Running head: IMPROVING VOCABULARY IN THE CONTENT AREA 1

Vocabulary in Social Studies: Using Strategies to Improve Academic Vocabulary

Amanda D’Addona

Manhattan College
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Vocabulary in Social Studies: Using Strategies to Improve Academic Vocabulary

How can students understand major concepts and themes in social studies courses

without having basic academic vocabulary? For the course, Education 403 Reading in the

Content Area, I completed my fieldwork hours at DeWitt Clinton High School. I worked with

students in social studies courses. Students in these classes lack the reading and writing skills

necessary for their current grade level. The main focus of this project, was how could I help

students become better readers and writers by helping them develop their discipline specific

academic vocabulary. Academic vocabulary consists of terms or phrases that are specific to a

particular content area, in this case social studies. Expanding students’ vocabulary will enable

them to have a clear understanding of the material being taught in a class.

Looking at the Problem

While observing two different Global III classes at DeWitt Clinton, I noticed students

struggled with reading and writing. They also lack academic vocabulary. For example, in class

one day students were asked to fill out a graphic organizer comparing the advantages and

disadvantages for both indirect and direct colonial rule. One student did not have anything filled

out in his graphic organizer.

To begin helping him, I asked him to explain the difference between indirect versus

direct colonial rule. He was unable to come up with a correct response. This is extremely

problematic because in order to understand the British Imperialism, you need to know that they

had two methods for ruling their colonies: indirect and direct rule. How could a student complete

a worksheet on the advantages and disadvantages of the indirect and direct colonial ruling

without knowing the definition of those terms.

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In order to help this student, I used structural analysis, meaning prefixes, suffixes, and

root words. Using the prefix “in” helped this student understand the difference between direct

and indirect colonial rule. After, I helped this student with defining these vocabulary terms he

had a better understanding of British Colonial rule in India. He then was able to tackle his

graphic organizer worksheet. If students to do not know vocabulary it can be hard for them to

complete work that is being assigned by the teacher. Students in DeWitt Clinton High School,

lack the basic academic vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to introduce vocabulary

strategies that would help students develop their academic vocabularies.

Review of Literature

In the field of education, educators and scholars have studied different strategies that

could be used to teach academic vocabulary. Some of these researchers include Stahl (1986),

Young (2005), and Fisher, Brozo, Frey, & Ivey (2010).

Effective Vocabulary Development

Stahl (1986) performed a study to see the impact that direct vocabulary instruction had

on students’ overall comprehension in the long run. This study involved the examination of 52

different vocabulary instructional strategies. The results from these strategies reveal, “that

vocabulary instruction generally does improve reading comprehension” (Stahl, 1986, p. 662). In

a study when a group of students received instruction on vocabulary terms, they were able to

better comprehend the vocabulary terms that would appear in passages being read in class

(1986). Teaching effective vocabulary strategies can improve students’ reading comprehension.

In his study on effective vocabulary, Stahl (1986) explored three principles for teaching

vocabulary directly and its impact on students’ comprehension. The first principle suggests

giving both context and definitions. He stated, “Definitional information can be defined as

knowledge of the logical relations between a work and other known words…In teaching,

definitional information can be provided through definitions, but also through synonyms,
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antonyms, prefixes, suffices, roots, classification, etc.” (Stahl, 1986, p. 663). Principle two is

“deep” processing. For example, students should be thinking deeply about a word and its

relationship to other terms. Finally, the third principle is to give multiple exposers to the

vocabulary. If students are continuously exposed to vocabulary terms comprehension will

improve.

In addition to providing effective ways to teach vocabulary, Stahl also provided a section

in his study on how not to teach vocabulary. He claimed, “Vocabulary teaching methods which

gave only definitional information about each word’s meaning did not appear to significantly

improve comprehension, nor did methods which only gave students one or two exposures to the

word (Stahl, 1986, p. 665). Giving a textbook definition of a term is not sufficient way to teach

vocabulary. It is clear from this study that students need to be provided with more information on

a term and also be exposed to the term multiple times in order to increase comprehension.

Vocabulary in the Content Area

Edyth Young (2005) discussed how to bridge the gap of content specific vocabulary with

teaching students how to use vocabulary learning strategies. In this study, Young used science

to show why and how vocabulary instruction is necessary in the content area. However, it can

be argued that the ideas presented in the study are applicable to all of the discipline areas. In

direct vocabulary instruction, Young argued that teachers need to contextualize word meanings,

establish relationships between vocabulary terms, and provide multiple exposure and usage of

the words (2005).

He argued, “Vocabulary strategies and explicit instruction should not just be allocated to

the English teacher’s instruction. It is important that every content-area teacher teach

vocabulary. Students’ first requirement for understanding what they read in science is to

understand the language (i.e. vocabulary content) within text and classroom instruction…In
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addition, prior knowledge and building background knowledge facilitates students’

comprehension of science text, vocabulary, and key concepts” (Young, 2005, p. 12). It is clear

that students need to learn vocabulary in the content area in order to understand the material

that is being taught to them. Some strategies Young suggested include science vocabulary

questionnaire, vocabulary TV visualization, definition map, personal clue cards, and semantic

feature analysis.

Some of the vocabulary strategies that Young presented in the article, were adapted and

used in the following action research plan. I taught students at DeWitt Clinton high school how

to use semantic maps, which are very similar to the definition map that was explained in the

article. Furthermore, Young also suggested that in science courses students should take a

science vocabulary questionnaire. This is a reflect practice that requires teachers to give to their

students before explicit vocabulary instruction and after the vocabulary instruction (2005). This

was also adapted and used in my research plan. I had students complete pre and post self-

assessment charts to assess their acquisition of new vocabulary following explicit vocabulary

instruction.

Fisher, Brozo, Frey, and Ivey (2010) suggest that students assess their vocabulary

knowledge prior to reading texts in the content area (2010). This can be done through

completing a self-assessment vocabulary chart. The authors claimed, “This awareness is

valuable for secondary teachers as well as for students because it provides a reflection of the

critical academic language they know, as well as what they still need to learn…” (Fisher, Brozo

et al, 2010, p. 357). Students will be able to identify what terms they know, might know, or do

not know. This whole process makes student aware of the vocabulary that they need to learn in

order to be successful within a specific disciple or unit of study.

The authors provided an example for how a student’s self-awareness chart should be

assessed by the teacher. From a self-assessment chart a teacher concluded that a student,
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Jodi who completed a self-assessment had a low-level of familiarity with the terms that would

appear in passages that would be read (2010). This lack of familiarity with vocabulary terms will

make it difficult for Jodi to comprehend the assigned reading passage. The teacher is able to

assess the range of a particular student’s academic vocabulary based on their self-assessment.

Based on the results of the self-awareness charts, the teacher can plan explicit vocabulary

instruction for students who need to learn the vocabulary terms that will appear on the

assignment. The vocabulary self-assessment will be adopted and used in this action research.

Area of Focus

The Purpose

The purpose of this project was to help students who were performing below grade level

improve their reading and writing skills. Students were provided with strategies to help them

develop the academic vocabulary that is necessary for a 10th grade student in a Global History

& Geography course. An increase in vocabulary would allow students to be able to identify key

terms in any future assignment.

The Participants

After identifying the problem of the lack of vocabulary, I spoke with the cooperating

teacher about students’ vocabulary. I proposed my plan to help students with vocabulary by

providing them with different strategies to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary in the future. The teacher

assigned two to three students from each class period to work with me. In the first period class, I

worked with Augustin and Ashanti. During second period, I worked with Fabiola, Chantilly, and

Marco Antonio. These were all students who struggled with their vocabulary.

Devising and Executing the Plan

To begin this project, I gave students a vocabulary self-awareness chart (Figure 1) that

included discipline specific academic vocabulary for the topic that was currently being

addressed in class. This chart, adapted from Fisher, Brozo, Frey, and Ivey’s (2010) text allowed
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students to identify words that they either know, are unsure of, or do not know the meaning of. If

students knew a vocabulary word they will have to go on to write a definition in their own words

and then give an example. This self-awareness exercise allowed me to assess the varying

academic vocabularies of the students. The discipline terms included militarism, alliance,

imperialism, and nationalism. Below is an example of Ashanti’s self-awareness chart.

Figure 1: Pre-Assessment Vocabulary Self-Awareness (Ashanti)

Figure 1 is an example of the vocabulary self-awareness pre-assessment students

completed before learning different strategies and skills to help them gain new discipline specific

vocabulary. In this self-assessment students had to determine if they knew the following

vocabulary terms: militarism, alliance, imperialism, and nationalism. In this example, Ashanti’s

self-awareness chart displays that she knew the definitions of alliance and nationalism, but was

unsure of the meaning of imperialism and militarism.

Next, I taught students how to use context clues and graphic organizers such as

semantic maps (McLaughlin, 2015). Discussions with the cooperating teacher allowed me to

teach students vocabulary relevant to the topic currently being studied in class, World War I.
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Context clues allowed students to identify new vocabulary terms in a text by using the known

surrounding words to make meaning of the unknown term (McLaughlin, 2015). I used excerpts

of document-based questions to teach students how to use context clues to help them

determine the meaning of unknown words within a text. The document-based questions that

were used to teach the concept of context clues were all relevant to the causes of World War I,

which were militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism. The causes of World War I

(militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism) are often identified by using the acronym

M.A.I.N.

Figure 2 Context Clue Document 1 (Fabiola)

Figure 2 is an example of a student using context clues to help her define World War I

vocabulary terms. In Figure 2, the student used the text in the document to help them come to

the definition of militarism. The excerpt document 1 stated, “…political and military leaders did

certain things which lead to the mobilization [of their armies for war] …” Fabiola was able to

define militarism from this excerpt because militarism during World War I was when nations in

Europe built up or mobilized their armies. She used the clues in the excerpt to come to a

definition for militarism.

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In addition, a semantic map was created for students to fill out. A semantic map is a

graphic organizer that allows students to visually represent new vocabulary terms that are all

related (McLaughlin, 2015). For this particular study, the center of the semantic map web was

labeled “M.A.I.N. causes of World War I.” Students then had to branch off the center web and

define all four causes of World War I. Below is an example of a semantic map completed by a

student at DeWitt Clinton High School.

Figure 3 Graphic Organizer "World War I Vocabulary Semantic Map" (Fabiola)

Figure 3 is a semantic map completed by Fabiola. The purpose of using this graphic

organizer was to help students with vocabulary. Graphic organizers are helpful with vocabulary

because they are visual representations of the terms being taught. Students can use the graphic

organizer, in this case the semantic map to organize their thoughts. In this particular strategy,

students were given the template already filled out because it was their first time using a
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semantic map. In the future, they should be able to create and fill out their own semantic maps.

Students were responsible for defining the given terms by using their notes or asking for

assistance from myself. In the semantic map, students also provided examples of the definitions

that wrote down for each vocabulary term. For instance, for alliance systems, the students

recalled the alliances that European nations established prior to the start of the war. As seen in

the study by Young (2010), it is important for students to be exposed to examples of the content

area terms that they are defining. Clearly, Fabiola was able to successfully define each term

and will be able to reference this World War I vocabulary semantic map when studying for future

assignments or exams.

Finally, after students were taught these vocabulary strategies, they were given another

vocabulary self-awareness chart. This was a post assessment, using the same chart students

received prior to learning the vocabulary strategies. The purpose was to determine if these

students were successful in acquiring new vocabulary by using context clues and the semantic

map. There was also a section for students to reflect on their experience and usefulness of the

strategies taught.

Figure 4 Student Reflection/Reaction to Vocabulary Strategies (Fabiola)

All five students responded and reflected on the effectiveness of the vocabulary

strategies as seen in Figure 4. Fabiola explained that these strategies helped her organize the

vocabulary terms being taught. Furthermore, the strategies provided her with an opportunity to

clarify the definitions of these vocabulary terms. Ultimately, leading to a better understanding of
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the terms. The goal of having students reflect on these strategies was to see if they could be

applied and used on a regular basis in social studies classes and also in other content areas.

The Results

Graphic representations were created display the results of the pre and post self-

assessments. These representations can be used to compare the effectiveness of implementing

context clues and semantic maps to teach content area vocabulary to students from DeWitt

Clinton High School.

Pre-Assesment
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Militarism Alliance Imperialism Nationalism

Number of students who already knew the definition of the vocabulary term (+)
Number of students who think they knew the meaning of the vocabulary term (⎷)
Number of students who did not know the definition of the vocabulary term (-)

Figure 5 Results from Vocabulary Self-Assessment

Figure 5 consists of the results from the pre-assessment completed by the five students. From

the results, it is evident that students were more familiar with certain vocabulary terms than

others. For example, all students knew the meaning of the term alliance. In her self-awareness

assessment, Ashanti Reid defined the term alliance being, “two nation [sic] come together as

one and join forces.” Although this is not a perfect definition of the term alliance, without having

previous direct vocabulary instruction on the term this is a sufficient definition.

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Post-Assessment
6

0
Militarism Alliance Imperialism Nationalism

Number of students who already knew the definition of the vocabulary

term (+)
Number of students who think they knew the meaning of the vocabulary
term (⎷)
Number of students who did not know the definition of the vocabulary
term (-)
Figure 6 Results from Vocabulary Self-Awareness Post-Assessment

Figure 6 displays the results from the post-assessment. Students completed the same

self-awareness chart that was given to them at the being of the project. But, this time they were

exposed to the World War I vocabulary terms via context clues and the semantic map. Students

were more familiar with the majority of the vocabulary terms for World War I after receiving

explicit vocabulary instruction through the use of vocabulary strategies.

Data Anaylsis

By looking at the Figure 5 and Figure 6, I idenitfied the effectiveness of the use of

vocabulary strategies, in this case the semantic map and context clues help students develop

their domain specific academic vocabularies. Figure 5 shows that only one student knew the

defintion of militarism. From the Vocabulary Pre-Assessment, it is evident that students at

DeWitt Clinton High School are still struggling with basic academic vocabulary.

When analyzing pre-assessment data, it was alarming that most of the students were

unable to define the term imperialism. Prior to this unit of study on World War I, the majority of

the instruction that occurred during my fieldwork hours were on the topic of Imperialism. This

shows that students were either not receiving explicit vocabulary instruction or they were not

retaining newly introduced vocabulary terms. But, after the introduction of the vocabulary

stategies students were able to recall the defintion of imperialism as noted in Figure 6.
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Although explicit teaching of vocabulary strategies was effective there are ways that I

would change the plan. To begin, I would teach these strategies to all of the students at DeWitt

Clinton High School. The cooperating teacher was generous enough to allow me to work with

five students between the two class periods. But, I feel that more students were in need of these

strategies to help develop their academic vocabularies. In addition, I only had a limited amount

of time to work with these students. The action research would have been more sucessful if I

was able to have more time to teach these students. Finally, there were only specific terms that

I could teach due to the topic of study that was being taught at the time of the study. Except for

these limitations, the plan was effective in helping students develop their vocabularies for social

studies.

Action Plan Interpretation

Overall, the Action Plan for teaching vocabulary strategies to help students develop their

domain specific academic vocabularies was successful. As seen in the data collection and

analysis the five students benefited from learning these new strategies. Through my research

and data analysis, I saw that the majority of students were able to define these vocabulary

terms after learning how to use a semantic map and context clues. It is clear that taking time to

provide students with direct vocabulary instruction is an effective use of instructional time.

As a future teacher, I will incorporate vocabulary mini-lessons into my lesson plans

weekly. I think that it is extremely important that students are taught vocabulary both explicitly

and implicitly. I want to help students to develop their academic vocabulary as they continue on

in their secondary education. Developing content specific vocabularies will make them more

successful students in the future. Incorporating simple vocabulary instructional strategies and

skills for students will go a long way in improving the development of vocabulary.
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References

Fisher, D., Brozo, W. G., Frey, N., & Ivey, G. (2010). 50 instructional routines to develop content
literacy. New York: Pearson.

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content area reading: teaching and learning for college and career
readiness. United States: Pearson.

Stahl, S. A. (1986). Three principles of effective vocabulary instruction. Journal of Reading. Vol.
29, No. 7. Special Issue on Vocabulary. (pp. 662-668). Retrieved from
http://jstor.org/stable/400296995

Young, E. (2005). The language of science, the language of students: bridging the gap with
engaged learning vocabulary strategies. Science Activities. Vol 42. No. 2. (pp. 12-17).
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