Chapter 6

Front 1

What are the 7 guidelines when planning vocabulary lessons?

Back 1

1. teach vocabulary from a context
2. emphasize students' active and informed role in the learning process
3. give students tools to expand word knowledge independently
4. reinforce word learning with repeated exposures over time
5. stimulate students' awareness and interest in words
6. build a language-rich environment to support word learning
7. encourage students to read widely

Front 2

Generative or elaborative processing engages students in activities such as what?

Back 2

1. sensing and inferring relationships
2. recognizing and applying vocabulary words to a variety of contexts
3. recognizing examples and nonexamples
4. generating novel contexts for the targeted word

Front 3

What should teachers do to stimulate students' awareness of and interest in words?

Back 3

The best starting point for building word enthusiasms is with the teacher. Modeling is a powerful teaching tool. Show students that the you use the dictionary to look up words that you don't understand or for definitions you need to clarify. During class, use words that you want students to integrate into their written and spoken vocabularies. Be playful with words and exhibit enthusiasm for words.

Front 4

How to build a language-rich environment to support learning

Back 4

Teachers can promote vocabulary growth by working with students to create an environment where new words are learned. Students should be given opportunities to experiment with using words in low-risk situations, to discuss new ideas daily, to talk freely and openly about how text concepts relate to their real-world concerns, to read works in a variety of text genres related to concepts, and to write purposeful and meaningful texts that employ key words and demonstrate understanding of important concepts.

Front 5

What are the three tasks involved in learning?

Back 5

First task is learning a new word for a concept when the student understands the concept but has not heard of the label for that concept. With the second task, students are learning a new concept for a known word. The third task involves students in learning a new concept for which they have no label and minimal, if any, understanding or background.

Front 6

What is the process for selecting words to teach?

Back 6

The first step in teaching vocabulary is to decide which terms and concepts should be taught. Determine what you want your students to learn. Identify key terms that are related to the unit's objectives. Decide on appropriate activities or strategies to introduce and reinforce the words. Identify the general words that are not necessarily central to the objectives of the unit but that lend themselves to various word-learning strategies that promote independence.

Front 7

What is previewing in context?

Back 7

It is a teacher-directed activity that relies on modeling and demonstrating to students how word meanings can sometimes be inferred from the context. It is an way of demonstrating how challenging it is for readers to employ contextual analysis for determining word meanings in text.

Front 8

What is possible sentences?

Back 8

It is a teacher-directed prereading activity that prepares students for the technical and general vocabulary they will encounter in a reading assignment. During this activity, students make predictions about content, establish connections between words and concepts, write, discuss, and read their assignments carefully to verify their predictions.

Front 9

What are the common problems students have interpreting dictionary entries?

Back 9

1. many students target only a part of the definition, ignoring the rest of the entry
2. students find a familiar word in the definition and attempt to substitute it for the unknown word
3. students cannot construct an adequate and precise meaning from the vague and disjointed fragments provided in the dictionary entries

Front 10

Teachers can help students if they teach and reinforce what ideas about the dictionary?

Back 10

1. the format and organization of a dictionary entry
2. the abbreviations and symbols in an entry
3. the etymological information in a typical entry
4. how to select the most appropriate definition for the situation in which they encountered the word

Front 11

What are three strategies for building students' vocabulary and comprehension?

Back 11

word maps, semantic feature analysis, and concept cards

Front 12

What does the semantic-feature analysis involve?

Back 12

It involves building a grid in the which essential vocabulary is listed on one axis of the grid and major features, characteristics, or important ideas are listed on the other axis. Students fill in the grid, indicating the extent to which the key words possess the stated features or are related to the important ideas. Once the grid is completed, students are led to discover both the shared and unique characteristics of the vocabulary words.

Front 13

What goes on the concept cards?

Back 13

On the front of the card, students write the targeted word and the superordinate idea for the word. On the back of the card, students provide the following information, when appropriate: (1) definition(s), (2) characteristics or features, (3) examples from the text and/or personal experiences, and (4) personal sentences.

Front 14

Describe the two types of word sorts

Back 14

With the closed sort, students know in advance the categories in which they must place their cards. Open sorts require students to determine ways in which their general or technical vocabulary can be grouped. Students search for relationships that might exist among the words rather than depending on the teacher to provide that structure.

Front 15

What are the six reinforcement activities?

Back 15

1. statement plus a request - students read two related statements, each containing the same targeted word
2. exclusion - students discriminate between, negate, and recognize examples and nonexamples
3. paired word questions - a question-asking activity that paired two targeted words and to answer these paired word questions, students must understand the underlined concepts or words and then determine if any relationships exists between them
5. sensing the big picture - students are asked to select the word or phrase that subsumes all the other words or phrases
6. analogies - involve students in knowing the synonyms or antonyms of targeted words or can encourage students to sense the relationships between words in a variety of ways