Victory with Vocabulary

How many of your students struggle with understanding new vocabulary terms? My students did, particularly in social studies. It’s difficult to understand the specialized vocabulary found in some content area courses. Words that may seem familiar have a different meaning in the new context. For example, I was in a ninth-grade physical science classroom, and Tyler was sure he knew the definition of the term “grounded.” When he explained that he was grounded for two weeks because of a low grade on a test, the other students laughed. The teacher was looking for an answer about the grounding of electricity, which is quite different. However, it provided an important lesson for the students and for me, reminding us of the ease with which words can be confusing.

When I was a student, the model for teaching vocabulary was simple. The teacher gave the class a list of words. We copied the words and definitions, then wrote a sentence using each term. Finally, we took a test. This model provides a routine for students, but it rarely leads to a deep comprehension of the meanings of concepts. Students tend to memorize what they wrote and simply restate it on the test. One of my students just rearranged the words from a textbook definition and said it was her own. In a rigorous classroom, you are looking for your students to demonstrate they understand what a vocabulary word means, usually through an explanation with details, examples and elaboration. My initial method for pushing students past memorization was requiring students to write an extended response of at least a paragraph explaining the word or concept. However, that backfired.. My students wrote everything they knew about the topic, hoping I would find the correct portion of the answer and accept it. They equated length with quality, while I was looking for depth of understanding.

I learned to create opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding in ways that required them to synthesize information about a term or concept and refine it down to the key points. There are several options you can provide your students.

Graphic Organizers

Using a graphic organizer, students discuss different elements of a particular vocabulary term.

You can customize the headings on the organizer to match your specific subject area. The key to this process is that as students explore multiple definitions, examples and nonexamples, as well as characteristics or functions, they develop a fuller grasp of the concept.

A high school foreign language teacher adapted my idea and shared a word wheel, which allows her to guide her students through the process of understanding a vocabulary word.

Word Cards

In The Essential 25: Teaching the Vocabulary that Makes or Breaks Student Understanding, author Marilee Sprenger shares a way to assess a student’s vocabulary knowledge.  She gives students a set of word cards, and they are to place them in the appropriate category:  I don’t know it yet; I’ve seen it or heard it, but I don’t know what it means; I know what it means; or I’ve used it before in speaking or writing.  With a simple glance, the teacher can assess individual students, as well as determining the needs of the whole class.

Friendly Texts

I also found that it was important to incorporate texts in my classroom that were “vocabulary friendly.”  What does that mean?  I look for books that use a variety of vocabulary terms in ways that make students laugh, help them see the importance of words, and make it easy to learn in new ways.  For example, my favorite children’s book is The Phantom Tollbooth.  It is often used in elementary school, but I also used it through grade 9 with success.  In the book, Milo, a boy who is bored at school and bored at home and bored by everything, finds a mysterious tollbooth.  It takes him into the Kingdom of Wisdom where he visits Dictionopolis, the city of words, and Digitopolis, the city of numbers.  In Expectations, which is where you must go before you get to where you are going, he meets the Whether Man, not the Weather Man, because it is more important to know whether or not there will be weather than what the weather will be.  See why I like it?  My classes played with words throughout the book, interpreting the text at different levels depending on their age and grade level.  A friend of mine used A Gebra Named Al with similar success for her students. 

Friendly dictionaries are a second type of friendly texts. When I was teaching young students, having a primary dictionary was critical.  The one we used was organized by themes, such as farm or ocean; and the words and pictures all related to the theme.  There are a wide range available now, both in print and online, such as the Oxford Children’s Dictionary or WILD (Wordsmyth Illustrated Learners Dictionary) for K-2. I also like the Collins COBUILD Dictionary, which uses more student-friendly definitions.

If you teach something other than reading/language arts/English, much of your vocabulary is specialized, which likely has a unique meaning.  Therefore, you need something different. 

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