When I speak about content areas, I am talking about social studies, science, and math - pretty much any subject other than ELA. I am isolating content areas, because vocabulary is such a critical piece to mastering their knowledge, especially if you are a student who is at-risk.
An at-risk student can be considered a student who qualifies for free/reduced lunch, a student who is ELL, or a student who is reading below grade level. A student can be at-risk in one or more categories, and that just raises the bar of need for that student, and should raise the bar for our teaching. That is where graphic organizers come into play - graphic organizers are a great tool to help students learn vocabulary in context and acquire words in such a way that their uses are transferable.
Vocabulary has such a special place in my heart - I wrote my master's thesis on this (I can e-mail it to those who want to read 80 pages on vocabulary and special populations.) So, I've done the research and put it into practice in my own classroom, where every student meets at least one at-risk category. So, let's get on with how to use this in your own classroom:
1. Select appropriate vocabulary.
- Make sure vocabulary words are tier II or tier III words - these are the words that have multiple meanings, cannot have their meaning derived from context clues or are related to a specific discipline. Examples: constitution, denominator, civil, producer
- Keep it short. I teach 5th grade and I do no more than 5 words per class session. Use your professional judgement.
2. Create in-context learning.
- For students who are at-risk, you CANNOT just simply give them the definition. No, absolutely not. We, humans, do not learn and acquire words that way. Even as adults, when we encounter a new word, we assimilate - what is it like, what is it not like, etc. We have to do this for our students - we have to scaffold that assimilation. You might have a child who speaks 4 languages in your classroom (I did) and that's a lot of vocabulary floating around their brain - help them nail it down.
3. PRACTICE.
- A student needs to interact with a vocabulary word between 15 to 17 times before they have gained full control, which means introducing it at the beginning of your lesson and not talking about it again is not a best practice. Make them use it. Hold them accountable. Don't underestimate their ability to use high academic vocabulary correctly. They will surprise you.
This is where graphic organizers come into play.
Miss Scott's Favorite graphic organizers: (All of these will be available to download - click here.)
1. Frayer Model: The Frayer model is an all time favorite. It focuses on students classifying words based on examples and non examples. It can be a four or five square model depending on your class needs. I use a five square model, because all words should be able to have a visual representation to go with their definition. A visual helps when they can't remember the word or definition, they can remember the picture. I use this to learn new vocabulary words, so there's a lot of teacher given information on mine, but you can easily use this as a formative assessment for a unit (Fractions) or a specific vocabulary word (States of Matter.) The possibilities are endless.
2. Vocabulary Matrix: These are great when you can group like words together. For example, I used a vocabulary matrix when we were learning about ecosystems, and my students created a matrix with the words: producer, consumer, decomposer, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore. All of those words describe organisms' place in food chains and food webs, so easily represented on a matrix. The matrix has similar components to a Frayer model: word, definition, characteristics, example, and visual. Again, it's helping students acquire vocabulary based on classifying.
3. Cloze Reading: This is a great vocabulary strategy to help students gain control of the vocabulary through meaningful activities. Students have to practice using the words to gain control and to assimilate them fully, and it's our job to facilitate those interactions. Cloze readings can be easily differentiated (adding a word bank, pictures or hints), they can be easily generated, and can be used at all grades levels for almost any content area. The idea is simple - given a piece of text with words omitted, students can fill in the blanks using their content and vocabulary knowledge. I use these are warm-ups, review, assessments, or word wall activities. I have shared an example - I created it in less than ten minutes, but you get the idea.
Wrap-Up
3 things you learned: Frayer models, vocabulary matrices, and cloze readings are just three of the ways to better your vocabulary instruction within your classroom.
2 things you might have questions about: How do you create an effective word wall? How do you encourage students to use the graphic organizers once created? These will be answered in a later Strategy Saturday.
1 interesting fact: A student needs to interact with a word 15 -17 times before they have acquired the full ability to use it.
Remember: all materials can be found here! PLEASE leave a comment or drop me a line, I am looking for feedback if you liked, loved, or hated it! See you next Saturday! (: xo
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