a great activity for recycling some of that scrap paper you have been collecting.

Alternate idea: If you use mini-whiteboards or chalkboards in your classroom, this is an excellent opportunity to use them.

Have students number their papers or whiteboard from 1 to 5. Then select a "mystery word" from the word wall (or vocabulary or spelling lists) and give five successive clues to help students identify the word. Each successive clue should help students further narrow down the words on the word wall to the special mystery word. As you give each clue, students should select one word from the word wall that matches all the clues given to that point in the game. The last clue should be the most obvious one.

EXAMPLE 1:
Mystery Word: puppy
Clue 1: The mystery word is one of our word wall words.
Clue 2: The mystery word has two syllables.
Clue 3: The mystery word has five letters.
Clue 4: The mystery word has three letters that are all the same.
Clue 5: The mystery word will complete this statement: My father bought a new _____ at the pet store.
EXAMPLE 2:
Mystery Word: pollution
Clue 1: The mystery word is one of our word wall words.
Clue 2: The mystery word has more than six letters.
Clue 3: The mystery word has three syllables.
Clue 4: The mystery word ends with the suffix -tion.
Clue 5: The mystery word rhymes with the word solution.

After you have given the five clues, have students show their papers or slates. Which student(s) guessed the mystery word with the fewest possible clues?

Assessment

Each student who guesses the correct word at the earliest possible clue earns a point. Tally points at the end of the game to determine which students are the winners.

Lesson Plan Source

Shari Medley (adapted from an unknown original source)

Submitted By

Shari Medley; Shari also contributed to the Education World article, Teachers Say Word Walls Work!

National Standards

LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.6 Applying Knowledge
NL-ENG.K-12.12 Applying Language Skills

Click here to return to this week's word-wall lesson plan page.

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facebookbadge] Brief Description Students use clues to narrow down a "mystery word." Objectives Students will practice using words on the classroom word wall (or a vocabulary or spelling list). use clues to narrow down the possibilities. word wall, vocabulary, spelling, mystery word, game Materials Needed scrap paper; a mini whiteboard, or a mini chalkboard.

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Word Wizard: Free Activity for Teaching Vocabulary - Flocabulary

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Discover the "Word Wizard"" activity for teaching vocabulary in the classroom."

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The Magic of Words: Teaching Vocabulary in the Early Childhood Classroom 

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The Magic of Words: Teaching Vocabulary in the Early Childhood Classroom 

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Susan B. Neuman and Tanya S. Wright

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Vocabulary Development During Read-Alouds: Primary Practices

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Vocabulary Development During Read-Alouds: Primary Practices

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By: Karen J. Kindle

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Reading storybooks aloud to children is recommended by professional organizations as a vehicle for building oral language and early literacy skills (International Reading Association & National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998). Reading aloud is widely accepted as a means of developing vocabulary (Newton, Padak, & Rasinski, 2008), particularly in young children (Biemiller & Boote, 2006). Wide reading is a powerful vehicle for vocabulary acquisition for older and more proficient readers (Stanovich, 1986), but since beginning readers are limited in their independent reading to simple decodable or familiar texts, exposure to novel vocabulary is unlikely to come from this source (Beck & McKeown, 2007). Read alouds fill the gap by exposing children to book language, which is rich in unusual words and descriptive language.

Much is known about how children acquire new vocabulary and the conditions that facilitate vocabulary growth. Less is known about how teachers go about the business of teaching new words as they read aloud. The effortless manner in which skilled teachers conduct read alouds masks the complexity of the pedagogical decisions that occur. Teachers must select appropriate texts, identify words for instruction, and choose strategies that facilitate word learning. This study sheds light on the process by examining the strategies that teachers use to develop vocabulary as they read aloud to their primary classes.

What we know about vocabulary and read alouds

Reading aloud to children provides a powerful context for word learning (Biemiller & Boote, 2006; Bravo, Hiebert, & Pearson, 2007). Books chosen for readalouds are typically engaging, thus increasing both children's motivation and attention (Fisher, Flood, Lapp, & Frey, 2004) and the likelihood that novel words will be learned (Bloom, 2000). As teachers read, they draw students' attention to Tier 2 words-the "high frequency words of mature language users" (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002, p. 8). These words, which "can have a powerful effect on verbal functioning" (Beck et al., 2002, p. 8), are less common in everyday conversation, but appear with high frequency in written language, making them ideal for instruction during read alouds. Tier 1 words, such as car and house, are acquired in everyday language experiences, seldom requiring instruction. Tier 3's academic language is typically taught within content area instruction.

During read aloud interactions, word learning occurs both incidentally (Carey, 1978) and as the teacher stops and elaborates on particular words to provide an explanation, demonstration, or example (Bravo et al., 2007). Even brief explanations of one or two sentences, when presented in the context of a supportive text, can be sufficient for children to make initial connections between novel words and their meanings (Biemiller & Boote, 2006). Word learning is enhanced through repeated readings of text, which provide opportunities to revise and refine word meanings (Carey, 1978). These repetitions help students move to deeper levels of word knowledge from never heard it, to sounds familiar, to it has something to do with, to well known (Dale, 1965).

Incidental word learning through read alouds

Carey (1978) proposed a two-stage model for word learning that involves fast and extended mapping. Fast mapping is a mechanism for incidental word learning, consisting of the connection made between a novel word and a tentative meaning. Initial understandings typically represent only a general sense of the word (Justice, Meier, & Walpole, 2005) and are dependent on students' ability to infer meaning from context (Sternberg, 1987).

Extended mapping is required to achieve complete word knowledge, because "initial learning of word meanings tends to be useful but incomplete" (Baumann, Kame'enui, & Ash, 2003, p. 755). Through additional exposures, the definition is revised and refined to reflect new information (Carey, 1978; Justice et al., 2005).

Adult mediation in read alouds

The style of read aloud interaction is significant to vocabulary growth (Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Green Brabham & Lynch-Brown, 2002) with reading styles that encourage child participation outperforming verbatim readings. Simply put, "the way books are shared with children matters" (McGee & Schickedanz, 2007, p. 742).

High-quality read alouds are characterized by adult mediation. Effective teachers weave in questions and comments as they read, creating a conversation between the children, the text, and the teacher. To facilitate word learning, teachers employ a variety of strategies such as elaboration of student responses, naming, questioning, and labeling (Roberts, 2008).

Analysis of the literature on vocabulary learning through read alouds leads to two conclusions. First, adult mediation facilitates word learning (i.e., Justice, 2002; Walsh & Blewitt, 2006). Biemiller and Boote (2006) concluded that "there are repeated findings that encouraging vocabulary acquisition in the primary grades using repeated reading combined with word meaning explanations works" (p. 46).

Second, the relative effectiveness of different types of mediation remains less clear. Adult explanations are clearly linked to greater word learning, but it is not evident which aspects of the explanations are the critical components: the context, a paraphrased sentence, or even the child's interest in the story (Brett, Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Justice et al., 2005). It is also possible that active involvement in discussions is more salient than the type of questions posed (Walsh & Blewitt, 2006).

Setting for the study

This study was conducted at a small private school in the south central United States. Westpark School (pseudonym) is located in an ethnically diverse, middle class neighborhood in a suburb of a large metropolitan area. Four of the six primary teachers at Westpark agreed to participate in the study: one kindergarten, one first-grade, and two second-grade teachers. Cindy, Debby, Patricia, and Barbara (all pseudonyms) varied in their years of experience. Debby, who had previously retired from public school teaching, was the most experienced with more than 20 years in the classroom. Barbara was also a veteran with 10 years of experience. At the other end of the spectrum, Patricia was in her third year of teaching, and Cindy was in her internship year of an alternative licensure program.

Observations and interviews

To determine the teachers' practices for developing vocabulary within read alouds, the teachers' "own written and spoken words and observable behavior" (Bliss, Monk, & Ogborn, 1983, p. 4) provided the best sources of data. By constructing detailed, extensive descriptions of teacher practice within a single site, patterns of interaction and recurring themes can be identified (Merriam, 2001).

Carspecken's (1996) critical ethnography methodology was adapted and used to collect and analyze data. Observations were conducted to identify patterns of teacher-student interactions within readalouds. Following preliminary coding, individual interviews were conducted. The combined data provide a rich description of the pedagogical context of vocabulary development during read alouds.

Each teacher was observed four times over a sixweek period. The teachers were asked to include a readaloud during each observation and were informed that vocabulary development was the focus of this study. They were encouraged to "just do what they normally would do" when reading to their classes. The hour-long observations, scheduled at the teachers' convenience, were audiotaped and transcribed. Additional data, such as gestures, actions, and descriptions of student work, were recorded in field notes. Transcriptions and field notes were compiled in a thick record for analysis.

Following the observations and preliminary data coding, semistructured individual interviews were conducted. An interview protocol was developed and peer-reviewed. Topics for discussion included teaching experience, understanding of vocabulary development, use of read alouds, and instructional strategies. Lead-off questions and possible followup questions were generated to ensure that key areas were adequately addressed in the interview. Transcripts of the interviews were coded and the observation data were re-analyzed and peer-reviewed.

Vocabulary instruction during read alouds

The determination that a particular word in a readaloud is unfamiliar to students triggers a series of decisions. The teacher must decide both the extent and intent of instruction. How much time should be spent? What do students need to know about this word? Also, the teacher must select an appropriate instructional strategy from a wide range of possibilities. Which strategy will be most effective? What is the most efficient way to build word knowledge without detracting from the story? The teachers at Westpark used a variety of instructional strategies and levels of instructional foci in their read alouds.

Instructional focus

Categories of instructional focus emerged during data coding. Interactions centered on vocabulary differed in both extent and intent. The extent, or length, of interactions varied greatly. Typically, more instructional time was spent on words that were deemed critical to story comprehension or that students would be using in a subsequent activity. Pragmatic issues of time seemed to impact the extent of the interactions as well. The frequency and length of interactions tended to decrease through the course of the read aloud as the time allotted came to an end or children's attention began to wane.

Levels of Instruction

Level of instruction

Example

Explanation

Incidental exposure

I don't know what I would have done. Curiosity might have gotten the better of me.

Teacher infuses a Tier 2 word into a discussion during the read aloud.

Embedded instruction

And he's using a stick-an oar-to help move the raft [pointing to illustration].

Teacher provides a synonym before the target term oar, pointing to the illustration.

Focused instruction

Let's get set means let's get ready [elicit examples of things students get ready for].

Teacher leads a discussion on what it means to get set, including getting set for school and Christmas.

As seen in the table, three different levels of instruction were identified in the data: incidental exposure, embedded instruction, and focused instruction. Incidental exposure occurred during the course of discussions before, during, and after reading and resulted from teachers' efforts to infuse rich vocabulary into class discourse. For example, during one discussion, Cindy commented that the character was humble; in another that she came bearing gifts. Even though no direct instruction was provided for these terms, the intent is instructional since Cindy deliberately infused less common words to build vocabulary knowledge through context clues.

Embedded instruction is defined as attention to word meaning, consisting of fewer than four teacher-student exchanges. The teachers used embedded instruction when the target word represented a familiar concept for the students or when it was peripheral to the story. Information was provided about word meaning with minimal disruption to the flow of the reading. Typically, teachers gave a synonym or a brief definition and quickly returned to the text.

Focused instruction occurred when target words were considered important to story comprehension or when difficulties arose communicating word meaning. These interactions varied greatly in length from 4 to 25 teacher-student exchanges. Focused instruction often took place before or after reading. In most cases, the teachers had identified keywords that they felt were important for students to learn, warranting additional time and attention. Other times, focused instruction appeared to be spontaneous, triggered by students' questions or "puzzled looks" during the reading.

Instruction also varied in its intent. Teachers sought to develop definitional, contextual, or conceptual word knowledge (Herman & Dole, 1988) based on the specific situation. The learning goal shaped the nature of the interactions.The definitional approach was used when the underlying concept was familiar to the students or when the goal of instruction was to simply provide exposure to a word. Teachers either provided or elicited a synonym or phrase that approximated the meaning of the target word. This approach can be quite efficient, requiring little investment of time (Herman & Dole, 1988), thus allowing attention to be given to many words during the course of the read aloud.Teachers developed contextual knowledge when they referred students back to the text to determine word meaning. In such cases, the teacher might refer students back to the text or reread the sentence in which the target term occurred, helping students to confirm or disconfirm their thinking as in this example from Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachlan, 1985):

Cindy: Wooly ragwort. Where is that? [looks through text] What was wooly ragwort? Do you remember? It was part of Caleb's song.

Student: Yeah.

Cindy: It said-or Sarah said [reads from the text], "We don't have these by the sea. We have seaside goldenrod and wild asters and wooly ragwort."

Cindy's intent was for students to gain contextual knowledge using the information in the text to draw a tentative conclusion about word meaning. This example highlights one of the problems inherent with contextual strategies. Students, perhaps misled by the word sea in the text, suggested that wooly ragwort might be a seal, a bird, or a stone. Since they were unfamiliar with goldenrod and asters, they were unable to use these clues effectively to conclude that wooly ragwort was a plant. In this case, reminding students that the characters were picking wildflowers might have helped.

Learning a definition is seldom enough for children to develop deep word knowledge. Students need conceptual knowledge to make connections between new words, their prior experiences, and previously learned words and concepts (Newton et al., 2008). Cindy relayed an incident that taught her the importance of building conceptual knowledge when working with unfamiliar words. She had instructed her students to look up the word pollinate in the dictionary, write two or three sentences using the word, and then draw a picture illustrating its meaning. Unfortunately, the definition contained many words that the children did not know such as pistil and stamen. It was obvious when she reviewed their work that her students "didn't get it." Cindy realized that the definition was not sufficient for them to understand the concept of pollination.

Instructional strategies

Within the constructs described above, teachers employed a variety of instructional strategies. Nine categories of instructional strategies were identified during the observations:

1. Questioning

2. Providing a definition

3. Providing a synonym

4. Providing examples

5. Clarifying or correcting students' responses

6. Extending a student-generated definition

7. Labeling

8. Imagery

9. Morphemic analysis

Each of these strategies is described along with examples from the observation data.

Questioning. The most commonly used strategy was questioning. As the teachers read and encountered a word that they thought might be unfamiliar, they would simply stop and ask about it. This strategy usually occurred at the beginning of an instructional exchange. For example, after reading a section of Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachlan, 1985), Debby paused to ask her students about the word bonnet.

Debby: What's a bonnet? Do you all know what a bonnet is? What's a bonnet?

It is interesting to note that most of the teachers repeated the question several times in their initial utterance. This practice gives students time to formulate a response and also helps to establish a phonological representation of the new word, which is linked to word learning (Beck & McKeown, 2001).Questioning was also used to assess the students' existing word knowledge and to determine if students had effectively used context clues. Once a correct response was given, the exchange ended and the teacher resumed reading, as seen in the following sequence.

Debby: [reads from The BFG, Dahl, 1982] "So I keep staring at her and in the end her head drops on to her desk and she goes fast to sleep and snorkels loudly." What is that?

Student: Snores.

Debby: [resumes reading] "Then in marches the head teacher."

Alternatively, the teacher might provide the definition and ask students to supply the term. For example, in an after-reading discussion, Patricia asked students to recall the meaning of research to review or assess word learning.

Patricia: And what was it called when they look in the encyclopedia for information? What was that word, John?

This strategy can prove difficult. John and several of his classmates made incorrect responses before the correct answer was given.Providing the Definition. At times, teachers chose to provide a definition of a word. Word learning is enhanced when the explanation is made in simple, child-friendly language and the typical use of the word is discussed (Beck et al., 2002). This strategy was more commonly used in embedded instruction, as seen in the following example.

Barbara: [reading Duck for President (Cronin, 2008)] "On election day, each of the animals filled out a ballot and placed it in a box." Filled out a piece of paper. Wrote down who they wanted to vote-or who they wanted to win the election.

Barbara thought it unlikely that her students would be familiar with the word ballot, so she simply provided the definition in terms that kindergartners could understand.Providing Synonyms. An expedient means of providing word meaning is to state a synonym for the word. This method was used often in conjunction with recasting. That is, the teacher repeated a sentence, replacing the target word with a synonym, as seen in this example.

Barbara: Let's get ready. Let's get set.

This strategy was used extensively by Barbara to reinforce word meanings. For example, in a postreading discussion, she went back and reviewed key events in the story, simultaneously reinforcing the meaning of the phrase a bit. Although her focus was comprehension, the students heard the target word alongside a recasting with a synonym many times.

Barbara: So remember, a bit of blue means-how much is she going to add?

Student: Um-a little bit?

Barbara: A little bit, right. Just a small amount.

Barbara: So what happened here? They mixed red, they mixed blue-but it's still red. But why? Why is that Sarah?

Student: Because Sal adds a bit of blue.

Barbara: Right, just a little bit of blue. Just a tiny small amount. But that wasn't enough to change the color, was it?

Student: No.

Barbara: Just a little bit, right.

Providing Examples. Word knowledge can be extended and clarified through examples that may be provided by the teacher or elicited from the students. Students learn how the target word is related to other known words and concepts and are given opportunities to use the target words, further strengthening word learning (Beck et al., 2002). Teachers help students make their own connections when they ask for examples of how or where students have heard the word used, or remind them of situations in which they might have encountered a specific word.

As Patricia introduced a folk tale, she wanted her students to be prepared for the regional language they would hear. Although she did not use the word dialect, she explained that the language in the story would sound different to them and asked them for examples from their own experiences.

Patricia: This is a story from Appalachia and they use a different kind of language. Uh, they speak in English, but they kind of talk - what do you call it - country. Have you ever heard people talk like that?

Student 1: Yeah.

Student 2: My grandma.

Patricia: They use different little sayings and maybe have a different accent to their voice.

Student 3: But they're still speaking English.

Student 4: Like New York?

Student 5: England, England!

Student 6: Kind of like cowboys

Two students demonstrated their understanding of the concept as they generated their examples of New York and English accents. Another student made the connection between dialect and the cowboy lingo the class had learned during a recent unit of study.

Clarification and Correction. Teacher guidance is an important part of the instructional process (Beck et al., 2002). At times, students suggest definitions for target words that reflect misconceptions or partial understandings. The teacher must then either correct or clarify students' responses. When Patricia asked her students for the meaning of the word glared, a student gave a response that was partially correct, but missed the essence of the meaning. Patricia's additional question helped the students to refine their understandings.

Patricia: What does it mean to glare at somebody?

Student: Stare at them?

Patricia: Yeah. Is it a friendly stare?

Student: No-like [makes an angry face].

Extension. Due to the gradual nature of word learning, students may provide definitions that are correct but simplistic. The teacher may elect to extend the definition, providing additional information that builds on the student's response. For example, when a student stated that a bonnet was something you wear on your head, Debby extended the definition by providing some historical information and describing its function or use.

Debby: They wore it a lot on in the prairie days because they traveled a lot and they got a lot of you-those wagon trains and the stagecoaches and all were kind of windy. And so they would keep their bonnets on-to keep their head-their hair from blowing all over the place. Very, very common to use-to wear bonnets back then.

Labeling. Labeling was most often used with picture book read alouds. As the teacher named the unfamiliar item, she pointed to the illustration, connecting the word with the picture. Debby used this strategy while reading Leonardo and the Flying Boy (Anholt, 2007) to her second graders, pointing to the depictions of various inventions mentioned in the text. Thus, without interrupting the flow of the reading, word meaning was enhanced as children related novel terms with the visual images.

Barbara used the strategy extensively with her kindergartners. While reading Duck for President(Cronin, 2008), she pointed to the picture of the lawnmower as she described how a push mower is different from the more familiar power mowers. In another text, she reversed the process, providing the unfamiliar word raft for the boat pictured in the illustration.

Imagery. At times, teachers used facial expressions, sounds, or physical movements to demonstrate word meaning during the course of read alouds. Gestures of this type occurred more frequently when the teachers were reading aloud from chapter books, perhaps due to the lack of illustrations to provide such visual support. In some cases, imagery appeared to be intrinsic to expressive reading, rather than a deliberate effort to enhance word meaning. For example, Debby lowered her head and looked sad as she read about a character hanging his head in shame. Although her intent was to create a dramatic reading, the addition of the simple actions would also serve to facilitate word learning if that particular expression was unknown to students. In the following example, Debby provided two imagery clues as she read the text.

Debby: [reads text] "There was a hiss of wind." [extends /s/ to create a hissing sound] "A sudden pungent smell." [holds her hand up to her nose].

The use of imagery was more common with embedded instruction than with the longer focused instructional exchanges. Typically, imagery was used to enhance students' understanding of the text without impeding the flow of the story, although in some instances, imagery was used after discussion as a means of reinforcing the stated definition. At times, however, the use of imagery was a more integral part of instruction and was even used by the children when they could demonstrate a word meaning more easily than put it in words. When Patricia asked her students about the meaning of the word pout, several responded nonverbally, sticking out their lower lips and looking sad. Cindy used the strategy to help her students understand the meaning of the word rustle. Although a student provided a synonym, Cindy used imagery to extend word learning.

Cindy: What does rustle mean?

Student: Moves?

Cindy: Movement. OK. What's a rustle sound like? Somebody rustle for me. [students begin moving their feet under their desks] Maybe like [shuffles her feet], like really soft sounds. Like a movement. They're not meaning to make a noise, but they are just kind of moving around in the grass and stuff.

Morphemic Analysis. Even young children need to become aware of how word parts are combined to make longer, more complex words. Children can be taught to "look for roots and/or familiar words when trying to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word" (Newton et al., 2008, p. 26). Instructional strategies that draw children's attention to structural analysis are an appropriate choice when the meaning of the root word is familiar. In the exchange that follows, Barbara drew attention to the prefix re-, affixed to the familiar word count.

Barbara: [reads text] "Farmer Brown demanded a recount." A recount is-do you know what a recount is, Jeremy?

Jeremy: Uh, no.

Barbara: A recount is-he said he wanted the votes to be counted again.

Multiple Strategies. Teachers often employed more than one strategy during focused instruction. Although questioning was commonly used to initiate instruction, the target word must be either partially known or appear in a very supportive context for this strategy to be effective. Questioning can lead to guessing, so "it is important to provide guidance if students do not quickly know the word's meaning" (Beck et al., 2002, p. 43). In cases where questioning yielded either an incorrect response or no response at all, teachers added additional strategies, such as providing the definition, examples, or imagery.

Discussion

The practices of the teachers at Westpark are both unremarkable and remarkable. They are unremarkable in that their practices are consistent with the descriptions of read alouds in the literature. The teachers selected appropriate texts, words for instruction, and strategies to teach unknown words. They engaged in discussions before, during, and after reading the texts. Practitioners and researchers alike will find familiarity in the descriptions of the read alouds.

At the same time, their practices were remarkable. The intricate series of interactions between teacher, students, and text in a read aloud reflects countless instructional decisions, underlying pedagogical beliefs, and the unique quality of the relationship that has been built between teacher and students. The data obtained from the observations and interviews provide a window into the processes of the readaloud, providing brief but significant glimpses that have important implications. There were many similarities noted in the readaloud practices of the teachers in this study. With the exception of one performance-style reading, readalouds were interactive with the children actively engaged. Attention to word meaning occurred in every read aloud, providing evidence of the importance placed on vocabulary by the teachers. At the same time, individual differences were noted in the way the teachers went about developing word meaning. They varied in their use of incidental exposure, embedded instruction, and focused instruction. Cindy felt it was important for her students to be able to independently figure out word meaning from context. Consistent with that conviction, she most frequently used focused instruction with questioning and incidental exposures, with relatively few incidences of embedded instruction. In contrast, Barbara's pattern of interaction seems to reflect a preference for adult mediation over incidental learning, perhaps stemming from a belief that kindergarten children require more support to learn words during read alouds than their older schoolmates.

In addition to variance in the level of instruction used by the teachers, they also exhibited differences in their use of instructional strategies. Some differences were directly related to the type of book being read. For example, labeling was common when reading picture books, but was seldom used with chapter books. Differences in strategy use may also reflect the teachers' perceptions of appropriate practice for a specific grade. Both second-grade teachers stressed the importance of context clues in teaching vocabulary. This conviction was evident in their frequent use of questioning and context strategies. Other strategies were only used when an adequate response was not obtained, or when a more extensive definition was required for comprehension. The increased use of multiple strategies seen in kindergarten and first grade may reflect the teachers' beliefs that vocabulary development was an important goal apart from story comprehension.

There may be a more pragmatic explanation as well. When reading chapter books, the teachers seemed to have a set stopping point in mind each day. Completing a chapter on time appeared to take precedence over vocabulary instruction. Shorter picture books seemed to afford teachers more time to develop words and employ more strategies within instructional sequences. This would suggest that text selection impacts strategy use in addition to word selection.

Individual differences in read aloud practice are significant because they impact word learning. Even when scripts were used for read alouds, Biemiller and Boote (2006) found that "some teachers were more effective than others in teaching vocabulary to children" (p. 51). They concluded that intangible qualities such as the teachers' attitudes about and enthusiasm for word learning could be a factor in the number of words children learn. Given the degree of variance in word learning, evident when teachers were constrained by a script, it would certainly be expected that differences would only increase when teachers are free to conduct read alouds in their own manner.

Recommendations for practice

Read alouds are instructional events and require the same advance planning as any other lesson. Although the teachers in this study used many strategies identified in the literature as effective, additional time and thought in advance of the reading would have decreased confusions, used time more efficiently, and ultimately increased learning. Books should be selected with vocabulary in mind, previewed, and practiced. Attention to student questions about word meaning that arise during reading is important but may result in extended discourse on words that are not critical to comprehension and can detract significantly from the read aloud experience. Teachers should select target words in advance and plan instructional support based on those particular words. To increase word learning potential, the following five steps are recommended.

1. Identify words for instruction. To maximize learning, words targeted for instruction should be identified in advance. Examine the text for words that are essential for comprehension and Tier 2 words (Beck et al., 2002) that will build reading vocabulary. Look for words that are interesting or fun to say. Narrow the list down to four or five words to target for more in-depth instruction, giving priority to those needed for comprehension.

2. Consider the type of word learning required. Does the target word represent a new label for something familiar or an unfamiliar concept, or is it a familiar word used in a new way? Is the word critical for comprehension? These questions determine the appropriate level of instruction (incidental, embedded, or focused); whether instruction should occur before, during, or after reading; and strategy selection.

3. Identify appropriate strategies. Select strategies that are consistent with your instructional goals. When the novel word represents a new label for a familiar term, a synonym or gesture may be adequate. Providing examples and questioning might be used to develop a new concept prior to reading, with a simple definition included during the reading to reinforce learning.

4. Have a Plan B. If a strategy proves ineffective, be prepared to intervene quickly and provide correction or clarification. Have an easy-tounderstand definition at the ready. Be able to provide a synonym or an example.

5. Infuse the words into the classroom. Find opportunities for the new words to be used in other contexts to encourage authentic use and deepen word learning.

Final thoughts

Read alouds can be viewed as microcosms of balanced instruction. This balance does not result from adherence to a prescribed formula, but rather from countless decisions made by teachers. These instructional decisions affect the balance of direct and incidental instruction, between planning in advance and seizing the teachable moment, the quantity and quality of vocabulary instruction within the readalouds, and ultimately student learning. Teachers' perceptions of an appropriate balance are evident in their uses of read alouds, styles of reading, text selection, and in the way that vocabulary is developed.

The read aloud context has proven to be an effective vehicle for vocabulary instruction, but further research is needed to clarify the conditions that optimize word learning and to determine the most effective manner of adding elaborations and explanations during story reading without detracting from the pleasure of the reading itself. Identifying the practices that are commonly used by primary classroom teachers provides researchers with valuable information that can lead to the development of effective instructional strategies, inservice teachers' staff development, and preservice teacher training.

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Vocabulary Development During Read Alouds: Primary Practices

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Reading aloud is a common practice in primary classrooms and is viewed as an important vehicle for vocabulary development. Read alouds are complex instructional interactions in which teachers choose texts, identify words for instruction, and select the appropriate strategies to facilitate word learning.

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Michigan State University

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Read Aloud with Attention to Vocabulary - Tanya S. Wright

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Overview of Reading and Future Directions

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Nell Duke - Vocabulary Instruction - LEaRN DVD6 EC1

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Dr. Anita Archer Vocabulary Instruction 

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Dr. Anita Archer Vocabulary Instruction 

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Dr. Anita Archer - Vocabulary Instruction

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Dr. Mary E. Curtis
Lesley University

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Dr. Curtis describes explicit vocabulary instruction & provides classroom examples, talks about key strategies students can use, & explains why it is important to provide explicit vocabulary instruction in content area classes.

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Vocabulary Essential 7

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Vocabulary Essential 7

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By: Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, Linda Kucan

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The teacher's edition for a fourth-grade anthology suggests teaching the following words before inviting students to read an excerpt from Charlotte's Web (White, 1952): comfort, cunning, endure, friendless, frolic, lonely, soaked, and stealthily. Why do you think these words were selected? One obvious reason for selecting words to teach is that students do not know the words. Although cunning, endure, frolic, and stealthily are probably unfamiliar to most fourth graders, comfort, friendless, lonely, and soaked are probably not. Familiarity does not seem to be the principle used to make the selection. What about importance or usefulness? Are the selected words useful for writing or talking? Would the words be important to know because they appear in other texts with a high degree of frequency? Some - but not all - of the words might be considered useful or important. Thus, the question remains: Why were the words selected? The purpose of this chapter is to consider what principles might be used for selecting words to teach.

Useful words

As a way to begin thinking about which words to teach, consider that words in the language have different levels of utility. In this regard, we have found our notion of tiers, as discussed in Chapter 1, to be one helpful lens through which to consider words for instructional attention. Recall that Tier One consists of the most basic words - clock, baby, happy - rarely requiring instruction in school. Tier Three includes words whose frequency of use is quite low, often being limited to specific domains - isotope, lathe, peninsula - and probably best learned when needed in a content area. Tier Two words are high-frequency words for mature language users - coincidence, absurd, industrious - and thus instruction in these words can add productively to an individual's language ability.

Identifying Tier Two words in texts

To get an idea of the process of identifying Tier Two words, consider an example. Below is the opening paragraph of a retelling of an old tale (Kohnke, 2001, p. 12) about a donkey who is under a magical spell that forces him to do the chores for a group of lazy servants. The story would likely be of interest to third and fourth graders.

Johnny Harrington was a kind master who treated his servants fairly. He was also a successful wool merchant, and his business required that he travel often. In his absence, his servants would tend to the fields and cattle and maintain the upkeep of his mansion. They performed their duties happily, for they felt fortunate to have such a benevolent and trusting master.

The underlined words are those we identified as consistent with the notion of Tier Two words. That is, most of the words are likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users. (Note: We chose this paragraph because there were so many candidate Tier Two words; however, most grade-level material would not have so many words in only one paragraph.)

One "test" of whether a word meets the Tier Two criterion of being a useful addition to students' repertoires is to think about whether the students already have ways to express the concepts represented by the words. Would students be able to explain these words using words that are already well known to them? If that is the case, it suggests that the new words offer students more precise or mature ways of referring to ideas they already know about. One way to answer the question is to think about how average third and fourth graders would talk about the concepts represented by the Tier Two words. We think that students would be likely to offer the explanations shown in the accompanying list.

Adding the seven target words to young students' vocabulary repertoires would seem to be quite productive, because learning the words would allow students to describe with greater specificity people and situations with which they already have some familiarity. Note that these words are not simple synonyms of the familiar ones, however, instead representing more precise or more complex forms of the familiar words. Maintain means not only "keep going," for example, but also "to continue something in its present condition or at its present level." Benevolent has the dimension of tolerance as well as kindness.

Selecting from a pool of words

The decision about which words to teach must also take into account how many words to teach in conjunction with any given text or lesson. Given that students are learning vocabulary in social studies and science as well as reading or language arts, there needs to be some basis for limiting the number of words so that students will have the opportunity to learn some words well.

Now consider which of the words will be most useful in helping students understand the above paragraph. For the seven words noted there, our thinking is that fortunate is particularly important because the fact that the servants thought they were lucky is an important condition of the story. Similarly, benevolent plays an important role in setting up the story, as the servants appreciate their master's kindness and do not want to upset their pleasant living situation. If one other word were to be selected, a good choice would be merchant. Merchant is a word that comes up in fourth- and fifth-grade social studies textbooks in discussions of colonization of the Americas (e.g., "European merchants were eager to locate new resources like tobacco and indigo which could be found in the colonies"; or "Colonial merchants were dismayed by the taxes on English goods which meant higher prices for their customers but no more profit for themselves").

The other candidate words, tend, required, performed, and maintain, are also words of strong general utility, and the choice of whether to include any more words is based solely on considering how many words one thinks students can usefully handle.

You try it

Below is another excerpt from the tale about the donkey under the magical spell described above (Kohnke, 2001, p. 12). You might find it useful to try your hand at identifying Tier Two words. You will get to see our choices below the excerpt, so that you can compare your selections with ours.

The servants would never comment on this strange occurrence [finding the kitchen clean even though none of them were seen doing the cleaning], each servant hoping the other had tended to the chores. Never would they mention the loud noises they'd hear emerging from the kitchen in the in middle of the night. Nor would they admit to pulling the covers under their chins as they listened to the sound of haunting laughter that drifted down the halls to their bedrooms each night. In reality, they knew there was a more sinister reason behind their good fortune.

Which words did you select? Trying to be all-inclusive, selecting any words that might fit Tier Two, we chose comment, occurrence, tended, mention, emerging, admit, haunting, reality, sinister, and fortune. We considered them Tier Two words as we viewed them as fairly "general but sophisticated words." That is, they are not the most basic or common ways of expressing ideas, but they are familiar to mature language users as ordinary as opposed to specialized language. The concepts embodied in each word are ones that students already have some understanding of, as shown in the accompanying list.

Now, the notion of tiers of words is not a precise one, and the lines between tiers are not clear-cut, so your selection may not match ours. Thinking in terms of tiers is just a starting point - a way of framing the task of choosing candidate words for instruction (see the accompanying box). Even within Tier Two, some words will be more easily familiar and some will be more useful than others. For example, our hunch is that admit, reality, and fortune are likely known to most fourth or fifth graders; that tended is not often used in a way that is key to understanding; and that fifth graders may already associate haunting with scary things - a Halloween context - which is fitting for this story. Thus we ended up with comment, occurrence, mention, emerging, and sinister. We judged the first four of these to be most useful across a range of contexts, and we chose sinister because it is a strong word with emotional impact that is used in literature to describe fictional characters as well as in nonfiction, such as when describing a group's sinister plans to invade another's territory.

Considerations beyond Tier Two

There is nothing scientific about the way words are identified for attention in school materials. Some words are obvious candidates, such as selecting the word representation for a social studies unit on the American Revolutionary War era. But beyond the words that play major roles, choices about what specific set of words to teach are quite arbitrary. Teachers should feel free to use their best judgment, based on an understanding of their students' needs, in selecting words to teach. They should also feel free to treat words in different ways. As Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will show, Tier Two words are not only words that are important for students to know, they are also words that can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students have opportunities to build rich representations of them and of their connections to other words and concepts.

In many texts, however, there may be several unfamiliar words that do not meet the criteria for Tier Two words but which nevertheless require some attention if students are to understand a selection. Consider the following excerpt from the short story "My Father, the Entomologist" (Edwards, 2001, p. 5):

"Oh, Bea, you look as lovely as a longhorn beetle lifting off for flight. And I must admit your antennae are adorable. Yes, you've metamorphosed into a splendid young lady."Bea rolled her eyes and muttered, "My father, the entomologist." "I heard that, Bea. It's not nice to mumble. Unless you want to be called a ... Mumble Bea!" Bea's father slapped his knee and hooted. Bea rolled her eyes a second time. The first day of fifth grade, and my father tells me I look like a longhorn beetle. Bea shuddered at the thought. She absolutely detested bugs.

With fourth and fifth-grade students in mind, we have divided the 12 underlined words from the story into the following three categories:

The first column contains words that are important to the story but that can be dealt with very quickly. Longhorn beetle does not call for attention-students will understand it as a type of insect, and more knowledge is not needed to understand the story.

Antennae and entomologist are needed to understand the situation the author uses to set up the story, but the two words can be quickly described as "those things that stick out from an insect's head" and "a scientist who studies insects." More precise information is not required for this selection.

Metamorphosed can be explained as simply changed or grown, but to get the humor intended here, the information needs to be given that it is the type of change that certain insects go through, such as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. But, again, no more precision is required, and this is not the place to go through the elaborate explanation about the process or how it occurs. That should occur in a science unit about insects.

The words in the next two columns have more general applications and are consistent with Tier Two words. The words in the second column - obsessed, detest, and despise - are most substantively related to the plot of the story, which is about a father who is obsessed with bugs and his daughter who detests and despises them. Detest and despise create a kind of "two-fer" situation, in that they are very close synonyms that could be introduced together and used interchangeably.

The rest of the words do not play key roles in the story, nor is their unfamiliarity likely to interfere with comprehension. So, which other words are attended to, if any, is simply a matter of choice and convenience. That is, a decision as to the number of words taught might be made on the basis of how many a teacher wants to make room for at the moment. Factors in this decision may include, for example, how large the current vocabulary load is in the classroom, the time of year, and the number and difficulty of other concepts presently being dealt with in the curriculum.

Assume that there is room for several more words from this story. It might be convenient to teach splendid and shuddered, because they could take advantage of concepts already established for the story. Shuddered fits well, since something that is detested might well make one shudder. Splendid is also a good fit, as in: "Bea's dad thinks bugs are splendid, but Bea detests them." Or "If you're obsessed about something, you might think it's splendid." These two words would also be favored because they have a bit more dimension to them than mumble, muttered,or hurl. This is not to say that mumble, muttered,or hurl should not be taught, but simply that, presented with the choice of words to work with, splendid and shuddered seem to lend themselves to a wider diversity of possible uses.

What if there are not enough words?

Now let us consider a text that does not seem to offer much for vocabulary development because all of the words in the text are familiar to students. An approach in such a case could be selecting words whose concepts fit in with the story even though the words do not appear. For example, if the story features a character who is a loner, introduce the words hermit, isolated,or solitary; if a problem is dealt with, present it as a dilemma or conflict; if a character is hardworking, consider if he or she is diligent and conscientious. Think in terms of words that coordinate with, expand, or play off of words, situations, or characters in a text.

Bringing in words whose concepts fit with a story is especially salient when young children are just learning to read and there are only the simplest words in their text. Consider a story in which two children (Pam and Matt) try on a number silly hats, some of which are very big and two of which are exactly alike. A number of words came to mind, and we chose absurd, enormous, and identical. Next we suggest how those words might be introduced to young children:

In the story, Pam and Matt had very, very silly hats. Another way to say that something is very, very silly is to say that it is absurd. When something is absurd, it is so silly it's hard to believe.

Some of the hats that Pam and Matt wore were so big that all you could see were their feet. Another way to say that something is very, very big is to say that it is enormous. Enormous means "very big - very, very big."

Pam and Matt put on red hats that were almost exactly alike. A way to say that two things are exactly alike is to say that they are identical. Identical means "exactly alike."

Words don't need to be completely unfamiliar to students in order to be good candidates for instructional attention. Words might be selected for attention that may be familiar to students but which illustrate the power of an author's choice of words to reveal information about a character or situation. For example, notice the underlined words in the following excerpt, which is taken from a sixth-grade unit on Egypt (Banks et al., 1997, p. 87). The topic is Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was a princess and the wife of a pharaoh. She seized the chance to become pharaoh herself when her husband died. Her young stepson was supposed to become the new pharaoh of Egypt. Hatshepsut proclaimed, however, that the ten-year-old boy was too young to rule on his own. In this way she succeeded in being named co-ruler.

Hatshepsut's Trading Journey
In the eighth year of her reign, Hatshepsut organized the biggest trading expedition of her career. An expedition is a group of people who go on a trip for a set reason. The goal of Hatshepsut's expedition was to trade with Egypt's neighbors to the south in Punt. Historians think Punt may have been in what is today Ethiopia or Somalia...
The huge caravan of scribes, soldiers, artists, and attendants set off along a dusty road that led east to the Red Sea. There they loaded their cargo onto five sleek ships for the long journey south.

The only word identified for attention by the publisher in this segment is expedition, which is explained within the text. The two underlined words - seized and sleek - offer possibilities for drawing students' attention to the effect of an author's choice of words and help the topic come alive.

That Hatshepsut "seized" the chance to become pharaoh reveals something about her character that would make for an interesting discussion. For example: "It says that Hatshepsut seized the chance to become pharaoh. Seize means 'to grab something or take control of it firmly.' So, what does that tell us about Hatshepsut? Was she afraid of being pharaoh? Do you think she was eager to become a ruler?"

Similarly, that the expedition sailed off in "sleek" ships communicates the prosperity and style of the Egyptian civilization. Discussion could prompt thinking in that direction: "Sleek is a word used to describe something graceful and stylish, that marks its owner as well-to-do. 'They sailed off in sleek ships.' What picture does that give us of Egypt?" Additionally, words like ambitious and calculating could be introduced to characterize Hatshepsut.

An example for older students

The examples provided thus far were drawn from texts for readers in the intermediate grades. Although the same principles apply to selecting words from texts for students in the upper grades, they may play out a bit differently. Thus, we present a discussion of the words that might be selected for Agatha Christie's "In a Glass Darkly" (1934), a story that is likely to be of interest to students in eighth or ninth grade. It is a rather brooding tale that moves from a murderous premonition to unrequited love, jealousy, and near tragedy before resolving happily. The story begins as the narrator, while staying with a friend, sees a vision of a man strangling a woman. The woman turns out to be his friend's sister, Sylvia, with whom he falls in love. But Sylvia is engaged to the man he saw in his vision. He tells her of the vision, and she breaks her engagement. For years, the narrator is unable to tell her of his feelings for her. Finally, love is revealed and they marry. But he is deeply jealous, a feeling that results in his nearly strangling his wife - until he notices in the mirror that he is playing out the scene of his premonition.

The language of the story is sophisticated but not particularly difficult. Most words will likely be at least passingly familiar to many readers in eighth or ninth grade. However, many of the words are probably not of high frequency in the students' vocabularies, and thus an opportunity presents itself for students to work with these words and gain fluency with them. Here are the 30 words from the story that we identified as Tier Two words:

Of the 30 words, we decided to focus on 10 of them: essential, altered, well-off, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, revelation, upshot, and disinterested.

Ten words may be a lot to develop effectively for one story, but we see it as a workable number because many of them will already be familiar. Also, two of the words could be introduced rather briefly with little or no follow-up work. These are altered, which could be defined simply as "permanently changed," and well-off, which could simply be given the synonym wealthy. The reason for attention to these two words is that they could cause confusion at the local level in the story if not understood.

Two other words were also chosen because they could cause confusion in a part of the story. These are upshot and disinterested. The narra-tor talks of the upshot of his decision to tell Sylvia that he saw a vision of her fiancé choking her. Because of the context and feel of the story, we thought upshot might be interpreted as some sort of physical violence, instead of simply "the result of." The word disinterested meaning "not being involved in a particular situation" is often confused with uninterested, meaning "not interested," and the story provides a good opportunity to introduce that distinction.

Five words seem to convey the mood and emotional impact of story developments: devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, and revelation. And the word essential was chosen because "one essential detail" turns out to be a key plot device - that is, in his premonition, the narrator notices a scar on the left side of the choker's face. The essential detail he fails to account for is that he is seeing this in a mirror, so the scar is actually on the right. The five words can be used to describe the plot as follows: The narrator is devoted to Sylvia, although entrenched in a jealousy that causes inevitable problems. Only a sobering revelation (that essential detail) saves him, his marriage, and his wife.

A couple of points should be emphasized here. The words were selected not so much because they are essential to comprehension of the story but because they seem most closely integral to the mood and plot. In this way, the vocabulary work provides both for learning new words and for enriching understanding of literature. This decision was made possible because there was a large pool of words from which to choose. Sometimes choices are more limited, and sometimes the best words are not so tied to the story. In such cases, a decision might be made to select words that seem most productive for vocabulary development despite their role in the story.

For the six words we consider to be most important to teach, some characteristics of the words themselves also drove our selections. Sobering was selected because its strongest sense for students might be as the opposite of drunk. So, the context of the story provides a good opportunity to overcome that and introduce its more general sense. The others, essential, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, and revelation, have wide potential for use and are not limited to specific situations or stereotypical contexts. Yet, they seem to be strongly expressive words that can bring emotional impact to contexts in which they are used.

An example for young children

We turn now to selecting words to enhance the vocabulary repertoires of young children - those who are just learning to read. We make two immediate distinctions between vocabulary work with intermediate and older students and work with students in the earliest grades, typically kindergarten though early second grade. The first is that we consider the best sources for new vocabulary to be trade books that teachers read aloud to children rather than the books children read on their own. In Chapter 4 we will make our case for that position. The second distinction is that in contrast to introducing words before a story, in our work with young children we have found it most appropriate to engage in vocabulary activities after a story has been read.

There are two reasons we decided that vocabulary activities for young children should occur after a story. First, if a word is needed for comprehension, since the teacher is reading the story she is available to briefly explain the word at the point in the story where it is needed (e.g., "A ukulele is a kind of guitar"; or "When ducks molt, they lose their feathers and can't fly until new ones grow"). Second, since the words that will be singled out for vocabulary attention are words that are very likely unfamiliar to young children, the context from the story provides a rich example of the word's use and thus strong support for the children's initial learning of the word.

The basis for selecting words from trade books for young children is that they are Tier Two words and words that are not too difficult to explain to young children. Here, we present our thinking for selecting three words for instructional attention from The Popcorn Dragon (Thayer, 1953), a story targeted to kindergartners.

In our review of The Popcorn Dragon for Tier Two candidate words, we first identified the following seven: accidentally, drowsy, pranced, scorched, envious, delighted, and forlorn. From the pool of seven, we decided to provide instruction for three: envious, delighted, and forlorn. We considered three issues in making our choices. First, we determined that the concept represented by each word was understandable to kindergartners; that is, 5-year-olds understand the concepts of wanting something someone else has (envious), being very happy (delighted), and being very sad (forlorn). Second, it is not too difficult to explain the meanings of those words in very simple language, as illustrated in the previous sentence! And, third, each word has extensive possibilities for use. In particular, the words are found in numerous fairy tales; that is, there is often some character who is envious of another, and there are characters who are delighted or forlorn about the turn of events. The words, however, are not restricted to make-believe; they can all be used in describing people in common situations.

We found the other candidate words - pranced, accidentally, scorched, and drowsy - interesting and potentially useful, but we saw scorched and pranced as narrower than the ones we chose, and drowsy and accidentally as not quite so interesting. We hasten to make the point that this is all a matter of judgment. The final decisions about which words to teach may not be as important as thoughtful consideration about why to teach certain words and not others.

What about words being on grade level?

A concern that surfaces in deciding which words to teach is whether words are appropriate for students at certain grade levels. Key to this concern is to understand that no formula exists for selecting age-appropriate vocabulary words despite lists that identify "fifth-grade words" or "seventh-grade words." There is simply no basis for determining which words students should be learning at different grade levels. For example, that coincidence is an "eighth-grade word" according to a frequency index means only that most students do not know the word until eighth grade. It does not mean that students in seventh or even third grade cannot learn the word or should not be taught it.

There are only two things that make a word inappropriate for a certain level. One is not being able to explain the meaning of a word in known terms. If the words used to explain a target word are likely unknown to the students, then the word is too hard. The other consideration for word selection is that the words be useful and interesting - ones that students will be able to find uses for in their everyday lives. Of course, this is a matter of judgment, best decided by those who know the individual students. Work we have done with kindergarten and first-grade children shows that sophisticated words can be successfully taught to young children. For example, kindergartners readily applied nuisance to disruptive classmates, and understood what was happening when a commotion occurred in the hall; first graders could easily discern argumentative peers from those who acted dignified!

In summary

In evaluating words as possible candidates for instruction, here are three things to keep in mind:

How generally useful is the word? Is it a word that students are likely to meet often in other texts? Will it be of use to students in describing their own experiences?

For example, students are likely to find more situations in which to apply typical and dread than portage and brackish.

How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students know or have been learning? Does it directly relate to some topic of study in the classroom? Or might it add a dimension to ideas that have been developed?

For example, what might knowing the word hubris bring to a middle school student's understanding of the battles at Lexington and Concord, which set the Revolutionary War in motion?

What does the word bring to a text or situation? What role does the word play in communicating the meaning of the context in which it is used?

A word's meaning might be necessary for understanding a text. Or understanding its meaning might allow an enriched insight about the situation being presented, such as in the case of Hatshepsut's seizing power and her expedition traveling in sleek ships.

Keep in mind that there is no formula for selecting age-appropriate vocabulary words despite lists that identify "fifth-grade words" or "seventh-grade words." As long as the word can be explained in known words and can apply to what students might talk or write about, it is an appropriate word to teach.

Your turn

We invite you to use what you have learned in this chapter to make some decisions about which words you will teach.

1. Select a text that your students will be reading. It can be a story, or an excerpt from a chapter book or novel, or a social studies textbook.

2. List all the words that are likely to be unfamiliar to students.

3. Analyze the word list:

Which words can be categorized as Tier Two words?

Which of the Tier Two words are most necessary for comprehension?

Are there other words needed for comprehension? Which ones?

4. On the basis of your analysis, which words will you teach?

Which will need only brief attention?

Which will you give more elaborate attention to?

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Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.

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Indirect Learning vs. Direct Learning
Reading Rockets

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Although a great deal of vocabulary is learned indirectly, some vocabulary should be taught directly. Direct instruction helps students learn difficult words, such as words that represent complex concepts that are not part of the students' everyday experiences. Direct instruction of vocabulary relevant to a given text leads to a better reading comprehension.

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Marzano's 6 Step Process

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10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary

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10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary

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Bridget Dalton, Dana L. Grisham

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An eVoc strategy is an electronic or technology-based strategy that teachers can use to develop students' vocabulary learning and interest in words. We use the term eVoc both to highlight that the strategies rely on digital tools and resources and to suggest the evoking of learning potential that is possible when technology and media are part of the instructional mix.

As literacy educators, we need to use the tools that 21st-century technologies afford us (International Reading Association, 2009). Nearly 100% of schools in the United States have Internet access (Wells & Lewis, 2006). In 2010, we can assume that access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) will continue to improve with the increased availability of inexpensive mobile devices and the U.S. Department of Education's inclusion of technology in education reform (National Education Technology Plan, 2010).

Although the pervasiveness of ICTs in all aspects of 21st-century life is quite clear and well accepted, it is less clear how teachers might successfully integrate technology into literacy instruction and specifically vocabulary instruction. Improving students' vocabulary is an area of urgent need if we are to develop the advanced literacy levels required for success in school and beyond (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2008). Vocabulary is also an area where teachers are asking for guidance on instructional approaches, strategies, and materials (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008). We believe that digital tools and media are available in most schools that teachers could harness now to improve vocabulary learning, tools that capture the interest of students and that provide scaffolds and contexts in which to learn with, and about, words more profitably.

The purpose of this article is to highlight 10 eVoc strategies that hold promise for improving vocabulary learning in intermediate grades and that employ digital tools and resources that are readily available and feasible to implement in today's schools. Given the fast pace of technology innovation, not all of these eVoc strategies have direct research evidence; however, they are all supported by research on effective vocabulary instruction, much of it carried out with print materials (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000; Pearson, Hiebert, & Kamil, 2007), and multimedia learning (Fadel & Lemke, 2008; Mayer, 2001).

We encourage teachers to select one or more of these eVoc strategies to try out and adapt to their particular students, curricula, and teaching context. We hope that they share their successes and limitations with their colleagues and with the broader literacy community on the Internet. In the following sections, we first summarize research on vocabulary learning and then present 10 eVoc strategies organized by three principles of vocabulary instruction applied in a digital context. Across all three areas, the role of interest and engagement with words and word learning is addressed.

What does research tell us about vocabulary learning?

Even within our increasingly visual world (Kress, 2003), words remain our pr imar y means of communicat ion. The Nat ional Reading Panel Report (NICHD, 2000) and the RAND Reading Study Group (2002) heightened the importance of vocabulary instruction for student literacy learning. Books and articles on vocabulary instruction are popular (e.g., Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2008; Blachowicz & Obrochta, 2005; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2008), and research on vocabulary is enjoying renewed attention.

Why is vocabulary learning so important? To understand a text, one must understand the words that represent the ideas or concepts. Studies confirm the high correlation (0.6 to 0.8) between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004; Pearson et al., 2007). We also know that there are degrees of word knowledge, from "I've never heard this word before," to "I know this word and can apply it in multiple contexts" (Lubliner & Scott, 2008), as well as metacognitive knowledge about how to apply prior knowledge and strategies to vocabulary learning (Beck et al., 2008).

Of particular concern to educators is the development of academic language. Although we learn oral language that enables us to speak to one another fairly easily, learning academic language is more complex because it involves abstract literacy tasks and language not customarily used in oral speech (Fang, Schleppegrell, & Cox, 2006; Zwiers, 2007). Academic language is a second language, because all literate people must learn it to enable them to access academic content (Solomon & Rhodes, 1995).

For English learners (ELs), academic language may represent the task of learning a third language. Thus, special care must be taken to give them every advantage in learning academic language, particularly in content areas. For example, research suggests that Spanish-speaking students can be taught to recognize cognates (i.e., words with similar meanings that look and sound alike in two languages, such as operation [English] and operación [Spanish]) and use cognate information to comprehend English texts (Lubliner & Grisham, in press; Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007).

We know that there is a wide range in students' word knowledge and that as early as age 5, there is a 30-million-word exposure gap between "haves" and "have nots" (Hart & Risley, 1995). The results of this gap are manifested in students' literacy learning, particularly reading comprehension. The Matthew Effect, where strong readers get stronger and weak readers get weaker (Stanovich, 1986), as well as the fourth-grade reading slump (Chall & Jacobs, 2003), can be attributed, at least in part, to a less developed store of conceptual knowledge and vocabulary.

The good news is that we can improve vocabulary learning and address the gap by actively and systematically teaching vocabulary to our students (Pearson et al., 2007; Zwier s, 2007). Teaching words, morphology, and word origins is an important component in any vocabulary learning program. It is also necessary to provide multiple exposures to the word in different contexts and to teach word learning strategies, such as using context clues, cognate information, and deciding when a word is important to know and remember. Although teaching can make a real difference in vocabulary learning, explicit teaching of vocabulary is not enough; a dedicated teacher can teach perhaps 300-400 words per year (Beck et al., 2008).

Direct vocabulary instruction is essential, but research indicates that students with well-developed vocabulary learn many more words indirectly through reading than from instruction (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2001; Nagy & Herman, 1985). Two strategies that encourage children to read widely and deeply are to provide an array of reading materials that capitalize on their interests and to set aside time for reading during the school day and at home (Trelease, 2006). Conversations about their reading with adults and peers also strengthen students' word learning (Biemiller & Boote, 2006).

Whether directly teaching vocabulary and word learning strategies, or increasing students' volume of reading, an important research-based principle that applies across the board is to promote a lively interest in words through student expression and participation in a learning community that enjoys playing with words, builds on individual interests as well as curriculum needs, and emphasizes self-efficacy in word learning (Beck et al., 2008; Graves & Watts- Taffe, 2008).

These recommendations to improve vocabulary by encouraging wide reading, teaching words and word learning strategies, and promoting active learning and interest in words are not new. The purpose of this article is to encourage teachers to apply these research-based recommendations in new ways, using digital tools, media, and the Internet-that is, to deploy technology in service of vocabulary learning.

Despite the ubiquity of technology and media, it is not on teachers' priority lists of vocabulary instruction strategies and materials (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008). We address this gap by offering 10 eVoc strategies organized into three instructional areas. First, we offer strategies for teaching words and word learning strategies. Second, we focus on on-demand digital language tools to support just-in-time strategic vocabulary learning and reading. Third, we suggest ways to increase the volume of reading to support students' incidental vocabulary learning. Along the way, we offer ways to stimulate students' interest in words and self-efficacy. Technology, when used flexibly in response to students' varied needs and interests, can and should be part of the solution to the vocabulary gap.

Teaching and learning vocabulary

The first five eVoc strategies focus on explicit teaching of vocabulary and helping students become independent word learners.

eVoc strategy 1: Learn from visual displays of word relationships within text

Developing breadth and depth of vocabulary depends on building connections between words and developing elaborate webs of meaning (Boulware- Gooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007). Graphic organizers and visual displays highlight the relationships between words (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004). Two of our favorite word mapping tools that support visual representation are Wordle and Wordsift.

Wordle is a free Web application that allows you to create a word cloud based on the frequency of words in a particular text. It can be used to stimulate students' thinking about the meaning, importance, and relationship of words as they analyze, create, and publish Wordles. To create a word cloud, you paste text into the applet and then manipulate the visual display by selecting the color scheme, layout, and font. Word clouds can be used to highlight keywords and themes to prepare students for reading, as well as prompt discussion after reading.

For example, we created the word cloud in Figure 1 based on an online National Geographic Kids article about the troubling disappearance of honeybees in North America. Questions about this Wordle might include the following:

What does the word cloud suggest this article is about?

What seem to be the most important words?

How do these words go together?

Why do you think the Wordle designer chose this shape of word cloud? (Hint: Think of what bees look like when they swarm.)

Figure 1: Word cloud for bees using Wordle

Students will most likely conjecture that the article is about bees. Some students may notice the less prominent words-dead and poisons-and wonder if the bees are sick. When asked about the color choice, they may speculate that the author/designer chose bright colors to get your attention, or that black goes with poison. What is important in this kind of prereading discussion is students' close attention to the words and how they might relate to one another and to the larger text that they represent. Students actively engage with meaning as they draw on background knowledge about words and concepts as well as on visual literacy skills.

The same bees word cloud could prompt a discussion after reading the article, guided by questions such as,

Do you think the word cloud captured what was most important to learn?

Are there keywords or ideas that are left out?

What superordinate terms reflect the main ideas?

As students manipulate the word cloud's layout, color, and font, they integrate verbal and visual representations, strengthening the multimedia learning effect (Fadel & Lemke, 2008) while developing an important digital literacy skill in our visual society.

For some students, the creative design aspect serves as the hook to engage them in meaning making; for others, it is the words themselves that entice them to explore meanings and relationships. Although Wordles can be published to the public gallery and printed, another option is to use a screen capture program to save the Wordle as an image, creating a bank of images on your desktop or school server. They can then be inserted into a document, PowerPoint, class blog, or other text.

WordSift is another free word cloud tool available on the Internet. Like Wordle, a word cloud is created based on text that is cut and pasted into the application. Although WordSift does not support artistic design of the display, it offers important learning supports. Each word can be clicked on to show a collection of related images, a word map, and a listing of sentences from the text that present the word in different contexts. WordSift also sorts words by difficulty and identifies academic words. Note that both Wordle and WordSift support several different languages, a feature particularly helpful to ELs (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010).

eVoc strategy 2: Take a digital vocabulary field trip

In the original vocabulary field trip (Blachowicz & Obrochta, 2005), the teacher begins with a large poster of a topic, such as weather. Students are seated on the carpet, and the teacher leads a field trip that includes having students observe and record what they saw as they read books and other materials. As students volunteer weather words, the teacher records them on sticky notes or tag board and puts them up beside the poster. After the observations are concluded, the teacher returns the students' attention to the words, repeating them and linking them to the poster. Next, students sort the weather words into conceptually related groups and engage in other semantic activities.

Teachers can create a digital version of a vocabulary field trip using a free online program called TrackStar (trackstar.4teachers.org). Like the popular WebQuest (Dodge, 1995), TrackStar allows you to collect a series of websites and annotate them so that students follow the online journey.

On the left side of the figure you can see the questions and multiple websites that we selected to guide students in finding out about weather in Alaska, where the Iditarod takes place. We selected a context where weather is extreme to heighten students' interest and to provide a dramatic contrast to their own local weather. We begin with a website featuring photos and video of dogsledding in Alaska and asked students to respond with descriptions of the weather conditions.

Next, students visit a website on the aurora borealis and look for connections between the aurora and Alaskan weather. They complete the virtual field trip with a visit to a website on weather comparisons, where they examine the differences between local weather and Alaskan weather. Throughout this process, they visit several teacher-selected websites and gain knowledge about words through multiple exposures in different contexts and through different media, including reading, viewing, writing, and conversation.

eVoc strategy 3: Connect fun and learning with online vocabulary games

No list of technology applications for vocabulary would be complete without mention of the vocabulary games that are available for free on the Internet. We recommend two sites that offer a variety of activities to engage students in playing with words and word meanings: Vocabulary Games and Vocabulary. Games include crossword puzzles, picture-word matches, word scrambles, and 8 Letters in Search of a Word (a game that can draw you in unexpectedly as you race to create as many words as possible from eight letters within the time limit). The games are supplemented with themed word lists, test preparation items, and activities on prefixes and suffixes. These sites can be bookmarked for students' independent practice and can provide a basis for whole-group instruction.

eVoc strategy 4: Have students use media to express vocabulary knowledge

The previous eVoc strategies all require student interaction, from manipulating a visual word map to taking an online vocabulary field trip. This strategy focuses on students' vocabulary representations in multiple modes-writing, audio, graphic, video, and animation (Nikolova, 2002; Xin & Rieth, 2001). The first set of examples draws on promising research with universally designed digital text (Dalton & Proctor, 2007), suggesting the benefit of having students develop word meaning as they read a definition, view graphics, listen to the word, write or audiotape a personal connection to the word, create a caption for a graphic, and complete an interactive word map (Proctor et al., 2007; Proctor, Uccelli, Dalton, & Snow, 2009). Figure 2 illustrates how students communicate word knowledge as they create a caption for an image. These types of activities offer students different modes of representation and expression and can be created with a variety of composing tools and formats, such as digital stories, photo essays, podcasts, and so on.

Figure 2: Students create captions to illustrate their understanding of contribute

Note. From Dalton, B., Proctor, C.P., Snow, C.E., Uccelli, P., & Mo, E. (2008, September). Improving reading comprehension for struggling readers: Understanding the role of vocabulary development, guided strategy use, and Spanish language supports in a digital reading environment. Final report to the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

A multimedia composing and presentation tool that is often underused is PowerPoint. We have certainly seen many poor PowerPoint examples (e.g., the ubiquitous three bullet points and silly clip art approach). However, we have found that PowerPoint can be used creatively for expression. In addition to benefiting from reading and viewing multimodal representations of vocabulary, recent research suggests that students may also benefit from creating multimedia representations of words in PowerPoint slides that are hyperlinked together (Pritchard & O'Hara, 2009). Working with fifth graders, Bridget (first author) created an example of a multimedia glossary item for camouflage, a word from the science curriculum (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Multimedia glossary example of camouflage using a PowerPoint template

The model elaborates word knowledge in context and illustrates how design influences the message. To provide a structure to guide students in creating their own entries, Bridget created a template that students could fill in and adapt. The template includes a space for the word, a short definition, an explanation for why the word is important, a graphic, an audio recording or sound, and a source. As students create and revise their entries, they reflect on the word's meaning (What does this mean?), its representation (How does this particular graphic and sound effect illustrate this word?) and process (What images did you consider and discard?).

Students' glossary items can be combined into a master document and sorted by word to show multiple meanings and representations (Pritchard & O'Hara, 2009). Another approach to compiling students' individual work is to teach them how to hyperlink their slides so that a view of one version of a word includes hyperlinks to others' versions of that word. Although this example uses PowerPoint as the media format, these types of vocabulary collections can be created in different modes and published online as a word wiki or word blog. This kind of collaborative publication and engagement with an external audience is characteristic of successful multimedia learning (Fadel & Lemke, 2008). There really is no end to the creative possibilities when students use media to develop and celebrate the wonder of words.

eVoc strategy 5: Take advantage of online word reference tools that are also teaching tools

Many online word reference tools are also excellent teaching resources. For example, the Visual Thesaurus website complements its fee-based content with free information such as the Behind the Dictionary and Teachers at Work columns and teacher-created themed word lists. Many use multiple distribution platforms to reach learners wherever they are. For example, the Back in School webpage of Dictionary.com (dictionary.reference.com/studenthandbook) links to Facebook, has an iPhone application, a free toolbar application, a word of the day that is communicated on Twitter or as a text message on your mobile phone, and a free weekly word explorer audio podcast on iTunes.

Develop strategic digital readers with "on-demand" vocabulary help

This section highlights two online tools that provide just-in-time support while reading. Students can develop their strategic learning repertoire as they customize their own collection of supports.

eVoc strategy 6: Support reading and word learning with just-in-time vocabulary reference support

Whether avid or reluctant reader, we all encounter unfamiliar words in our reading and need strategies for what to do when this occurs. Rather than using print dictionaries or asking the teacher, students can learn to use online dictionaries and thesauri. When they have access to word help on demand, at the point of need, both monolingual (Reinking & Rickman, 1990) and bilingual (Yoshii, 2006) students tend to use them more often than print references and improve their understanding. Many of these Internet-based tools are free (they vary in difficulty, so try out different applications to determine the best fit for your students).

Some word reference tools can be mounted on the browser toolbar, allowing you to right click on any word to look it up and have a brief definition display. More comprehensive dictionaries can be bookmarked for easy access while reading on the computer. The increasingly popular e-book readers, which are becoming more common in schools and homes, usually provide dictionary help in the form of audio pronunciations of the word and brief definitions.

Two popular free online dictionaries/thesauri are Reference.com and Merriam-Webster. Tools expressly designed for students include Word Central from Merriam-Webster , Back in School from Dictionary.com, and Yahoo Kids! American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

A strength of digital text is its capacity to communicate in multiple modes, enhancing understanding by providing two channels of input, visual/spatial and linguistic (Mayer, 2001). Merriam-Webster offers an online visual dictionary (visual.merriam-webster .com/index.php), and Enchanted Learning provides a picture dictionary for young children. Be on the alert for educational sites that offer specialized picture glossaries, such as NASA's online space picture dictionary. These sites can be added to your browser favorites. And, finally, it is important to teach students to notice and strategically use the vocabulary help that is offered on various sites, such as the word wizard that pops up when students are reading Scholastic News Online.

eVoc strategy 7: Use language translators to provide just-in-time help for ELLs

Successful ELs leverage first-language knowledge to develop their English (Adesope et al., 2010; Jiménez, García, & Pearson, 1996). Online dictionaries often support multiple languages (e.g., the Yahoo! Kids dictionary supports 90 languages), and EL students should be taught to look for this option. Another resource is the language translator. The value of a translator is that it supports learning words as they occur naturally in authentic text and allows students to view bilingual versions of a text side by side so that they can use their first-language knowledge to develop their English vocabulary. You can paste text into the translator field, select the input and output languages, and view the translation (see Babelfish, Google translator, and Bing Translator). You may also download a toolbar extension that translates any webpage automatically. Although these tools are not perfect (and may never be, given the nuances involved in translation), they are a good place to start for ELs. In fact, students often find the translator's mistakes both humorous and an entry point for discussing the nuances of word meanings.

Expand wide reading and incidental word learning with digital text

Reading widely and deeply is important for vocabulary development and reading comprehension. These two strategies help increase students' volume of reading and, indirectly, their incidental word learning (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2001; Nagy & Herman, 1985).

eVoc strategy 8: Increase reading volume by reading digital text

Class libraries, read-alouds, book clubs, and independent reading time during the school day can increase the amount and variety of student reading. However, it is challenging to find the resources and time required to provide up-to-date material, to be responsive to students' interests, and to accommodate readers at different reading levels. Teachers can dramatically expand text options for students by including reading on the Internet and other digital texts. A high percentage of students already use the Internet for homework; we can extend their learning and exploration of words in context as they read and view varied text genres on the Internet, or read texts downloaded onto a class computer, an e-book reading device, or a smartphone.

Increasing the reading of informational text is especially important for learning in the content areas, and informational content reigns supreme on the Internet. To use current events as one example, the currency of information and use of media to communicate the news is unparalleled. To begin, we recommend bookmarking quality sites that students read on a regular basis. Many educational publishers and organizations provide free online content, including articles and media about current events, some of which are generated by students themselves. A few of our favorites include the following:

A recent visit to some of our favorite sites included articles about the top stories in the news, a student blog about animal myths featured in the animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, and an explanat ion of threesided snowflakes. The texts include graphics, video, and sound, along with written text, providing many ways of engaging with the content. Students can rotate taking on the role of Internet news repor ter, scanning bookmarked sites for interesting news to share with the class or post to a class blog. Students can also pursue individual interests as they read digital text during sustained silent reading.

A second example is based on literature students read in the classroom, generating interest in more reading by developing intertextual connections (Hartman, 1992). Using a digital poster or PowerPoint screen to show a splash of book cover images and screen captures of websites, movie trailers, and blogs invites students to pursue their interests in particular authors, books, genres, popular culture, and media.

For example, a screen displaying a book that the class is reading, such as Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux, links to several screens, one featuring her website and online interviews, another to a site with video clips from The Tale of Despereaux movie, and still another highlighting other fantasy books and comics. The splash screens can be printed out to build a wall mural that students expand as they continue reading.

These examples highlight the value of teachers previewing Internet content. However, students will also need support in learning how to search and find their own reading materials on the Internet. This will necessitate teaching Internet safety, something that is now required to obtain E-Rate funding (Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, 2009), as well as strategies for searching and evaluating Internet content (Henry, 2006).

eVoc strategy 9: Increase reading volume by listening to digital text with a text-to-speech tool and audio books

A common concern among educators is the readability of websites and Internet content. One powerful strategy is to allow students to listen to text with a text-to-speech (TTS) tool or, when available, listen to audio narration. This provides students with access to age-appropriate content and grade-level curriculum, a right mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. For struggling readers, TTS increases their reading speed, reduces stress, and for some, but not all, improves comprehension (Elkind & Elkind, 2007).

Fortunately, there are free TTS tools that can be mounted on the browser toolbar for easy access while reading, such as Click, Speak for Firefox (click speak.clcworld.net), or downloaded to your desktop, such as the NaturalReader free TTS utility. Balabolka is a PC-based TTS application that can run off a thumb drive. Some e-book readers such as Microsoft Reader are free to download and can be used with public domain content that is part of their e-book library.

There are also commercial TTS tools that range in price depending on the features, such as those from Kurzweil, Aeques, TextHELP, and Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D). Note that students who have a documented print disability may obtain digital versions of core curriculum texts from organizations such as Bookshare and RFB&D. To explore strategies for listening to text, check out the Learning Through Listening website. Johnson (2003) also offered suggestions for using audiobooks in the classroom in her Reading Online article, "Audiobooks: Ear-resistible!"

eVoc strategy 10: Combine vocabulary learning and social service

Many of these eVoc strategies use Web 2.0 technologies to promote social learning. They also tap into students' natural desire to create, to participate in communities, and to develop strategic competence. Recent reports on students' digital literacies highlight the importance of this kind of learning (Ito et al., 2010). This final eVoc strategy is a free online vocabulary game, Free Rice that has attracted millions of users, young and old. We believe it offers an opportunity to promote students' engagement with words while contributing to the social good.

Free Rice presents a word and four answer choices on the screen. For each correct answer, the United Nations World Food Programme donates 10 grains of rice to countries in need. The game adjusts its difficulty level based on the response, filling a bowl with rice as the player adds to his or her score. As a class activity, the teacher could project the website on screen and guide students in playing the game for 5 minutes daily, discussing choices (e.g., "I think it must be 'x' because 'y'") and strategies (e.g., "Any words we can eliminate? Does the root word give us a clue we can use?"). Students can play individually or with a partner, reporting back to class on their rice earnings and sharing intriguing new words.

In closing, we invite you to go digital with word learning. These 10 eVoc strategies use technology to support the wide reading, direct instruction, active learning, and interest in words that we know are essential to vocabulary development. In a digital world, knowing how to use the tools and resources available online is part of becoming a strategic learner. We hope that this list provides a useful and evocative jumpingoff point for integrating technology and media into your students' vocabulary learning experience.

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10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary

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Drawing on research-based principles of vocabulary instruction and multimedia learning, this article presents 10 strategies that use free digital tools and Internet resources to engage students in vocabulary learning. The strategies are designed to support the teaching of words and word learning strategies, promote students' strategic use of on-demand web-based vocabulary tools, and increase students' volume of reading and incidental word learning.

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I spent the first part of my summer working with teachers to help them learn to use technology as a tool for differentiating reading instruction to help all learners succeed. During that time we experimented with many different tools for teaching vocabulary. Here is a glance at the list of tools the course participants found to be user-friendly and useful for students and teachers.

Tag Galaxy
This tool creates a 3D orbiting galaxy of words and their associations Click on any word to move it to the center of the galaxy, then click again and watch the globe populate with images from Flicker. This is a must see.

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I spent the first part of my summer working with teachers to help them learn to use technology as a tool for differentiating reading instruction to help all learners succeed. During that time we experimented with many different tools for teaching vocabulary.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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There are now several web tools that are really great in teaching vocabulary and that you can use with your students in the classroom. We have curated a list a list of some of the best web tools to teach vocabulary. Check them down below.

1- Vocabulary.com

This is a website that will hep students master the vocabulary essential to their academic success.

2- BBC Learning English

In this section, learns will have access to a plethora of vocabulary act ivies and tasks great for classroom inclusion.

3- Confusing Words

Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused.

Just The Word is a cool website that helps students make informed decisions as to the right word selection to use in their writing

5-Lexipedia

Lexipedia is an online visual semantic network with dictionary and thesaurus reference functionality

Wordnik shows definitions from multiple sources, so you can see as many different takes on a word's meaning as possible.

Lingro provides an on-line environment that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary most important to them.

VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context.

It's an online interactive English dictionary and thesaurus that helps you find the meanings of words and draw connections to associated words. You can easily see the meaning of each by simply placing the mouse cursor over it.

Wordia is a free games-based learning platform - built on the foundations of a dictionary - that blends word-based learning games with interactive video vocabulary .

It's an free English online thesaurus that helps you find the meanings of words and show connections among associated words. You can easily see the meaning of each by simply placing the mouse cursor over it.

Explains new words and phrases with new entries added regularly, plus archives of previous entries.

13- VocabGenii

VocabGenii is a free online vocabulary building game. Each round is only 90 seconds, and you can play anytime, anywhere you have Internet access.

Wordhippo is a great vocabulary web tool that lets you easily provide antonyms and synonyms to your words.

15- Wordthink

WordThink provides you with a daily reminder to use many of the words you already know, and add many new words to your vocabulary that you can actually use every day!

This is an excellent vocabulary website that offers hundreds of amazing games and activities to teacher vocabulary.

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16 Websites to Teach and Learn Vocabulary

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There are now several web tools that are really great in teaching vocabulary and that you can use with your students in the classroom. We have curated a list a list of some of the best web tools to teach vocabulary. Check them down below.

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Baumann, J.F., Edwards, E., & Boland, E.M. (2003). Vocabulary Tricks: Effects of Instruction in Morphology and Context on Fifth-Grade Students' Ability to Derive and Infer Word Meanings. American Educational Research Journal, 40(2), 447-494.

Baumann, J.F., Kame'enui, E.J., & Ash, G.E. (2003). Research on vocabulary instruction: Voltaire redux. In J. Flood, D. Lapp,J.R. Squire, & J.M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts (2nd ed., pp. 752-785).Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Beck, I.L., & McKeown, M.G. (2007). Increasing Young Low-Income Children's Oral Vocabulary Repertoires through Rich and Focused Instruction. Elementary School Journal, 107(3), 251-271.

Brusnighan, S., & Folk, J. (2012). Combining Contextual and Morphemic Cues Is Beneficial During Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition: Semantic Transparency in Novel Compound Word Processing. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(2), 172-190.

Evans, L. (2011). Moon power. New York: Scholastic.

Fisher, D., Flood, J., Lapp, D., & Frey, N. (2004). Interactive read-alouds: Is there a common set of implementation practices? The Reading Teacher, 58(1), 8-17.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2008). Shared readings, modeling comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features for older readers. The Reading Teacher, 61(7), 548-556.

Graves, M.F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning & instruction. New York: Teachers College.

Graves, M.F., & Watts-Taffe, S. (2008). For the Love of Words: Fostering Word Consciousness in Young Readers. The Reading Teacher, 62(3), 185-193.

Hiebert, E. H., & Kamil, M. L. (Eds.). (2005). Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lennox, S. (2013). Interactive Read-Alouds-An Avenue for Enhancing Children's Language for Thinking and Understanding: A Review of Recent Research. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(5), 381-389.

Mason, J.M., Stahl, S.A., Au, K.H., & Herman, P.A. (2003). Reading: Children's developing knowledge of words. In J. Flood, D. Lapp,J.R. Squire, & J.M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (2nd ed., pp. 914-930). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Michaels, S., O'Connor, M. C., Hall, M. W., & Resnick, L. B. (2010). Accountable Talk® Sourcebook: For Classroom Conversation That Works (v.3.1). University of Pittsburgh Institute for Learning. Retrieved from http://ifl.lrdc.pitt.edu

Nagy, W.E. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Nagy, W. E., & Anderson, R. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19(3),304-330.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC: Authors.

Palincsar, A.S., & Brown, A.L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities.Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117-175.

Sanden, S. (2012). Independent reading: Perspectives and practices of highly effective teachers. The Reading Teacher, 66(3),222-231.

Scott, J.A., Jamieson-Noel, D., & Asselin, M. (2003). Vocabulary Instruction throughout the Day in Twenty-Three Canadian Upper-Elementary Classrooms. Elementary School Journal, 103(3), 269-286.

Stahl, S., & Fairbanks, M. (1986). The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 56(1), 72-110.

Thorndike, E.L. (1917). Reading as reasoning: A study of mistakes in paragraph reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(6),323-332.

Wasik, B., & Iannone-Campbell, C. (2012). Developing vocabulary through purposeful, strategic conversations. The Reading Teacher,66(4), 321-332.

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Vocabulary lies at the heart of content learning. To support the development of vocabulary in the content areas, teachers need to give their students time to read widely, intentionally select words worthy of instruction, model their own word solving strategies, and provide students with opportunities to engage in collaborative conversations.

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FCRR K-1 Word Identification/Words In Context 

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FCRR K-1 Word Identification/Words In Context 

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FCRR K-1 Word Categorization/Word Knowledge

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FCRR K-1 Word Categorization/Word Knowledge

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FCRR K/1 Words That Describe/Word Meaning

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FCRR K/1 Words That Describe/Word Meaning

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Vocabulary Graphic Organizer: Semantic Organizer | Building RTI

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Graphic organizer to support vocabulary learning. Includes writing synonyms, antonyms, examples, and non-examples in relation to a word.

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Before Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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Possible sentences is a pre-reading vocabulary strategy that activates students' prior knowledge about content area vocabulary and concepts. Before reading, students are provided a short list of vocabulary words from their reading. Students create, based on their prediction of what the reading will be about, a meaningful sentence for each vocabulary word or concept. After reading, students check to see if their "possible sentences" were accurate or need revising.

Language Arts

This example shows how Possible Sentences can be used with the book Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco.
See example >
Math

Teachers can use Possible Sentences to help students understand difficult math vocabulary such as in the following example about geometric shapes.
See example >
Science

The following website shows examples of using computer related vocabulary words to create possible sentences.

Have students use this list to develop sentences about various animals and use books to determine the accuracy of their sentences.
See example >
Moore, D.W., & Moore, S.A (1986). "Possible sentences." In Reading in the content areas: Improving classroom instruction. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Stahl, S.A. & Kapinus, B.A. (1991). Possible sentences: Predicting word meaning to teach content area vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, 45, 36-45.

Texas Education Agency (2002). Teaching Word Meanings as Concepts.

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Possible Sentences | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Possible sentences is a pre-reading vocabulary strategy that activates students' prior knowledge about content area vocabulary and concepts. Before reading, students are provided a short list of vocabulary words from their reading. Students create, based on their prediction of what the reading will be about, a meaningful sentence for each vocabulary word or concept.

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Before Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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List-Group-Label | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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List-group-label is a form of semantic mapping. The strategy encourages students to improve their vocabulary and categorization skills and learn to organize concepts. Categorizing listed words, through grouping and labeling, helps students organize new concepts in relation to previously learned concepts.

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Before Reading, During Reading, After Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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Helps broaden and deepen students' understanding of related words

Helps students distinguish between shades of meaning

Enhances students' vocabulary, which can help them be more precise and imaginative in their writing

How to use semantic gradients

1. Select a pair of polar opposite words.

2. Generate at least five synonyms for each of the opposite words.

3. Arrange the words in a way that makes a bridge from one opposite word to the other. Continuums can be done horizontal or vertical, in a ladder-like fashion.

4. Have students discuss their rationale for placing certain words in certain locations. Encourage a conversation about the subtle differences among the words.

OR

1. Select a specific vocabulary word, e.g., large.

2. Using a book you've read, a unit of study, or different writing samples, create a list of semantically similar words. The teacher can develop the list, or work collaboratively with students to generate a list. It may work best to think of your target word as being in the center of your continuum.

3. Arrange the words in a way that illustrates an understanding of each word's meaning. Continuums can be done horizontal or vertical, in a ladder like fashion.

4. Have students discuss their rationale for placing certain words in certain locations. Encourage a conversation about the subtle differences among the words.

Download this semantic gradients handout, with examples of topics or themes and words that relate to that topic.

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Semantic Gradients | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Semantic gradients are a way to broaden and deepen students' understanding of related words. Students consider a continuum of words by order of degree. Semantic gradients often begin with antonyms, or opposites, at each end of the continuum. This strategy helps students distinguish between shades of meaning.

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During Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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Words hunts are a great tool for teachers to use to help students connect spelling and reading words. Also, teachers can use word hunts when integrating a thematic unit. Furthermore, word hunts can be used to categorize words together.

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Before Reading, During Reading, After Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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I would love to use this strategy I my 1st grade class as well. Vocabulary is one area my higher level readers need to be challenged in, especially since we are reading 2nd grade level books. I would complete a word map as a group, then let them work in partners.

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Before Reading, During Reading, After Reading
Whole Group, Small Group, Individual

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Language Arts

Ask students to hunt for words in their reading and writing that fit the phonic or word study pattern being studied. These words can create a word wall that illustrates examples of the different patterns studied. Students could keep a word study notebook to record the known patterns and their new understanding about words, and can play games and activities that apply their word knowledge.

Math

Word walls in math can provide visual cues and graphic representations of content. Consider using a math word wall that has three parts: key vocabulary, "in your own words" definitions, and a variety of ways to portray a function. For example, multiplication is portrayed by the following symbols: x, *, and ( ).

Number sense, concepts, and operations word wall
The purpose of the mathematics word wall is to identify words and phrases that students need to understand and use so as to make good progress in mathematics. Mathematical language is crucial to children's development of thinking. If students do not have the vocabulary to talk about math concepts and skills, they cannot make progress in understanding these areas of mathematical knowledge. They need to be familiar with mathematical vocabulary and mathematical terms to understand written and spoken instructions. See math word wall resources >

More ideas for word walls in math
Many teachers are familiar with basic word wall strategies including the use of a flashlight (to put the light on words) and a fly swatter (to highlight words). Teachers are also familiar with tested favorites like bingo; I Have, Who Has; and Mind Reader, but they really wanted other ideas. The purpose of this post by Dr. Deborah Wahlstrom is to identify additional ways to use word walls with mathematics content. More math word wall ideas >

Science

Using interactive word walls in science
Science is a vocabulary-intense subject that is dependent on students learning new and often times difficult vocabulary to increase comprehension and help them make connections between and among concepts. When science students are given the opportunity to interact with the vocabulary, they are more likely to remember it.

Ideas for using the words on your wall are only limited by your imagination. Some examples include:

Students categorize and sequence from largest to smallest (cell, bacteria, yeast, tissue, ribosome, organ, organism, organ system, protozoa, virus) Variation: Students are given vocabulary words, and their classmates must arrange them in the correct order and justify the placement.

Students remove words from the wall and make connecting statements about the words. The class can then create a summarizing statement, for example: cells make up tissues, and tissues make up organs.

For more ideas like these, read the full post by Toni Enloe.

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Word Walls | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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A word wall is a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students and contains an array of words that can be used during writing and reading.