Terse: Short and to the point. That is one vocab word and definition I remember specifically from school. From time to time, I don't know why, it pops in my head. How many times have I come across this word since, very infrequently. Every Friday during high school, no matter what grade or teacher, there would be a vocabulary test. We had 20 vocab words we had to know and usually we would be tested on 10 of them. I remember every Thursday night, I would make flash cards and cram my studying of them in so I could remember the definition long enough to pass the test.
When I was reading this weeks materials, one of the things that stood out to me was the fact that in the academic world, vocab is often treated as its own separate subject, set aside from contents. The more I read, the more I come to see that vocabulary is actually very much a part of each subject, and is in fact a foundational piece, the key ingredient that without, the recipe for literacy would fall apart.
If I could compare disciplinary literacy to a food, I'm thinking it would be cookies. Each content would be its own type of cookie, but the vocabulary in each content - specifically the understanding of the vocabulary - would really be like the egg part of the recipe - because it is what really holds all the other ingredients together! Forget the egg in a cookie recipe and you are most likely going to end up with a product not even a dog would want to eat!! Vocabulary and understanding academic language is really key in students being successful in comprehending what they are reading.
There are many types of cookies out there.....and people can often add many different things to their recipe - extra cinnamon, extra chocolate chips, nuts, M&M's, etc. There is not just one recipe for a cookie - but many, just as in academic language, there is not just one definition, rather, it is changing and often 'dependent on the social and critical contexts' (Baumann). As I was reading, I was reflecting on how this could be a problem in that when it is being talked about, people can often be using the same phrase to describe different things, but for the most part, I think it is just like the cookies - different recipes, but really the same goal and the same common ingredients.
After reading this weeks material, I think that there needs to be a real emphasis put on vocabulary, and using it not just separated and isolated, as my high school experience was, rather, that it needs to be mixed into the recipe of every class and content. In high school, we were given the vocab mostly in our English class. But the idea that vocab is the building blocks to comprehending a content is really foundational and important. If we begin to take care of the simple idea of vocabulary (which as we see is not so simple), perhaps a lot of children, no matter their identities will begin to comprehend. If a student doesn't understand the words being used, the text or whatever means is being used to communicate, may as well be a foreign language!
A few other things stood out to me from the readings. One was in the Blachowicz reading which addressed the gap in vocab knowledge between economically disadvantaged and advantaged children. The reading said it begins in Preschool, but one thing that came to my mind is that maybe that is true as far as school goes, but really doesn't it begin when the child is a baby....because they absorb so much and grow up immersed in the language of their homes....I guess I am just thinking about different people I know who come from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. Some of them who have even gone to private schools or college still at times speak with a lower vocabulary, while some seem to speak much differently than their families.
Another point that stood out to me was in the Blachowicz article when it spoke about the need not to just use a list of words to teach vocab, but a common philosophy and shared practice within a school or district. Then it said there 'is no mode of instruction that is uniformly effective.'
This leads me to my question for this week: How can we, as staffs, schools, and/or districts practically and uniformly teach vocabulary while at the same time leave room for creativity and freedom to teach in one's own style?
Also, in the Snow article, it was touched on how academic language can vary in degrees, with less academic being closer to oral language, and how students tend to like that best. How can we reach students using less academic language with the goal of getting them to embrace higher academic language?
I do think vocabulary is the ingredient that is the key in successful reading comprehension in the different content areas and in general!
Trisha, I love this analogy about vocabulary being a key ingredient in the "recipe" of literature. I totally agree. I think that vocabulary can be overlooked a lot of the time, but if you do not have a strong vocabulary base you can run into definite road blocks with reading. This is where students become frustrated and confused when reading expository texts, because they are not familiar with the vocabulary and have to make a lot of inferences about what those words mean.
ReplyDeleteI love how you relate vocabulary and language to cookies. What a great analogy to use, especially in the classroom. It is true that vocabulary is the glue that holds our learning together. I also agree that vocabulary should not be forgotten in the other disciplines as it seems to be right now. I know that if I were to have had vocabulary tests in chemistry or history, it may have helped me remember terms better, like it did in English.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your own experience with vocabulary. I had this same experience with spelling. I would study all we long and by Friday, I would have moved these words into my short term memory. By Monday, these words that I studied for so long were gone because I now had a new list that I had to focus on. The truth was that there was no connection, which is exactly what you said about your vocabulary instruction. There are so many parents that ask for spelling lists. I talked to them about how decontextualized spelling instruction is not effective. I think this is something that we can quickly relate to vocabulary for parents. Even if we send home vocabulary words for them to study, we need to make sure that students use it in connection to the content they are learning.
ReplyDeleteTrisha,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading your blog it made me think of my practicum teacher. Even though she teaches third grade, she always tells the class the process of her thinking, often using education jargon mixed in. I admire her for that. She never strays away from using academic language to explain her thoughts.
For uniformity, things may change a little with common core. I know my school uses an adopted text from common core called StoryTown. The students read from here, so it also provides them with their vocabulary. I dont know how common core works with this stuff, but if there are a lot of schools who use this common core text, to some extent they may have some uniformity.
Relating to my anecdote, I think there are two ways to go about academic vocabulary; you need to use/encourage it and teach it. Creating an atmosphere where academic vocabulary is comfortable and consistently used is important. Kids usually pick up on these things. Chances are if you do it, they will too! You'll need to do some explicit instruction too; which may be on the fly if you use a new word. Or if you have a strategy in which to do so. But I think that the best thing to do is immerse them, a rule of thumb for all things involving literacy.