2. • Biemiller, 2004
4,000 word difference in root vocabulary
knowledge by the end of Grade 2 between
children in the highest quartile and those
in the lowest quartile
Vocabulary Knowledge
3. The Bridge of Vocabulary: see link on
Sakai
Students are expected to learn 3,000 words per
year by third grade (Montgomery, 2007)
4. • The “Matthew Effect”
– Cumulative effect of poor reading and
vocabulary skills
– Young children who are poor readers read
less than more able classmates
– Therefore exposed to fewer new words
– Restricted vocabulary leads to even
poorer reading
– Learning in general becomes difficult
Stanovich, 1986
5. • “Effective vocabulary instruction does
not involve assigning words and
having students record definitions and
then using the word in a sentence.”
• Teaching in Action, Primary-3, p. 15
Vocabulary Instruction
6. • Enhance learning by using both firsthand
experience and print resources
• Promote student interaction
• Guide student learning
• Take a metacognitive approach to
instruction
Spencer & Guillaume (2006)
Principles of Effective Vocabulary
Instruction
7. Tiered Vocabulary
• Tier 1: Basic words
– E.g. commonly used parts of speech (nouns,
verbs, conjunctions) e.g. happy, clean, fast
• Tier 2: High frequency words; often more than
one meaning e.g plane; estimate
• Tier 3: Discipline-specific words
– Low frequency e.g. lathe; chasm; heterogenous
12. Try to picture this man
The man was about fifty years old. He had long
black hair and whiskers. His skin was pale and
his clothes were tattered. On the floor beside
him lay his hat.
13. Now try to picture him..
He was most fifty and he looked it. His hair was long
and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you
could see his eyes shining through like he was
behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his
long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in
his face, where his face showed; it was white; not
like another man’s white, but a white to make a
body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a
tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes
– just rags, that was all. He had one ankle
14. resting on t-other knee; the boot on that foot
was busted, and two of his toes stuck through,
and he worked them now and then. His hat was
laying on the floor; an old black slouch with the
top caved in, like a lid.
16. Description of Dundas
“The crunchy-granola town that huddled next to
Hamilton, and liked to think of itself as a
Victorian village housing Caledonian professors
and patrons of the arts.”
Ross Pennie, Tainted. A Hamilton-situated
mystery. (Caledonian University is the
pseudonym for McMaster)
17. Semantics – Word Meaning
• All gender washroom
• Gender neutral washroom
• Washroom for Everyone
• We Don’t Care!
19. What’s in a name?
Starbucks LGBTQ+ Channel 4 Diversity Award
2019: Every name’s a story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSP1r9eC
Ww&feature=youtu.be
21. Language Registers
You have had a frustrating experience with a product or
service. You wish to make your views known. What are the
different expectations or conventions for the following writing
forms?
• An email to the company CEO
• A tweet to your friends
• An online review
Are there “rules” of sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling
etc. that are different depending on the contexts above?
Editor's Notes
Children come to us with widely varying levels of vocabulary
Vocabulary knowledge is connected to reading skills, and both are predictors of academic success
See above note re the picture book
I wish we had more time to take them through activities that demonstrate these principles.
Contrast this very basic description with the vivid one that follows and discuss the techniques that make the full version so much more effective.
Suggest TCs close their eyes and try to picture the man based on this description.
Now do the same thing, but visualize him based on this descripton. What features came to life for you this time?
