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Developing vocab/semantic knowledge, Question on this could link to…
Developing vocab/semantic knowledge
Key areas of vocabulary development
Semantics
The rules governing the meanings of words, vocabulary knowledge and the relationship between words.
Experience and knowledge effect semantic understanding, use shared experiences in the classroom
Pragmatics
Comprehension
Oral Texts
Phonological Awareness
Strategies that could be used to enhance students' knowledge and skills
Teach Individual Words: Explicitly teach groups of words and allow students to select their own words. Multiple exposures to words/books is shown to be beneficial to vocabulary development. Tiers of words (Beck et al)
Word learning is incremental and understanding is enriched by repeated exposure
Its worth engaging students in short activities to support them to use and remember words. examples : word comparisons, drawing pictures or diagrams, discussing words with peers and completing graphic organisers
How to teach a new word: 1) Read the word within the text, empasising the new word. 2) Students say the new word. 3) Provide a st-friendly def of the word. 4) Sts explain the meaning of the word to a partner. 5) Repeat the word.
Plan for and Encourage Independent Reading: Reading can improve vocabulary and comprehension. Exposure to rich vocabulary during independent reading helps students to learn new words. Vocabulary used in books is richer and more diverse than what is used in normal conversation.
Teach Word Learning Strategies: using modelled, shared and guided reading to demonstrate how expert readers approach decoding words. Examples: consulting a reference, using context, affixes, morphology etc.
Create the environment- if you are teaching shapes for Maths; put pictures, words and students’ related work up around the room. Create an interest in words that will encourage students to be self-motivated learners
Build and Foster Word Consciousness: support students to develop an interest and awareness in words and how they work = word consciousness e.g. Word play.
Ask students what they already know and teach them new, related information.
Provide definitions and descriptions. This will help them develop their semantic web.
Visualise and verbalise.
Create opportunities for students to practise these words with other students and with you.
Teaching words in a context is preferable to teaching isolated lists of words
References
Cameron, S., & Dempsey, L. (2016). The Oral Language Book: Embedding talk across the curriculum. Chap. 3
Peel Language Development Book
Lectures 3, 4 & 5 (PEEL)
Vocab Activities
Vocab Hot Seat
Define It
Tweet the meaning
Word Jar
Word Alert
Word Pictures
Word of the Week
Word Sorts
Types of Vocab Teaching
Planned Word Teaching
This involves that teachers plan to teach explicitly, as they are necessary to understand content learning or are useful general words to know. For example, teaching three key words in a guided reading text.
Incidental Word Teaching
This happens when the teacher or the students come across words incidentally in speech or visual or printed texts. These words can be dealt with by deciding whether they are worth spending time on now, later, or at all.
Three Tiers of Words in Vocab Teaching
Tier 1 - Basic words that rarely require direct instruction
Tier 2 - High-Frequency words that are useful to students long-term and occur across a variety of domains
Planned explicit teaching of tier 2 words will benefit all students
Tier 3 - Low frequency words that occur in specific domains
Semantic Activities
Oral Language Games (targets labelling)
Sit a group of children in a circle and play “I went to the shop and bought a ...”. Children need to go around in the group and add to the previous child’s purchase e.g. I went to the shop and bought an apple and a jumper. Start the game allowing children to buy any item. You can play the game and instruct the children that they can only buy fruits, vegetables, transport or clothing items etc.
Junk Mail / Catalogues (target labelling, functions, attributes, associations)
Use junk mail, catalogues or books within the classroom. Ask children to label all of the items on the page. Ask children what the function of an object is on the page. Ask children how two objects on the page are different or similar. If children cannot complete the task assist them with strategies such as forced choice “e.g. is it an apple or an orange” or first model a function/similarity.
Rapid Naming Games (targets categorisation)
Organise a group of children into two lines or teams. Use category picture cards or verbally give the children a category. Categories can include animals, fruits, vegetables, transport, professions, clothing etc. Provide the two children with a category/or show them a visual category card. The first child to generate a correct item in that category earns 10 points for their line/team e.g. animals > dog. Move down the line with each pair until every pair / group member has had a turn. The line / team with the most points is the winner.
Feely Bag (target description, attributes)
Use a feely bag with a variety of objects. Children take turns and feel for an object in the bag / look inside (ensuring other children do not see the object). The child must describe the object and its attributes e.g. it feels soft, it has two ears, it has a long tail. Once they have described their object identifying X number of features , the rest of the children can try and guess what it is. If the children guess incorrectly then the child can show the object for them to label.
Balanced vocab programme
Word class: knowledge of word classes deepens students understanding of words and how they work, will also support their reading and writing skills (eg: noun groups, verbs, adverbs)
Literary devices: supports students vocabulary learning, and the development of reading and writing skills. Students notice the literary devices during reading and review the impact in context.
Teach word-learning strategies - Reading to, shared reading and guided reading and reading topic-related texts provide authentic opportunities. Also affixes, base words and root words
Question on this could link to curriculum, EALD, GRRM - How you would teach it