In our series about reading comprehension, we’ve looked deeply into teaching text-specific knowledge and text structure. In this article, we’ll examine vocabulary instruction and how to help students build a diverse bank of words that can be used academically, but also in their daily lives.
Studies show that, to have a good understanding of a text, the reader needs to understand 90-95% of the words being used (Hirsh, 2003). Besides helping with comprehension, having a strong and diverse vocabulary also:
Learning to read and building vocabulary should happen simultaneously so the child can connect decoding the word with its meaning. Direct instruction (like defining words) and indirect methods (like reading words in context and discussing them) both play an important role.
Learning new vocabulary begins before formal schooling – it starts at home. This means students have varying levels of exposure to specific words even before they enter school. Teaching vocabulary in literacy tutoring allows for more opportunities to fill in language gaps, especially for English language learners who may not speak English at home.
Working on vocabulary in reading intervention also increases confidence for students who struggle with reading. Students encountering unfamiliar words can lose the meaning of sentences or entire passages, making the experience frustrating and discouraging. Reading becomes engaging and rewarding when they’re given tools to recognize related words and derive meaning from them. Having those tools helps them continue to acquire vocabulary in their other subject areas, and by engaging with texts and language independently, to pursue their own interests. This is what lifelong learning looks like!
According to the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers, a balance needs to be struck between explicit vocabulary instruction and learning in context. Hoot tutors do both when focusing on vocabulary.
The page above is from the book “Travel to Australia” by our partners at Lerner Publishing. Hoot tutors work with students on key vocabulary words, discussing their meaning and how they relate to other parts of the text. Creating connections between words helps students recognize and understand their meaning in different contexts.
A Hoot tutor will:
Explicitly share the lesson goal and balance direct and indirect learning
Tutors begin instruction by sharing the goal of the lesson with their student – in this case, building vocabulary. When they encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, they pause and work together to come up with a student-friendly definition. Using the book above as an example, they could ask, “Do you know what ‘separate’ means? How does this word help you understand the name, ‘The Great Dividing Range?’” They can discuss how context clues help them understand the word's meaning and how it relates to other parts of the text.
Discuss morphology
Tutors point out units of meaning (morphemes) when they appear in words and reinforce them when they encounter them again. This helps the student mentally map how various words are connected, and helps them recognize those units of meaning in unfamiliar words. Later in this text, some examples are “inland” and “immigrants”, which allow an opportunity to teach commonly occurring prefixes and how they contribute to the meaning of the words. This is transferable knowledge for learning new words. Tutors can also discuss how affixes hold and change the meaning of words.
Help the student build word consciousness through targeted questions
Building word consciousness involves developing awareness of words, their meaning, and usage. Encouraging students to explore and examine words is a great way to extend discussion beyond word definitions. For the text above, tutors can ask: “‘Famous’ is an important word to know here. We should think about whether the kangaroo is the most common animal in Australia or if it’s just the most well-known animal. Which one is more closely connected to the word, ‘famous?’”
As the student reflects on the word, they create a mental map that connects the vocabulary and concepts they know. Throughout a tutoring cycle, their tutor will prompt them to add new vocabulary words as they appear, encouraging them to develop a lifelong habit of knowledge acquisition.
Our series on reading comprehension continues with an exploration of sentence analysis.
Interested in how Hoot Reading provides full-spectrum structured literacy tutoring? Contact us to find out more.