Word Aware 3

Teaching Vocabulary in Small Groups for Ages 6 to 11

Anna Branagan, Stephen Parsons

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000430912
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Word Aware 3 is a comprehensive, practical and engaging resource that focuses on teaching vocabulary and word learning skills to children aged 6 to 11 years who have vocabulary learning needs.

For many children, particularly those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or those whose home language isn't English (ELL or EAL learners), the vocabulary of the classroom can be a barrier to learning. This book outlines how to best support these children who require extra help, offering concrete, easy-to-implement activities and resources for use in small groups, to maximise the impact on learning and open up access to the curriculum.

Word Aware 3:

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• Takes a highly practical, evidence-based and curriculum-focused approach to vocabulary learning that supports a broad range of learners

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• Includes photocopiable and downloadable planning, intervention and evaluation resources

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• Provides staff training resources and an overview video presented by the authors

This book can be used as an adjunct to Word Aware 1, or as an intervention on its own. Although it is most suited to children aged 6 to 11 years, it may be adapted for older students with significant learning needs. It is an essential resource for teaching assistants and learning support assistants and will also save time for special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) and speech and language therapists (SaLTs) who are keen to establish effective vocabulary interventions.

Principles of Vocabulary Teaching

Chapter 1. Principles of Vocabulary Teaching

Key Points

1. Vocabulary is important for learning, for accessing the curriculum, and also reading and writing.
2. The average student learns an estimated seven words per day every day they are in education.
3. There may be a very large ‘word gap’ between children with vocabulary needs and their peers.
4. Developing spoken language also develops reading and writing.
5. There are many children in our classrooms with vocabulary learning needs, for all manner of reasons.
6. Vocabulary teaching needs to be embedded in the classroom, and any withdrawal support needs to be curriculum-focused.

Principles

These points are important for all children but are particularly important for those with vocabulary learning needs.

1. A whole school approach
2. A multifaceted approach
3. Explicitly teach words
4. Multiple exposures
5. Teach words in context
6. Link spoken and written vocabulary
7. Analyse elements of words
8. Go with the child (at the right rate)
9. Get excited about words
10. Teach strategies
11. Work in partnership with families

These are all based upon research which is further expanded on in Chapter 6. In addition, they are based upon research which is given in more detail in Chapter 1 of Word Aware 1, 2nd edition. This is available to download from the Speechmark companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/speechmark

What We Mean by ‘Vocabulary’

This book is all about vocabulary, so we need to start by defining what we mean by ‘vocabulary’. ‘Vocabulary’ refers to the collection of words that we use to communicate with one another. The words may be spoken or written (or signed), but they convey meaning. To be able to understand what others are saying to us or have written, we need to be able to understand the meaning of the words. The first words that young children learn are concrete nouns like ‘banana’ or those which fulfil needs, such as ‘more’, but as children develop the number of words increases dramatically and they start to use words to represent abstract concepts such as ‘together’, ‘within’, and ‘peace’, as well as emotions.

Vocabulary Is Important

To put it simply, to access learning, children need words. In the classroom a student will not get far in mathematics if they do not understand what ‘division’ means or in science if they do not understand ‘habitats’. Vocabulary is important for accessing the content of the curriculum. Deep understanding of words such as ‘partitioning’, ‘fact’, ‘polygon’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘respect’ and ‘consequence’ will open up new ways of thinking for children. We call these words ‘verbal concepts’ and they are particularly important for learning. The challenge is that verbal concepts are often the hardest words for children to get a hold of.

Vocabulary is also linked to literacy. Stories contain a huge range of words, many of which we are less likely to use when we talk to each other. One small excerpt from James and the Giant Peach (Dahl, 1961) at the beginning of Chapter 2 contains less common words such as ‘oozing’, ‘overwhelmed’, ‘glared’, ‘peculiar’, ‘brute’, ‘hobbled’ and ‘mildewed’. Not every one of these words is needed to understand the story but being able to understand ‘overwhelmed by his own unhappiness’ gives a greater insight into James’s feelings. He is not just unhappy; he is overwhelmed by it. The flipside of reading is of course writing. A story written with limited vocabulary is usually rather dull. To write well, children need a range of words at the forefront of their minds. Writing engagingly requires a large, sophisticated vocabulary that can be used meaningfully.

So Many Words to Learn

English contains an estimated one million words. Luckily, most of these are not in use, but most adults can understand somewhere between 30,000 to 50,000 words. That is still a big number, and most of those words are learnt during children’s time in school. To get to the 30,000 figure requires children to learn seven words per day, every day for their entire schooling. For most children, simple exposure to a rich vocabulary from home and school is enough to learn words. They will learn from bedtime stories; they will learn from peers in the playground; they will learn during assembly; and they will even learn words at the supermarket. Of course, specific teaching of words will help, but most words will still be learnt via exposure. Do not try and teach seven words per day. It is simply not possible.

Word Gap

The so-called ‘word gap’ has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Rightly so, as a great number of teachers are concerned about those children who do not have the words they need to access learning. Without attention, the word gap grows and grows, and its impact on learning becomes more significant. Children with poor vocabulary quite often struggle to learn to read, and even when they do, they may not understand what they decode. As a result, they are less likely to read for pleasure, which in turn means they are exposed to less vocabulary, which means their vocabulary growth rate is slow, which in turn impacts on their reading and so on.

Some children are seemingly born talking and take to reading effortlessly. They are likely to live in highly verbal and literate households, so they hear and read lots of words. They may be in a class with a child who has been much slower to develop language, struggled to learn to read and whose family do not use talk in the same way. There is a huge word gap between these two children, and without attention it can become a learning gap.

There is no magic pill which will enable the second child to catch up and close the word gap. Instead, we need to be smart and teach important words for learning and thus reduce the impact of the word gap. And because of the sheer number of words, vocabulary teaching needs to be a long-term process.

Spoken Language Is the Foundation of Reading

‘Literacy floats on a sea of talk’ (Britton, 1970) is an old but valuable quote as it highlights the often-overlooked role that spoken language has to play in the development of reading. Children with well-developed spoken language skills are far more likely to become good readers, as knowing lots of words supports their development of phonological awareness skills (needed for phonics), along with the ability to make sense of what they have read. As children’s reading skills develop, their comprehension of what they have read is developed through discussion about the text with others, and then later by their own internal monologue. By constantly asking themselves questions in their head, they deepen understanding. And even though this skill is done silently and often subconsciously, it is still based in spoken language.

Even for children who can decode well, written words on the page are problematic because they need to be fully understood before they come to life. Even pictures in books only provide a little information. Spoken words have the advantage of coming with lots of extra information such as tone of voice, facial expression and gesture, as well as physical and social contexts. There is also the option of asking the speaker if the listener has not understood. Take our James and the Giant Peach (Dahl, 1961) example from earlier, when James was ‘overwhelmed by his own unhappiness’. If read independently, the child needs to understand each word before building the meaning. If, however, the text was being read to the class by an animated teacher, the phrase could be accompanied by a sad face, downward intonation and a sigh, all of which would provide important information to support comprehension. If your friend described themselves as being ‘overwhelmed by his own unhappiness’ you would have even more to go on, as you will know about their personality, background and recent events. Words heard in real contexts come with so much more information than words on the page.

To write meaningfully, children need to know lots of words well before they can construct them into sentences, and then into paragraphs and longer. Their ability to build sentences and text, once again starts with spoken language. Children cannot write what they cannot speak.

Spoken language is important to the development of reading, and so children with less- developed spoken language skills need to have their literacy development carefully monitored and supported.

Children with Word Learning Needs

Word learning difficulties are either as a result of the environment or within child factors, or both. By environment we mean the words that children are exposed to. This starts off at home, but includes childcare and school too, and for older children independent reading. The home environment is where the journey starts, and so it is important. But even the most educated homes use simple vocabulary on an average day, and so whilst important, the home environment is not the sole contributor. Equally, many families do not appreciate how important they are within the word learning process, but by involving them they can get engaged in the process and really make a difference. It can be as simple as encouraging families to read to their children, because books generally contain more varied and complex vocabulary than the words we use when we talk to one another.

Within child factors are the individual’s word learning capacity. It can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable thinking this way, but some children will find word learning harder than others. This should not limit our view of children’s potential, but rather guide how we teach words to them. There is naturally a range, and some conditions such as Developmental Language Disorder, Down Syndrome, dyslexia and learning disabilities may directly impact on word learning, although within each group this will also vary from child to child. Children with word learning needs often need to hear words more times before they learn them, and they may also need to be shown how to use new words more explicitly. With a few small changes to vocabulary teaching, children at higher risk of vocabulary learning needs can learn new words too.

In training sessions run by the authors, attendees quite often mention that English as an additional language (EAL) learners/English Language Learners (ELL) have vocabulary learning difficulties. It is very important to stress that having a home language different from the school language does not negatively impact on vocabulary. In the early stages, vocabulary learning may be slower in each individual language, but long-term there are many EAL learners who go on to have advanced vocabularies. EAL learners will experience varied home environments and within child factors, just the same as their monolingual peers. The message to families from professionals should be clear: a strong home language will support long-term vocabulary growth in the school language as well. If parents’ English is limited, home to school communication may be impacted, but working closely with families and the community to develop children’s home language will pay dividends.

A Tiered Approach

Vocabulary is important in all subjects and for all learners and so needs to be a focus in the classroom. This is expanded on in Word Aware 1, 2nd edition (Parsons & Branagan, 2022) and its early years equivalent Word Aware 2 (Parsons & Branagan, 2017).

Even with a focus on vocabulary in the classroom, some children will need extra support. This is expanded on in the next chapter, but to be truly effective, extra support for vocabulary must be linked to the curriculum and what is being taught in class. Words are learnt by hearing them in context lots of times and much of that happens as a part of regular teaching. That can be built on with more repetition and learning opportunities happening as part of the intervention. By working in tandem and supporting the curriculum, children with vocabulary learning needs can learn curriculum-related vocabulary. Knowing these words then increases their access to whole class teaching, which in turn benefits their inclusion, and in our experience develops their self-esteem and motivation. This book provides support and guidance to support the children who need extra support to access the curriculum.

There will be a third set of children: those who have more severe vocabulary needs. These are children who have significant language learning needs and require highly specific teaching. This support would typically be provided by Speech and Language Therapists/Pathologists or specialist teachers. This book may still be used with this group of children, but it will need to be tailored under the guidance of a specialist.

Word Aware Principles

Word Aware is built upon the following principles, all of which are based upon research and good classroom practice. The principles apply to all children but require a slightly different emphasis and application when it comes to supporting children with vocabulary learning needs.

Principle 1: A whole school approach

The curriculum provides a huge range of vocabulary learning opportunities. The wide range of words that are encountered in whole class books, and the specific vocabulary contained in maths, science, geography and history all provide children with opportunities to learn words. Every subject, every topic, every book comes with its own vocabulary.

Because there are so many words to learn, vocabulary needs a long-term effort. One teacher or teaching assistant on their own cannot make enough difference. It needs a team effort, year on year. The authors have written in detail about this in Word Aware 1, 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Principles of Vocabulary Teaching
• 2 Supporting Children with Vocabulary Learning Needs in the Classroom
• 3 Running a Vocabulary Intervention
• 4 Intervention Resources
• 5 Staff Training Guide
• 6 Vocabulary Research and References