TEACHING THE VOCABULARY OF THE COMMON CORE

As the school year winds to a close, I've been reflecting on the past school year, thinking about what worked and what didn't work.

One area we struggled with this year was definitely vocabulary. We did our best to teach vocabulary in context, as students learn best this way, but it led to brief introductions to words which we didn't encounter again until Doc and I made a point to throw it in some where.

That's why, when I came across Teaching the Critical Vocabulary of the Common Core at my university library, I grabbed it and started poring through it. I found the book to be very interesting, and it provides some great material for teachers to use. In it the author provides 55 key words that students need to be able to understand in order to meet the Common Core requirements, and to answer questions on Language Arts assessments.

After finishing the book, we've decided that this will be the backbone of our vocabulary instruction next year.



According to the author, Marilee Sprenger, "85 percent of test scores are based on how well the students know the vocabulary of the standards."

If this is true, it makes a very strong case for deep, thorough vocabulary instruction. Of course the vast majority of us would say that we do teach vocabulary. I mean we've got words walls, point out prefixes, do vocabulary quizzes, etc. But I do believe that many of us teach vocabulary and then move on.

Sprenger gives one example that stood out to me: when teaching students to compare and contrast she noticed some of them having trouble, so she explained that they just have the list the similarities and differences. She gave them the information they needed to complete the task, but abandoned the academic terms 'compare' and 'contrast.' I'm sure we do that all the time.

Chapter One

One thing I really like about this book is that it doesn't just jump into a list of words and worksheets. It starts with the research. The first chapter is all about the research on vocabulary, which would be an obvious choice. The author provides research evidence for the understanding that economic status is one of the greatest predictors of student vocabulary and school success. Unfortunately there's not much we can do about our students' histories, but we can recognize that many of them come from a life of "word deprivation" and do what we can to help them.

Sprenger also reviews Maran and Pickering's six steps for teaching vocabulary:

1. Start with a story or explanation of the word.
2. Have student put it in their own words.
3. Student draw a representation
4. Provide several engagements with the word
5. Use informal rehearsals
6. Play games with the words.

Chapter Two

She takes the research further by following this with a chapter on how memory works. I find our brains and their functions fascinating so I love that this was included. I believe having an understanding of how we learn neurologically is key, especially when teaching students with disabilities.

This chapter explains different types of memory, and the fact that when students taking reading assessments, their entire working memory is holding information used to comprehend the text. It's important that students be able to understand the questions being asked automatically so that their working memory isn't needed.

Chapter 2 also contains the crucial adage "if they process it, it will be stored." When we first take in information through our senses, it sits in our conscious memory for up to 30 seconds. If we don't do anything with that information in that time, it's gone. However if we act on the information, it moves into working memory (which cam hold it for a few hours), and with enough processing, it heads to long term memory where it resides for years.

In order to help facilitate moving understanding of vocabulary to long term memory, Sprenger suggests students need to "process the critical words in enough different ways to get them stored in the brain in multiple places."

Chapters Three to Five

The next three chapters get into the vocabulary, with words divided into verbs, nouns, and other. The 55 words in the book were chosen based on their frequency of use in the Common Core State Standards, Bloom's taxonomy, and Webb's Depth of Knowledge.

Each word is presented with a definition, synonyms, and a jingle, as well as how the word relates to the common core. There are also multiple activities suggested for teaching each word, with specific examples.

Some of the activities and suggestions are better than others. For example I like using this play on words for analyze: "because Anna lies, we have to analyze what she is saying to find out what is true." Anna lies and analyze are true homonyms, and pairing analyzing with someone who lies adds to understanding of the word.

In contrast, I'm not wild about pairing anticipate with articulate. The two sound similar but aren't homonyms so I think this would be more likely to confuse students, especially those with learning disabilities or language impairments. Also anticipate and articulate have nothing to do with each other. "Anticipate that you'll articulate" does not aid in understanding the meaning of the word.

On thing to note is that the words are presented alphabetically, but that may not be the best way to teach them. On page 31, Sprenger lists the words by the grade levels in which they are introduced, so moving in that order may be more logical.

Since I teach high school, my students are expected to know ALL of these words, so I'm debating which order to teach them in. Once I work on my unit plans for the year I'll likely see which words work best with which skills and strategies and go from there.

Chapters Six to Seven

The final two chapters briefly discuss how to choose words for explicit instruction, and how to help students retain what they learn.



All in all I like this book and will be using it as a reference next year. I always struggle with choosing what words to target and Sprenger makes a good case for focusing on the terms students need to know in order to be successful on assessments. I refuse to "teach to the test" but that doesn't mean I shouldn't help prepare my students for it.