Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report - S10

S10 |
EDUCATION WEEK MAY 13, 2015
EDUCATION WEEK MAY 13, 2015
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Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
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The International Reading Association is now the International Literacy Association!
ILA 2015 CONFERENCE & EXHIBITS
St. Louis, Missouri | July 18-20, 2015
AS MANY EDUCATORS AND
researchers will attest, there's no
exact science to choosing vocabulary
words-no inherent reason the word
"detest" is more important to teach
than "despise," or why "compassion"
should be highlighted in a text before
"sympathy."
But some reading experts, inPRECONFERENCE
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cluding those who helped write the
Common Core State Standards, are
saying what's critical about vocabulary
instruction is how the words are
introduced-and that context is key.
"We've known for a long, long time
from research that giving students a
list of words and asking them to look
them up in the dictionary and write
a sentence is not an effective way to
teach vocabulary," said Nell K. Duke,
a professor of literacy, language, and
culture at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor.
A better approach, some say, is to
have students focus on a topic-anything
from the musculatory system to
the Great Depression to Greek myths.
"It turns out that learning about the
world is a great way to build your vocabulary
and knowledge," said David
Liben, a senior content specialist for
the literacy team at the New York
City-based Student Achievement
Partners, a nonprofit professional-development
group founded by the lead
writers of the common-core standards.
At Center City Charter School's
Brightwood campus here in the
District of Columbia school system,
early-elementary educators have
begun moving vocabulary instruction
into thematic units.
On a rainy day this spring, kinderForget
Word Lists:
Vocabulary Lessons
Start With Context
Under the common core, some
students learn about the world
to build their vocabularies
garten teacher Elizabeth Masi led her
students through a picture book about
colonial towns and families. The lesson
was peppered with words that seemed
far above 5-year-olds' heads: "miller,"
"sheer," "linen," "spindle," "carder."
Academic Vocabulary
But Ms. Masi made clear that students
should focus on a single word
of the day-in this case, "garment."
The spinners and the weavers use
materials like cotton and wool to
make "garments," she pointed out.
Garment, as teachers at Center
City explain, is a "tier two" vocabulary
word. The appendix of the common
standards, based on research by
Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown,
and Linda Kucan, the authors of
Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary
Instruction, lays out three tiers
for vocabulary words. Tier-one words
are the most common words used in
everyday speech. On the other end of
the spectrum, tier-three words are
domain-specific, meaning they're uncommon
and used only in particular
academic or topical contexts.
Tier-two words are the sweet
spot for common-core instruction -
they're academic but come up in a
variety of contexts. They have "wide
applicability," the standards say, and
need to be explicitly taught.
And, somewhat paradoxically, one
of the best ways to learn about those
transferable tier-two words, some
say, is by becoming an expert in one
particular topic.
"People find the academic word lists
and teach from them, not recognizing
that what's hard about academic
PAGE S12 >
By Liana Heitin
http://www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy http://www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy http://www.ilaconference.org http://www.ilaconference.org
Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report

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