FOR-PD’s Reading Strategy of the Month

Rationale:
Vocabulary knowledge is fundamental to reading comprehension (Nagy, 1988). As teachers, we know that lack of vocabulary knowledge is a serious obstacle for many of our students, impacting not only their reading, but also their writing and communicating. One of our primary responsibilities is to provide opportunities for students to enlarge their reading vocabularies. Anderson and Freebody (in Nagy, 1988) tell us that a reader’s general vocabulary knowledge is the single best predictor of how well a reader can understand text. Many students struggle as they progress in grade levels due to the increasingly complex vocabulary. To be successful in comprehending, students must learn the meanings of words (Nagy, 1988).

The research indicates students must be taught directly by explicitly teaching words. In content subjects such as history and science, dozens of unfamiliar words bombard students each week – words that students must be able to extract meaning from as they read. Therefore, vocabulary study before, during, and after reading should be integrated into the curriculum (Robb, 2000). We must train our students on the use of strategies to enhance understanding of word meaning (Armbruster & Osborne, 2001).

Word maps and charts help students expand word meanings and discover relationships between vocabulary terms (Santa, Havens, & Valdes, 2004). They also help students develop elaborated definitions, rather than simple, one or two word descriptions. Many students have a narrow conception of what the meaning of a word encompasses. Most conceive definitions as simplistic, imprecise statements that lack elaboration and personal comment. Word maps help students create a broader concept of a definition, one that encourages them to integrate their own knowledge (Santa et. al., 2004). By teaching word learning strategies over a period of time, students are provided a way to learn vocabulary independently.

How to Use the Strategy:
Our Word Box is a graphic organizer that contains four compartments for recording information related to defining a word. Using the strategy involves the following steps:

1. Explain to students that developing word maps provides another way to elaborate on important concepts.
2. Model using the Word Box organizer by using a familiar word. Write the word in the middle box. The word is surrounded with the following information: a definition (in their own words) or synonyms, antonyms, an original sentence containing the word, and a picture illustrating the word.
3. Provide guided practice and feedback on student use of the Word Box. You can pair students up and have them develop word maps together. You can then have them present their word map to the class.
4. Finally, after modeling and guided practice students should begin to develop these maps independently.

Variations:
The Word Box organizer works extremely well for learning vocabulary in different content areas. It is also very adaptable and can be changed to fit the needs of your students. You can change the surrounding information and ask students to look at essential and non-essential characteristics and examples/non-examples. By changing the categories of information, you have now created a Frayer Model, which is used to help students learn new concepts by differentiating characteristics that define the concept and those that are only marginally associated with it. Another very similar vocabulary strategy is the Concept Definition Map (http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/strategies/stratMap.html). This map also helps students visualize the components of a definition (Santa et. al., 2004). The Concept of Definition Map contains three relationships essential to a definition: "What is it?", "What is it like?", and "What are some examples?"

Ideas for Assessment:
The Word Box lends itself to informal teacher assessments. Teachers can use the graphic organizer to assess students’ understanding of the vocabulary word. By looking at the use of the word in a sentence teachers can determine if students are able to correctly apply the meaning in context. Another way of assessing the Word Box is through student reflection. The teacher should have students reflect on how this graphic organizer helps them become more metacognitively aware of how well they know the vocabulary word. The teacher can prompt this discussion by asking questions like, “How does mapping a word lead to long term retention of the definition?” or “If you are unable to map a word, what does that tell you about how well you understand the word?” (Santa et. al., 2004).

Finally, teachers can develop a rubric for assessing student completion of the word map. The following rubric is an example from a lesson plan found on www.readwritethink.org. The student can self-evaluate their Word Box, other classmates can evaluate the Word Box, and the teacher can evaluate the Word Box by using this rubric.

(Click on the graphic above to go to a pdf file of the Vocabulary Word Box worksheet or go to the html file.)

Elementary example below used text from article available at http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/10feb00/article1a.html

(Click on the graphic above to go to a pdf file of a sample elementary Vocabulary Word Box worksheet.)

Secondary example below used text from article available at http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/10feb00/article1.html

(Click on the graphic above to go to a pdf file of a sample secondary Vocabulary Word Box worksheet.)

Resources
For more informative links on word maps see the following:

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Vocabulary Word Maps

• http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/readquest/strat/wordmap.html

Middle School Lesson Plan: Internalization of Vocabulary Through the Use of the Word Map

• http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=307
• http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson307/wordmap.pdf - sample word map
• http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson307/rubric.pdf - sample rubric

Additional Vocabulary Graphic Organizers

• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/vocab/
• http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/GO/vocab_dev.htm
• http://www.marion.k12.ky.us/Strategies/Social/socialstudies/understand.htm - for each strategy there is also a video you can watch
• http://www.2learn.ca/construct/graphicorg/concept/conceptmapindex.html
• http://www.inspiration.com/vlearning/index.cfm?fuseaction=webs

Online Information about Vocabulary Instruction

• http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0STR/is_5_113/ai_112088683 - Real-word vocabulary: Enrich word learning by showing students how new words relate to familiar concepts by Richard Vacca
• http://www.manateemiddle.org/phonics/newpage25.htm - summary of vocabulary research

References
Armbruster, B. & Osboron, J. (2001) Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. Washington, DC: The U.S. Department of Education.

Nagy, W. (1988). Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Robb, L. (2000) Teaching reading in middle school: A strategic approach to teaching reading that improves comprehension and thinking. New York, NY: Scholastic Professional Books.

Santa, C., Havens, L., & Valdes, B. (2004) Project CRISS: Creating independence through student owned strategies, third edition. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

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Go to Adobe PDF instruction page.

Last Updated December 06, 2004
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