Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report - S14

S14 |
EDUCATION WEEK MAY 13, 2015
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Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
CONTINUED FROM PAGE S13
vocabulary words that were specific
to their texts than did the other
group.
The researchers say this seems
to demonstrate that conceptually
coherent text sets can help students
with "incidental acquisition"
of words.
"If kids have knowledge of the
topic of the text, ... they're having to
wrestle less with the content of the
texts, and that frees up attention
for understanding unknown words
and making inferences about the
meaning of those words," said Gina
N. Cervetti, an assistant professor of
education at the University of Michigan
who led the study.
Beyond Context
Vocabulary standards are sprinkled
throughout the common-core
standards-which 43 states and the
District of Columbia have adopted-
in the literature, informational text,
and foundational-skills strands, and
across the grades.
But many teachers are particularly
focused on teaching vocabulary under
the new standards, said Mr. Liben,
because of the standards' requirements
about reading complex texts.
"Everybody gets the idea that
complex texts have more complex
words," Mr. Liben said. The standards
also emphasize reading informational
texts, or nonfiction, which
tend to have more academic words
than novels, he said.
However, teaching vocabulary in
context alone is often not enough.
Students, especially young ones
and struggling readers, may also
need some direct vocabulary instruction.
The methods educators
have typically used, include teaching
root words, prefixes, and suffixes;
using the dictionary; playing
word games; and writing sentences
with new words, some educators
say.
The common standards themselves
call for students "to grow their vocabularies
through a mix of conversation,
direct instruction, and reading."
"If every great tier-two word requires
us to become an expert in
an area, we're not going to get very
far," said David J. Chard, the dean
of the education school at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas, who
specializes in reading.
"I don't think we have enough time
to make kids experts in so many
things," he added.
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Students with disabilities in particular
need to be explicitly pretaught
vocabulary, he said. Otherwise,
some students will "read [a
text] and not attend to anything in
it. None of the words will be more
meaningful or less meaningful than
the word next to it."
The National Reading Panel's influential
report in 2000 found that
learning vocabulary through reading
and teaching vocabulary explicitly
are both effective. The keys,
the authors found, are "systematic
repetition" and leading students
to think deeply about what words
mean.
Seeking Balance
At Center City, teachers are still
trying to figure out where the balance
lies.
"We'd love to transition to only
teaching these words in context,
but the reality is we have a gap to
fill before students are commoncore
ready," especially Englishlearners
and struggling readers,
said Samantha Flaherty, the K-3
reading-curriculum manager at
Center City. "We've by no means
perfected this."
While they're steering clear of
"drill and kill" with the dictionary,
teachers do often give explicit,
child-friendly definitions of words
as students are reading-a tactic
that Ms. Duke of Michigan and
other experts recommend.
The CURRICULUM MATTERS blog tracks news and
trends on this issue. www.edweek.org/go/
curriculummatters
Sign up for the "Curriculum Matters" e-newsletter.
www.edweek.org/go/newsletters
They also incorporate word-specific
discussions and games into
their lessons.
At the end of her habitats unit,
after students had been exposed
to their tier-two vocabulary words
across many texts, Ms. Williams
and her pupils played a modified
version of "Jeopardy."
"Describe the Amazon Rainforest
in three different ways," she said.
Teams of four and five huddled
together, dry-erase markers flying
across small whiteboards. "Humid,"
"shady," "rainy," "dense," the 1st
graders wrote.
With the thematic units, classroom
discussions have become more rich,
and students have been better able
to tackle unfamiliar texts, according
to Ms. Williams. "I can see these kids
retain more," she said. ■
Coverage of the implementation of
college- and career-ready standards
is supported in part by a grant from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.
New Strategies for
Reading Aloud to
K-2 Students
Increasingly, K-2 teachers are
using new questioning techniques
as they read aloud to their
students. They're designed to
focus children on the meaning of
the text, rather than their personal
reactions to it.
fRee webiNAR
Thursday, June 18, 2015
2 to 3 p.m. ET
www.edweek.org/go/webinar/
ReadAloudStrategies
GueStS
MEREdITh LIbEn
director of literacy,
Student Achievement
Partners
nIKKI LongMoRE
2nd grade teacher,
Ruby duncan
Elementary School,
Las Vegas
ModeRAtoR
CAThERInE gEwERTz
Associate editor,
Education Week
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Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report

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