Redesigning and Rethinking Vocabulary Instruction Amanda Clarkson TE 843 Special Topics Project Michigan State University

Vocabulary is an essential piece of a Language Arts curriculum. Without a strong vocabulary base, students cannot explore unfamiliar texts and apply comprehension strategies as successfully. A limited vocabulary can limit other literary experiences for students. I am fortunate to work at a school with strong readers across the grade levels; however, our grade books and test scores continue to show a struggle in word knowledge. Because of this, I am choosing to redesign the vocabulary curriculum at my school. Currently, my school using a program called Wordly Wise for vocabulary instruction. The text provides many common, robust vocabulary words in a dictionary-like format. Following this are five different types of activities where students work with the words in different formats. These activities get increasing rigorous. For example, students start by getting four different phrases; they then have to match the two phrases that make sense together. By the fifth activity, students are reading a text that contains the given vocabulary words and they must answer comprehension and higher-level thinking questions related to these words in context. Something beneficial about the format of the Wordly Wise book is that it is inherently differentiated. Students who finish quickly are able to complete activities that get increasingly challenging, while students who struggle and need to take more time are still getting practice with the words but on a more basic level. The way we were told to present and teach the content in this text to students is by introducing all of the words by playing a recording (I tend to read them myself, and discuss them with students). This is the extent of direction instruction. Students then spend several days working on the activities either individually or with a partner. Some of my students qualify for Title 31A services and are pulled by the intervention teacher who works with them even more on the Wordly Wise activities.

My students like Wordly Wise and appear to be very engaged in the text. Students get excited when they see one of the vocabulary words in their daily reading, and they feel a sense of accomplishment as they complete the workbook pages. However, they are not always successful in their understanding and application of the words. When we check the pages together, I see many errors made, which is surprising considering that all of the definitions are available and meant to be referenced as students complete the pages. When it comes to their final assessments over the set of words, I do not see all students mastering the words. While some will show mastery of a set of words one week, they may not show mastery of another set of words the next week. In general, students retention of the word meanings is lower than I would expect. It is because of these reasons that I want to change how the material is presented and taught to students. My goal is to use research-based ideas and practices to help students understand, retain, and apply the vocabulary words more successfully. Another purpose for vesting my interest in vocabulary instruction revolves around my goals for this course, which are to learn new strategies in working with secondary English language learners and to learn strategies for adolescent readers that can be applied to my advanced fourth grade readers. Vocabulary is a great way to start developing both of these goals. Deliberate teaching of vocabulary is essential for English language learners success. They must have an understanding of English vocabulary in order to learn any content material. Learning more vocabulary words and using strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words is also extremely beneficial to higher-level students. When these students are equipped with a stronger and more robust vocabulary, it allows them to understand more complicated material and express their thinking and learning in a more meaningful, thoughtful way. Therefore, while my rationale for changing

this part of the curriculum is to benefit all students, it will particularly be significant for these two groups of students around which I am centering my two course goals. My main objective with redesigning is to have students gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of vocabulary words, and apply these words in meaningful contexts. I want all students to show mastery of all words on their biweekly assessments. Part of making sure that this will happen is by formatively assessing students along the way. This is a huge component of the current vocabulary instruction that is almost completely missing. Torgeson and Miller (2009) explain the importance of this type of assessment, noting that it needs to be frequent and point to the next instructional steps (p. 31-32). While I will detail later what changes need to be made in order for students to understand the vocabulary better in the first place, clear and well-planned formative assessments will allow me to understand if students are on the right track and if these changes are effective. Currently, my formative assessments consist of students correcting their work in their workbooks and me checking to see how they did. As I mentioned previously, these checks show that they do not understand all of the material, but they do not exactly pinpoint the problem. It is essential that classroom-based formative assessments have clear, well-defined targets (Torgeson and Miller, 2009, p. 34.) By creating my own formative assessment, I can make sure that they point to any misconceptions students may be having and address these misconceptions as we go along the unit. As far as summative assessments, I would like to continue using the exact same format that I have been using all along (students match the definitions to the words, and then use the words correctly in a sentence). One reason for this is that the assessments already point to whether or not the student has mastered the objective of applying new terms correctly in sentences. Secondly, it will be easier for me to compare

students progress with the curriculum redesign in place if I have the same type of test before the change and after the change. When it comes to redesigning the vocabulary curriculum at my school, it is not the curricular tool itself that seems to be the problem; rather, the presentation of the content is what is hindering many students from achieving understanding. One strength of the program is that it is already differentiated. As I mentioned, the activities get more challenging and require students to use more higher-level thinking skills as they go on. In addition, the meaning of the terms are laid out in a dictionary-like format, which among other benefits gives students multiple meanings of words when necessary. The disconnect seems to be when the students initially learn the meaning of the words and then go on to apply these meanings to the various activities. When students are exposed to the definitions through the direct instruction of the teacher, it appears that they do not always grasp understanding of all of the words. That is because often definitions are not enough to ensure understanding of words. Harmon and Wood write, Because definitions only provide only a superficial level of word knowledge and rarely show students how to use the words, vocabulary instruction must move beyond the definitional level of word meaning (2008, p. 3). In order for students to be able to truly understand the words and apply them in context, more than reading and talking about definitions should be done during direct instruction to ensure that students have a true understanding of the terms. There are many strategies that can be used to help students understand the meaning of words during direct instruction. Research shows that word learning and comprehension were positively impacted by instruction that focused on the semantic relatedness of words; highlighted words central to passage understanding; and provided students with frequent, meaningful encounters with the words (Harmon & Wood, 2008, p.5).This can be broken down into three

main activities. Dr. Mary Beth Curtis explains that discussions, writing activities, [and] using graphic organizers when theyre filling out the information are effective ways of help students work with the words they have been given (2013). As far as discussions, students could talk with table groups about experiences theyve had with the words and examples theyve had in their own lives. They could discuss synonyms they know and if there are any other meanings. Students already do a lot of writing with the words in their workbook, but in order to incorporate writing into the direct instruction time students could work together to write sentences or paragraphs using their words and then share them with the class. This could be done whole class as well to make sure words are being used correctly. Finally, there are many graphic organizers that could be used as students are learning words. The Frayer model allows students to think about the meaning of words, examples of the word, and non-examples of the words (Frayer, 1969). These activities can be somewhat time-consuming, especially since students get 15 new words a week. It could be helpful to have students learn a few words at a time, rather than the whole list. The words could be split up into groups of five and taught over a three-day period so students are not overwhelmed with learning all of the words at one time. Differentiation and technology both play a role in redesigning the curriculum, and they go hand-in-hand. My school has a lot of English Language Learners, and technology could be used to show students pictures or videos that represent the vocabulary words and give students a more tangible and visual way to understand the words. As far as special education or at-risk students, the wordlywise3000.com website could be used so students could hear the pronunciation and definition of the words as they read along with the definitions. This website also gives students the words in sentences to help increase students understanding. Technology can also offer many higher-level thinking opportunities for students who are more advanced.

Students could create a wordle at wordle.net by thinking of synonyms, antonyms, or examples of the words. These students could also create powerpoints of the words and come up with their own visuals to help the English Language Learners. In general, many of the strategies mentioned previously (discussions, writing, and graphic organizers) could be done in partners or groups, allowing students to learn from and help each other. Parent-teacher partnerships would be especially vital in helping to resign and revamp this part of our daily curriculum. Teacher should provide parents the list of words and their meanings, as well as the graphic organizers used in school and suggestions for writing activities. Parents could continue to work with their children on learning these words at home and incorporate them into daily conversation. Repeated exposure and practice in using these words is essential to learning them, so more exposure at home will allow students to comprehend the words even better (Curtis, 2013). In addition, it would be helpful for the school to communicate the importance of vocabulary knowledge to parents. Especially in a school with many English Language Learners, parents would benefit from knowing about the great impact that word knowledge can have on reading and learning across the disciplines. Hosting a parent night that gives parents an understanding of the importance of vocabulary as well as strategies that can be used at home on a daily basis would only help students develop deeper understanding and appreciation of words and their meanings. The school could even distribute the graphic organizers used at school as well as various writing or discussion prompts to get the parents involved at home. Redesigning our vocabulary curriculum does not mean recreating the wheel. The content in the Wordly Wise program is not the problem; rather, the current presentation of the content is problematic. When teachers implement some of the research-based strategies previously

mentioned to deliver the content in a more effective way, students will become better equipped with a stronger vocabulary, and more confident in using it.

Works Cited Curtis, Mary Beth. (2013). Doing what works: Explicit vocabulary teaching strategies [video]. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/. Frayer, D., Frederick, W. C., and Klausmeier, H. J. (1969). A Schema for Testing the Level of Cognitive Mastery. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Retrieved from http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22369/. Harmon, J.M., & Wood, K.D. (2008). Research Summary: Vocabulary teaching and learning across disciplines. Retrieved from http://www.nmsa.org/Research/ResearchSummaries/VocabularyTeaching/tabid/1728/Def ault.aspx. Togesen, Joseph K. & Miller, Debra Houston. (2009). Assessments to Guide Adolescent Literacy Instruction. Florida Center for Reading Research.