MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

Topic 3: Concepts, Theories and Principles of Vocabulary and Reading

Comprehension

The Importance of Vocabulary Development

According to Steven Stahl (2005), ―Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the

knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into
the world.‖ We continue to develop vocabulary throughout our lives. Words are
powerful. Words open up possibilities, and of course, that’s what we want for all of our
students.

Differences in Early Vocabulary Development

We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening when others
speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children begin to
read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are reading
and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing.

Vocabulary knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap
between groups of children begins before they enter school. Why do some students
have a richer, fuller vocabulary than some of their classmates?

 Language rich home with lots of verbal stimulation

 Wide background experiences
 Read to at home and at school
 Read a lot independently
 Early development of word consciousness

Why do some students have a limited, inadequate vocabulary

compared to most of their classmates?

 Speaking/vocabulary not encouraged at home

 Limited experiences outside of home
 Limited exposure to books
 Reluctant reader

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 Second language—English language learners

Children who have been encouraged by their parents to ask questions and to learn
about things and ideas come to school with oral vocabularies many times larger than
children from disadvantaged homes. Without intervention this gap grows ever larger as
students proceed through school (Hart and Risley, 1995).

How Vocabulary Affects Reading Development

From the research, we know that vocabulary supports reading development and
increases comprehension. Students with low vocabulary scores tend to have low
comprehension and students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores tend to have
satisfactory or high comprehension scores.

The report of the National Reading Panel states that the complex process of
comprehension is critical to the development of children’s reading skills and cannot be
understood without a clear understanding of the role that vocabulary development and
instruction play in understanding what is read (NRP, 2000).

Chall’s classic 1990 study showed that students with low vocabulary
development were able to maintain their overall reading test scores
at expected levels through grade four, but their mean scores for word
recognition and word meaning began to slip as words became more
abstract, technical, and literary. Declines in word recognition and
word meaning continued, and by grade seven, word meaning scores
had fallen to almost three years below grade level, and mean reading
comprehension was almost a year below. Jeanne Chall coined the
term ―the fourth-grade slump‖ to describe this pattern in developing
readers (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990).

Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

How do we close the gap for students who have limited or inadequate
vocabularies? The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single
research-based method for developing vocabulary and closing the gap. From its
analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of indirect (incidental) and direct
(intentional) methods of vocabulary instruction.

Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words

at home and at school—by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to
them, and by reading widely on their own.

The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development

(Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated

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or multiple exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see
vocabulary in rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).

Intentional Vocabulary Learning

Students need to be explicitly taught methods for

intentional vocabulary learning. According to Michael Graves
(2000), effective intentional vocabulary instruction includes:

 Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of

texts containing those words.
 Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.
 Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play activities
to motivate and engage students in learning new words.

Research-Supported Vocabulary-Learning Strategies

Students need a wide range of independent word-learning strategies. Vocabulary

instruction should aim to engage students in actively thinking about word meanings, the
relationships among words, and how we can use words in different situations. This type
of rich, deep instruction is most likely to influence comprehension (Graves, 2006;
McKeown and Beck, 2004).

Student-Friendly Definitions

The meaning of a new word should be explained to students rather than just
providing a dictionary definition for the word—which may be difficult for students to
understand. According to Isabel Beck, two basic principles should be followed in
developing student-friendly explanations or definitions (Beck et al., 2013):

 Characterize the word and how it is typically used.

 Explain the meaning using everyday language—language that is accessible and
meaningful to the student.

Sometimes a word’s natural context (in text or

literature) is not informative or helpful for deriving word
meanings (Beck et al., 2013). It is useful to intentionally
create and develop instructional contexts that provide
strong clues to a word’s meaning. These are usually
created by teachers, but they can sometimes be found in
commercial reading programs.

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Defining Words within Context

Research shows that when words and easy-

to-understand explanations are introduced in context,
knowledge of those words increases (Biemiller and
Boote, 2006) and word meanings are better learned
(Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986). When an unfamiliar
word is likely to affect comprehension, the most
effective time to introduce the word’s meaning may
be at the moment the word is met in the text.

Using Context Clues

Research by Nagy and Scott (2000) showed

that students use contextual analysis to infer the
meaning of a word by looking closely at surrounding
text. Since students encounter such an enormous
number of words as they read, some researchers
believe that even a small improvement in the ability
to use context clues has the potential to produce substantial, long-term vocabulary
growth (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson, 1985; Nagy, Anderson, and Herman, 1987;
Swanborn and de Glopper, 1999).

Sketching the Words

For many students, it is easier to

remember a word’s meaning by making a quick
sketch that connects the word to something
personally meaningful to the student. The
student applies each target word to a new,
familiar context. The student does not have to
spend a lot of time making a great drawing. The
important thing is that the sketch makes sense
and helps the student connect with the meaning of the word.

Applying the Target Words

Applying the target words provides another context for learning word
meanings. When students are challenged to apply the target words to
their own experiences, they have another opportunity to understand
the meaning of each word at a personal level. This allows for deep
processing of the meaning of each word.

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Analyzing Word Parts

The ability to analyze word parts also helps when

students are faced with unknown vocabulary. If students know
the meanings of root words and affixes, they are more likely to
understand a word containing these word parts. Explicit
instruction in word parts includes teaching meanings of word
parts and disassembling and reassembling words to derive
meaning (Baumann et al., 2002; Baumann, Edwards, Boland,
Olejnik, and Kame'enui, 2003; Graves, 2004).

Semantic Mapping

Semantic maps help students develop connections among words and increase
learning of vocabulary words (Baumann et al., 2003; Heimlich and Pittleman, 1986). For
example, by writing an example, a non-example, a synonym, and an antonym, students
must deeply process the word persists. Example:

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Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and

awareness of words (Anderson and Nagy, 1992;
Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Students who are
word conscious are aware of the words around
them—those they read and hear and those they write
and speak (Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Word-
conscious students use words skillfully. They are
aware of the subtleties of word meaning. They are
curious about language, and they enjoy playing with
words and investigating the origins and histories of
words.

Teachers need to take word-consciousness into account throughout their

instructional day—not just during vocabulary lessons (Scott and Nagy, 2004). It is
important to build a classroom ―rich in words‖ (Beck et al., 2002). Students should have
access to resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls, crossword puzzles,
Scrabble® and other word games, literature, poetry books, joke books, and word-play
activities.

Teachers can promote the development of word consciousness in many ways:

 Language categories: Students learn to make finer distinctions in their word
choices if they understand the relationships among words, such as synonyms,
antonyms, and homographs.
 Figurative language: The ability to deal with figures of speech is also a part of
word-consciousness (Scott and Nagy 2004). The most common figures of
speech are similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Once language categories and figurative language have been taught, students
should be encouraged to watch for examples of these in all content areas.

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READING COMPREHENSION

Comprehension: The Goal of Reading

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from

what you read, is the ultimate goal of
reading. Experienced readers take this for
granted and may not appreciate the reading
comprehension skills required. The process
of comprehension is both interactive and
strategic. Rather than passively reading text,
readers must analyze it, internalize it and
make it their own.

In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read

with some proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension
strategies (Tierney, 1982).

General Strategies for Reading Comprehension

The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when
someone reads a picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the
book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing
and the ideas they represent.

In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice,

and feedback. The key comprehension strategies are described below.

Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help
them to understand the text they are about to read. This provides a framework for any
new information they read.

Predicting

When students make predictions about the text they are

about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior
knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may
mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information.

Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that

students determine what is important and then put it in their own words. Implicit in this
process is trying to understand the author’s purpose in writing the text.

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Questioning

Asking and answering questions about text is

another strategy that helps students focus on
the meaning of text. Teachers can help by
modeling both the process of asking good
questions and strategies for finding the
answers in the text.

Making Inferences

In order to make inferences about something

that is not explicitly stated in the text,
students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.

Visualizing

Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading have better recall
than those who do not (Pressley, 1977). Readers can take advantage of illustrations
that are embedded in the text or create their own mental images or drawings when
reading text without illustrations.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text

Narrative text tells a story, either a true story or a fictional story. There are a
number of strategies that will help students understand narrative text.

Story Maps
Teachers can have students diagram the story grammar of the text to raise their
awareness of the elements the author uses to construct the story. Story grammar
includes:
 Setting: When and where the story takes place (which can change over the
course of the story).
 Characters: The people or animals in the story, including the protagonist (main
character), whose motivations and actions drive the story.
 Plot: The story line, which typically includes one or more problems or conflicts
that the protagonist must address and ultimately resolve.
 Theme: The overriding lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to
glean from the story. It could be explicitly stated as in Aesop’s Fables or inferred
by the reader (more common).

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Sample Story Maps

Retelling
Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to
determine what is important. Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally
recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it.

Prediction
Teachers can ask readers to make a prediction about a
story based on the title and any other clues that are
available, such as illustrations. Teachers can later ask
students to find text that supports or contradicts their
predictions.

Answering Comprehension Questions

Asking students different types of questions requires that
they find the answers in different ways, for example, by
finding literal answers in the text itself or by drawing on
prior knowledge and then inferring answers based on
clues in the text.

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Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text

Expository text explains facts and concepts in order to inform, persuade, or
explain.

The Structure of Expository Text

Expository text is typically structured with visual cues such as headings and
subheadings that provide clear cues as to the structure of the information. The first
sentence in a paragraph is also typically a topic sentence that clearly states what the
paragraph is about.

 Expository text also often uses one of five

common text structures as an organizing
principle:
 Cause and effect
 Problem and solution
 Compare and contrast
 Description
 Time order (sequence of events, actions, or
steps)

Teaching these structures can help students recognize relationships between ideas
and the overall intent of the text.

Main Idea/Summarization
A summary briefly captures the main idea of the text and the key details that
support the main idea. Students must understand the text in order to write a good
summary that is more than a repetition of the text itself.

K-W-L
There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):

 What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what
the already know about the topic. Students write this list in the ―K‖ column of their
K-W-L forms.

 What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to
learn from reading the text in the ―W‖ column of their K-W-L forms. For example,
students may wonder if some of the ―facts‖ offered in the ―K‖ column are true.

 What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the
questions listed in the ―W‖ column and write their answers in the ―L‖ column
along with anything else they learn.

After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the
questions and answers.

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Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide visual representations of the concepts in expository

text. Representing ideas and relationships graphically can help students understand
and remember them. Examples of graphic organizers are:

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To know more about the Reading Comprehension please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvfJSJ8Rsw4&t=15s
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https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading/vocabulary
Honig, B., L. Diamond, and L. Gutlohn. (2013). Teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. Novato,
CA: Arena Press.
Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository
text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564–570.
Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children’s learning: Putting the picture in developmental
perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586–622.
Tierney, R. J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension
skills. School Psychology Review 11(3), pp. 299–305.

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