• What digital tools described here do you currently use? Which tools do you think would best support sharing and collaborating among teachers in your school or across the district?
CHAPTER 2
A New Model for Effective Vocabulary Instruction
Many esteemed educators and researchers have proposed models for (or components of) an effective vocabulary program. While instructional strategies are important, models allow educators to think conceptually about what components they must include in a comprehensive approach to vocabulary. This chapter summarizes some of the most widely used models and proposes a new one we have synthesized from them, combined with areas of need that we have seen in school settings.
A Review of Existing Models
Before we propose our blended model, we first want to share some background information on three extant models from which we have drawn various aspects. We’ll highlight the benefits and some of the struggles we’ve seen educators encounter in their use of these models.
Marzano’s Six-Step Model
Robert J. Marzano (2004) recommends a six-step process for teaching vocabulary in his book Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. The steps are as follows.
1. The teacher provides a description, explanation, or example of the new term.
2. Students provide a linguistic explanation by restating the new term in their own words using an example, description, or explanation of the term.
3. Students create a nonlinguistic representation of the term, which may include constructing a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation, or acting out the term.
4. Over time, students periodically engage in activities that help them deepen their knowledge of the vocabulary term while recording those terms in a print or online vocabulary notebook.
5. Periodically, teachers ask students to discuss terms with one another.
6. Students, over time, engage in game-like activities that allow them to play with the terms and reinforce word knowledge.
In our work with teachers, we’ve frequently helped them embed this framework as a regular part of a schoolwide approach to vocabulary. This set of steps appeals to both teachers and students. For example, embedded within the model are recursive learning and multiple exposures to words, fundamental factors in effective word learning. The model also puts students in charge of their own word learning by having them develop nonlinguistic representations of words, maintain word journals, and play with words.
Step 1 begins the process with direct instruction, in which teachers use student-friendly definitions. Steps 2 and 3 allow students to start making the words their own through both linguistic and nonlinguistic representations. The remaining three steps provide for using and reviewing the words over time, engaging in varied activities with words, including games, and authentic application of the words. The steps unfold over time, making learning new words a seamless and recurring part of the learning process in any discipline. In sum, this framework has many positive aspects, and we know teachers who embrace it enthusiastically.
We have worked with teachers who earnestly seek to implement the entire framework with fidelity. However, some teachers find they tend to put steps 4, 5, and 6 on the back burner or don’t get to them as frequently as they do steps 1, 2, and 3. Other teachers mistakenly think they should do all six steps when teaching specific new vocabulary words instead of teaching words over time. Also, teachers often express confusion about how many words they can teach at a time with the six steps. They feel that they may spend far too much time on only a few words versus teaching a larger number of words, perhaps more superficially. As we try to convey throughout this book, we think effective vocabulary instruction has a great deal to do with intentionality and purpose. In chapter 3, we’ll unpack how to select words for in-depth instruction. Although the framework is useful for teaching some words in depth, keep in mind that not all words need a six-step approach.
Graves’s Model
Michael Graves’s work focuses tightly on literacy in general and on vocabulary in particular. His work is well respected in literacy circles, and other vocabulary researchers almost always reference it in publications. Graves (2006) proposes a solid four-part model for vocabulary instruction, which we briefly outline here.
1. Provide rich and varied language experiences: This includes students experiencing words through reading, listening, speaking, and writing across grade levels, content areas, and genres. Reading aloud to students and providing time for them to read materials of choice are an important part of this component.
2. Teach individual words: This element focuses on teaching new words explicitly. Teachers may use various instructional strategies during this planned instruction, including nonlinguistic representations and cooperative learning.
3. Teach word-learning strategies: This component includes teaching word analysis strategies, inference strategies, and the effective use of resources such as print and online dictionaries.
4. Foster word consciousness: Create an environment rich in print and language opportunities that engage students in playful activities with words, and serve as an exemplar of good vocabulary use.
In contrast to Marzano’s model, the first part of Graves’s model provides for many indirect means of learning words, whereas Marzano’s approach is more of a direct instruction model. Marzano does not address read-alouds, independent reading, or word consciousness in his model. These exclusions do not mean, however, that Marzano doesn’t think incidental word learning builds vocabulary; he includes incidental word learning from reading in all of his publications about vocabulary. In his six-step model, he simply focuses on the transition from direct instruction to guided practice to independent word learning and practice and leaves most of the recommendations about reading to other researchers.
The second part of Graves’s model aligns most directly with Marzano’s entire six-step cycle. It is important to note, however, that Marzano specifically calls for both nonlinguistic representations of words and cooperative learning throughout steps 3 through 6. You probably recognize from the comparison thus far that the Graves recommendations are more comprehensive.
The third part of Graves’s model has been a crucial part of the vocabulary instruction many of us received in school and of the instruction we’ve provided, especially if we have been English language arts or reading teachers. Studying word parts like roots and affixes, making inferences from context within the selection, and using glossaries and dictionaries are all important vocabulary expansion strategies. However, they often receive too much time and emphasis in classrooms—to the detriment of the other areas to which Graves calls our attention. In addition, word-learning strategies can easily become workbook or worksheet focused and disconnected from integrated vocabulary instruction.
The fourth part of the model, fostering word consciousness, is one that educators often overlook or relegate to a status of “if we get around to that,” and it’s a shame. All adults in a school building can serve as wonderful models of word use, and they can also continually show interest in and enthusiasm for word learning. A teacher who is endlessly curious about words creates students who are curious about—and not afraid of—words.
Beck’s