Word Up: Building a Rich Vocabulary for
Academy Themes
National Academy Foundation Leadership SummitOrlando, FloridaNovember 16, 2006Presenter: Andrew Rothstein, PhDNAF Curriculum [email protected]
Focus & Essential Questions
• What is the rationale for integrating literacy strategies into Academy themes?
• What is literacy in the context of NAF Academies?
• How can we provide students with a robust vocabulary?
How does one acquire a large vocabulary?
Vocabulary
Criteria for Selecting Words to TeachSource: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (Beck, McKeown, Kucan)
• Importance & Utility: Appear frequently across a variety of domains.
• Instructional Potential: Words that can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students can build rich representations of them and their connections to other words & concepts.
• Conceptual Understanding: Words for which students understand the general concept but provide precision & specificity in describing the concept.
Key Components of Literacy Support Framework
(Source: Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice. Julie Meltzer, Nancy Cook Smith & Holly Clark. CRM)
• Address Student Motivation to Read, Write, and Speak.
• Implement Research-Based Literacy Strategies
• Integrate Literacy Across the Curriculum• Ensure Support, Sustainability and Focus
Through Organizational Structures and Leadership Capacity.
The Case and Guidance for Focusing on Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the building block of discourse in all subjects. Research
indicates that there is a strong relationship between academic success and
vocabulary. A major source of the achievement gap is a lack of background
vocabulary. The research supporting direct instruction
in vocabulary is compelling.
Elements of Effective Vocabulary Instruction
• Not relying on dictionary definitions.• Represent word knowledge linguistically & non-
linguistically.• Gradually shape word meanings through
multiple exposures.• Teaching word parts.• Vary instructional strategies.• Having students discuss terms and use word
play. • Focus on terms that enhance academic success.
Three “INTERACTING DYNAMICS” for Moving Words From Working Memory to
Permanent Memory • Number of times a student processes
information about the word (around four times over a two period)
• Depth of processing (adding detail to understanding)
• Elaboration (increasing the variety of associations with a term).
How to Organize Words for Instruction
The Story of Words
Categorizing
TaxonomiesList-Group-Label
Defining
Defining Format
History of Words
Etymology
Expanding Word Meaning
Morphology
Word Play
The Story of Words - Part 1
Categories
Creating Categories with List-Group-Label
• Put the students in groups of about 4 students.• Distribute Post-It Notes or Index Cards to the
students.• Ask them to place one word they associate with
mathematics on each card.• Have them work in teams put the words that
they think go together in groups.• Look at each group and give them labels. • These can now serve as categories for
taxonomies.
Taxonomy About Money
• A• B• C• D• E• F• G• H• I• J• K• L• M
• N• O• P• Q• R• S• T• U• V• W• X• Y• Z
Words Are Free!
Taxonomies
• Alphabetical Lists of Words On a Mathematical Topic
• Continuously Expanded• Used for Writing• Double Page Spread• Skip Lines• Solo/Share/Cross Pollinate
Steps 1 in Building a Taxonomy
• Each participant is to work alone or solo, and think of as many topics as possible that their classes will be studying this year.
• Give an example, such as rain forests, holidays, or mathematicians.
• Participants should enter each topic next to the initial letter.
• Ask participants to work for three or four minutes without talking to anyone in the class.
Step 2 to Build a Taxonomy
• Step 2: Collaboration
–Have participants form subgroups of three or four in their “class”.
–Tell the subgroups to collect each other’s words.
Step 3 to Build a Taxonomy• Cross-Pollination
– Instruct the “class” to collect topics from other “classes”. This will help enlarge the individual taxonomies.
– Ask one person from each “class’ to select a topic that she or he thinks is especially important or interesting.
– Direct that person to say to the entire group, “I would like to contribute the topic of _____ to your Taxonomy.”
– Encourage everyone to then add that topic to his or her Taxonomy.
Creating a Personal Thesaurus
Date Topic Pages
November 1, 2006
Types of lodging 6-7
November 14, 2006
Types of eateries 8-9
November 20, 2006
Hotel chains 10-11
Story of Words – Part 2
Defining
Defining FormatQuestion
What is money?
Money
Category
is
Characteristics
that
1
2
3
What is a dollar?
A dollar is money that
1
2
3
Morphology and Etymology
• Morphology: Word comes Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams. (morpheme, amorphous, morphine, animorphs).
• Describes how words change into various parts of speech, meanings, spelling, or pronunciations over time.
• Etymology• Tells us where the words
come from.• Mathematical words have
many origins: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, Arabic
Story of Words – Part 3
History
Etymology• What does one’s salary have to do with the taste of
food?• What do the following terms have in common?
– Baud– Hayes command– Bartlett pear– bolivar– boniface– doily– jacuzzi– museum– sandwich– welch
What do the following information technology and hospitality & tourism terms have in common with a type of suitcase?
• Information Technology– bit– intercom– Internet– netiquette– pixel– telecommuter– telsat– transistor
• Hospitality & Tourism– autobus– farewell– gasohol– moped– motel– skyjack– taxicab– travelogue
A common type of suitcase is the portmanteau (literally, carrier of the coat). A portmanteau word is the result of two
words folded into each other to make one new word.– bit = binary + digit– intercom = internal +
communication– Internet = international +
network– netiquette = network +
etiquette– pixel = picture + element– telecommuter =
telecommunication + commuter
– telsat = telecommunications + satellite
– transistor = transfer + resister
– autobus = automobile + bus– farewell = fare + ye + well– gasohol = gasoline + alcohol– moped = motor + pedal– motel = motor + hotel– skyjack = sky + hijack– taxicab = taximeter + cabriolet– travelogue = travel +
monologue
Story of Words – Part 4
Morphology
Why does the word mint have two meanings?
The Answer Lies in Morphology
• The word for the mint we eat comes from the Greek myth of Proserpine, who transformed a nymph into an herb (minthe)
• The word for the mint that makes the money comes from a Latin word for money (moneta)
Over time the pronunciations of the two words morphed independently until they became the same in sound and spelling.
Morphology ChartNouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs
digit
digits
digitizer
digitize
digitized
digitizes
digitizing
digital digitally
Story of Words – Part 5
Word Play
Rebuses
Travelcccccc
trworld
ip
sgeg
Rebuses
Travelcccccc
trworld
ip
sgeg
• Travel overseas• Trip around the world• Scrambled eggs
Academy Oxymorons
• Microsoft works• Advanced BASICS• Virtual reality• Constant variable• Working holiday• Free trade
Computer Word Play
• Dr. Seuss Comes to Your Computer– Bits. Bytes. Chips. Clocks.
Bits in bytes on chips in box. Bytes with bits and chips with clocks. Chips in box on ether-docks.
– Chips with bits come. Chips with bytes come.
Chips with bits and bytes and clocks come
– Look, sir. Look, sir. Read the book, sir. Let's do tricks with bits and bytes sir. Let's do tricks with chips and clocks, sir.
Costello Buys A Computer from Abbott