Teaching Vocabulary

Teaching Vocabulary

Learning words does not occur in a vacuum; that is, children do not acquire meanings of words in isolation. All learning—both personal and academic—occurs within the socio¬cultural environment of the home, community, and classroom. Literacy is a social prac¬tice, so students learn academic vocabulary through social interactions as members of the learning community. Therefore, effective teach¬ers of language and literacy provide practices that stimulate rich uses of language, design¬ing their instructional programs within a social context that promotes literacy learning.
Teachers know that students who are learning to read and write and those who are read¬ing to learn—that is, learning in content areas—will benefit from a sound instructional vocabulary program. This is especially true for classrooms where children have small vocabularies and are English language learners. Knowledge of words is acquired inciden¬tally, where vocabulary is developed through immersion in language activities. Words are also learned through direct instruction, where students learn words through a structured approach. Thus, vocabulary programs should be designed to support children’s word learn¬ing through a combination of approaches to teaching, direct instruction, and incidental word learning. Michael Graves (2006) offers a framework for successful vocabulary pro¬grams that supports effective teaching and students’ development of word knowledge. The foundation of his instructional program includes a four-part approach to developing robust vocabularies: (1) Provide rich and varied language experiences, (2) teach individual words, (3) teach word-learning strategies, and (4) foster word consciousness .
Providing rich and varied language experiences: Incidental word learning takes place when teachers offer and encourage students to participate in a variety of rich language experiences that occur throughout the day and across the curriculum. Examples of such experiences that promote rich and powerful vocabularies at all grade levels include(1) interactive read-alouds of outstanding children’s literature, (2) dialogic-based instructional activities, (3) independent reading, (4) interactive writing, and (5) creating a print-rich environment where the “walls are dripping with words.”
Teaching individual words: Although many words may be learned incidentally and vocabularies do become stronger when they are supported with a language-rich environ¬ment, children benefit from systematic and direct instruction of words. The research is clear with respect to effective teaching of words . Vocabulary instruction should (1) provide students with information that contains the context as well as the meaning of the word, (2) design instruction that engages students and allows sufficient time for word learning, (3) make sure students have multiple exposures to the words with review and practice, and (4) create a dialogue around the words.
Teaching word-learning strategies: An important aspect of developing students’ robust vocabularies is teaching them tools to unlock the meaning of unknown words. The most effective tools use the context of the surrounding words or sentences to infer the mean¬ing of a word, using meaningful word parts to make sense out of the unknown word and using the dictionary effectively to help define an unknown word.
Building word consciousness in readers and writers: An important aspect of a strong vocabulary program is to engage students in learning new words. As teachers, we need to develop word consciousness within our students and maintain their interest in words. Teachers (1) create a word-rich environ¬ment, (2) recognize and promote adept diction, (3) promote word play, (4) foster word consciousness through writing, (5) involve students in original investigations, and (6) teach students about words.