Chapter 7: Vocabulary

Content-specific vocabulary relates to the terms that are specific to a certain discipline, such as biology or math.  Students must understand these terms because some words can have various meanings across different subjects, such as the word scale.  What is a scale in science compared to what is a scale in music?  "Academic vocabulary encompasses a set of terms often found among expository texts and formal presentations or speeches but which is not unique to any content or academic discipline."  (Reading to Learn, p. 169)  This type of vocaubulary includes words such as analyze, significant, function, etc.  If children don't understand these words, it impedes their learning.

Word knowledge is important to reading comprehension.  Word knowledge can be attributed to a reader's own experiences.  The textbook describes an experience involving taking a plane.  A young child might relate this to playing with a plane, while an older student might associate this experience with an airport. 

Reading to Learn in the Content Areas describes the stages of word knowledges.
5 Facets of the Intricate Nature of Word Knowledge
1.  Incrementality:  levels of word knowledge develop over time
2.  Polysemy:  multiple meanings for a  word
3.  Multidimentionality:  many different types of knowledge to be learned about a word, including meaning, connotation, denotation, etc.
4.  Interrelatedness:  connections are made between or among words
5.  Heterogeneity:  word type, purpose, and prior knowledge influence word knowledge required

Incidental vocabulary develops through basic life experiences, such as conversation, word play, exposure to media, and reading.  I work for SECEP with children who have autism and we definetly encourages and promote this development.  After all, language development is a major characteristic of autism.  We constantly talk to the children, play with them, and read with them.

I really enjoyed the section on vocabulary instruction for children with learning disabilities because of the population I work with.  I think it is important that the book mentioned educators need to limit the number of words for study to those that are most important.  The book mentioned using visuals, semantic maps, and field trips.  We use vocabulary maps when we read books at SECEP.  Our students match the picture to the vocabulary word.  I think this is a very good strategy for visual learners. 

I thought the word inventory was good for teaching vocabulary before having students read.  Students assess their own prior knowledge and then teachers instruct properly based on this information.  Some other types of graphic organizers that can be used to teach vocabulary are semantic maps, word maps, and concept maps.

I really liked the examples of possible sentences students could write to define a word on page 184 and how it compared to good sentences.  Often when students do not understand the assigned vocabulary they make up poor sentences or make up irrelevant sentences.  I found this to be very true of younger children.  When assigned word study, they will just write a sentence in order to finish the assignment; however, the sentence displays no understanding of the meaning. 

Teachers should discuss the use of context clues to assist students in their reading.  Often these are imbedded in the text to assist students with unfamiliar vocabulary.  These include:
1.  Definitions
2.  Signal words
3.  Direct explanations
4.  Synonyms
5.  Antonyms
6.  Inferences

Teachers can also be creative in the ways they teach vocabulary.  While the dictionary is a good tool and teachers should teach skills involved in dictionary utilization, nobody wants to define words all day!  It is boring!  I really liked the idea of word bingo and the use of analogies.  I think teaching analogies is very important because it is on alot of apptitude tests students will encounter throughout their educational experience.

Do you know of any other creative ways to teach vocabulary?

Source:
Richardson, J. S., Morgan, R. F., & Fleener, C. 2012. Reading to learn in the content areas. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co