Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
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Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
• Effective Vocabulary Instruction
• What works (and what doesn’t) with vocabulary
• Marzano’s approach to vocabulary
• Instruction of new strategies available for
implementation
• Sharing of effective strategies
• Vocabulary assignment for September
Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
WHAT
NOT
TO DO
1.
Having students look up words in the dictionary so they can
copy the definition down verbatim even though they still
don’t know what it means.
2.
Overwhelming students with 50 new words per week
especially when they couldn’t possibly retain everything.
3.
Telling students the definitions to words without giving them
adequate practice using them.
4.
Believing that because a student does well on a vocabulary
test that knowledge transfers immediately and remains
permanent.
5.
Getting through a vocabulary unit so we can check it off our
list.
Ingredients Needed:
20 words no one has ever heard before in his life
1 dictionary with very confusing definitions
1 matching test to be distributed by Friday
1 teacher who wants students to be quiet on Mondays copying words
Put 20 words on the board. Have students copy then look up in
dictionary. Make students write all the definitions. For a little
spice, require that students write words in sentences. Leave
alone all week. Top with a boring test on Friday.
Perishable. This casserole will be forgotten by Saturday afternoon.
Serves: No one.
Adapted from When Kids Can’t Read,What
Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers
Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
THE RESEARCH BEHIND
MODERN DAY APPROACHES
EIGHT RESEARCH-BASED CHARACTERISTICS
OF EFFECTIVE VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION
1. Effective vocabulary instruction does not rely on definitions.
2. Students must represent their knowledge of words in linguistic
and nonlinguistic ways.
3. Effective vocabulary instruction involves the gradual shaping of
word meanings through multiple exposures.
4. Teaching word parts enhances students’ understanding of terms.
5. Different types of words require different types of instruction.
6. Students should discuss the terms they are learning.
7. Students should play with words.
8. Instruction should focus on terms that have a high probability of
enhancing academic success.
(Adapted from Building Academic Vocabulary by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering, 2005)
– Highly specialized, subject-specific; low
occurrences in texts; lacking generalization
◦ E.g., lava, aorta, legislature, circumference
–Abstract, general academic (across content
areas); encountered in written language; high utility
across instructional areas
◦ E.g., vary, relative, innovation, accumulate, surface, layer
– Basic, concrete, encountered in conversation/ oral
vocabulary; words most student will know at a particular
grade level
◦ E.g., clock, baby, color
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page 33


Jose avoided playing the ukulele.
Which word would you choose to pre-teach?
Which word?
Why?
 Verbs are where the action is





Teach avoid, avoided, avoids
Likely to see it again in grade-level text
Likely to see it on assessments
We are going to start calling these useful words “Tier 2
words”
Why not ukulele?
 Rarely seen in print
 Rarely used in stories or conversation or content-area
information


Teach fewer words.
Focus on important Tier 2 (high utility, crossdomain words) to know & remember.
 Simply provide Tier 3 (domain-specific, technical)
words with a definition.





Increase independent reading time.
Facilitate read-alouds.
Keep vocabulary in circulation.
Keep vocabulary interactive.
Use graphic organizers.
Ingredients Needed:
Directions:
Serves: Many
Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
NEW & ENGAGING APPROACHES
TO VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION
Teaching morphology (the study of roots) to
students is beneficial because when you teach a
root, you give the students the meaning to
hundreds of words in the process.
Semantic word analyses can be used to teach
students the nuances of words and really get
them thinking about how one word differs from
another.
Semantic word analyses leads to a powerful
discussion about the way we tend to view people
that we don’t know. This works well for topics
that have complicated issues and themes.
Student
Example
Family
Friends
Strangers
People We
THINK We
Know
Prejudice
-
-
-
-
-
Hatred
-
-
-
-
-
Judgment
-
-
+
+
-
Negative
Bias
-
-
-
+
-
Dislike
-
-
-
+
-
Stereotype
-
-
+
+
-
Acquaintances
Use pictures when teaching vocabulary so that
students can have a visual that aids them in
remembering what the word means.
Have students draw three pictures/contexts
where the word could be used and then include
the meaning of the word on the back of the
page. You can hang up their pictures on a
classroom word wall so students can refer to
them later.
Once you’ve taught students a word, you can use word
sorts to help review the words to ensure students
remember them and to deepen understanding.
Divide the words you’re working with into two separate
piles—let students choose what two categories in which
to put the words.
After talking about the sorts as a class, have students resort the same words into two different categories
without using any categories that we talked about as a
class. This forces my students to think about the words
in a different way each time.











Chided
Surreptitiously
Mortified
Chagrined
Lucrative
Insatiable
Gouged
Prodigious
Defunct
Insidious
Tipple

Students sorted these words
into categories like
helpful/non helpful,
descriptive/non-descriptive,
scary/ not scary, good/bad,
loud/ not loud describes
ninjas/ doesn’t describe
ninjas.

One or two terms are missing. Please think
about statements below, turn to your elbow
partner and provide terms that will complete
following analogies.
Inch is to ruler as word is to ______.
Decibel is to sound as _____ is to _____.
22
http://www.wordsift.com/ Word maps, word clouds
http://quizlet.com/ Make flash cards & games
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/ Academic
vocabulary games
 http://www.vocabulary.com/ More games, including
games using Latin & Greek roots
 www.worldwidewords.com Definitions, history and
short essays on words
 http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ Visual thesaurus
 www.vocabgrabber.com
 www.wordle.com



Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
SHARING OF
TEACHER ACTIVITIES

Implement a new vocabulary strategy in your class that was
shared today. Check back for more shared strategies!

Document your performance and upload to your TLE
platform by 9/30 using the following steps:
 Log in to TLE
 Select the container Teacher Assessment on Performance
Standards
 Select Documentation of Performance
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪

Add
Type in response
Select standards
Select DONE
Attach assignment, picture(s), and/or video
Upload a photo to your Online Classroom
Cedartown Middle School: 2014-2015
NEXT WEEK PLC:
USING TECHNOLOGY TO
ENHANCE VOCABULARY
INSTRUCTION
(featuring Wes Astin!)