LLED 360

             The reading for this week called “A Focus on Vocabulary” by Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert was an interesting read and will be useful for me as an English Teacher Candidate.  This article was about vocabulary and its correlation with reading comprehension and student success.  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert note in their article that words come in two forms: oral and print (Lehr, Osbroune & Heibert, p.1).  Oral vocabulary includes words that we “recognize and use in listening and speaking,” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1) while print vocabulary includes words “that we recognize and use in reading and writing” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  I found it particularly interesting to learn that word knowledge comes in two distinct forms: receptive and productive.  Receptive vocabulary includes “words that we recognize when we hear or see them” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Productive vocabulary includes “words that we use when we speak or write” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Although these concepts about vocabulary seem to be common knowledge for many of us, it is important to remember that many students may not be familiar with a wide range of vocabulary so it will be important to break these concepts into understandable ideas.  I also think that it’s a good idea to give students multi-modal ways to absorb language.  Perhaps the student will not understand the meaning of the word when it is discussed in class but will understand the word when you have the student write it in a sentence.  Furthermore, the student may not have understood the word when they read it in a book but understand the word when they see it used in the context of a movie.  I think it is really important to use a variety of teaching tools to help students develop a rich vocabulary.

This article also discussed that many words in a student’s vocabulary repertoire are learned through incidental learning.  Learning words takes place in every setting that a student is exposed to.  The more words that they see on a daily basis, the better chances that student has for success within the classroom.  Remembering the meaning of a word, however, is not as simple as picking up a dictionary and reading the definition.  During my time as a student, I have come to realize that it is easiest (for me!) to learn the meaning of a word when it is placed in a sentence.  It also helps to use the word in a sentence multiple times in order to assist in my own comprehension of the word.

As a teacher candidate, it will be difficult to use class time to explain every new word that a student encounters.  If I did that, I would probably have no time to teach my lesson!  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert propose that teachers should look at the importance, usefulness and frequency of word use before teaching it to their students.  Words can be categorized into three tiers which help teachers gain an understanding of which words they should focus on teaching in the classroom.  Tier one consists of words such as clock or baby “whose meanings students are likely to know” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  The second tier consists of words such as fortunate or maintains which are words that are “likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  Finally, the third tier is made up of words such as pallet or retinue that “appear in text rarely” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  By splitting up vocabulary words into three tiers, it makes it easy for me as a teacher candidate to instruct students on tier two vocabulary words that recur frequently.  The students can then gain a strong grasp of these words that are used on a regular basis so that they will be prepared to effectively answer questions in class or during exams.  If the student has difficulty with tier one or tier three questions, they can either look the words up on their own time or come to me after or during class with additional questions.  Using this three tiered approach is effective because it will allow me to address the meaning of important vocabulary words while ensuring that slower or more advanced learners still feel comfortable asking me about the meaning of vocabulary words that are problematic for them.