USING SAFMEDS TO MASTER VOCABULARY

So during my Master's program, one of my professor's, Dr. Scott, had us use a technique known as SAFMEDS to learn new vocabulary. It's an ABA method and it was an ABA class so it made sense to give us practical experience using it.

The system is incredibly simple and equally effective. The acronym basically says it all:

Say All Fast, Minute Every Day, Shuffled.

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Here's how you do it:

1. Take your set of vocabulary cards (typically 30) and shuffle them.

2. Hold the cards with the definition facing you.

3. Set a timer for one minute.

4. As quickly and accurately as you can, go through as many words as possible in that minute. For each card:

• Read the definition.
• Say the word out loud.
• Flip the card over to check if you were right.
• Stack the cards into correct and incorrect piles.

5. After the minute is over, stop. No cheating because you're only cheating yourself!

6. Count how many words you got correct and incorrect. Your goal is to be able to do 30 words correctly with 0 incorrect in one minute.

7. Chart your results.

• Mark your number of corrects with a dot, and your number of incorrects with an x.
• Any cards you did not get to should count as incorrect. So if you got 17 correct, 4 incorrect, and still had 9 in your hand, you would chart 17 correct and 13 incorrect.
• This is typically charted on a Standard Celleration Chart.

8. Repeat every day.

9. Watch your corrects go up and your incorrects go down.

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In the Classroom

Now this information may be useful to you personally - maybe you're taking classes or studying a foreign language - but when I saw how effective this technique was, my first thought was how I could use it with my high school students.

My students struggle with vocabulary. Like review it five ways, finally get it right, and forget it two minutes later struggle. A lot of them have learning disabilities and language impairments, so the struggle is real.

From the get-go they have trouble retaining vocabulary knowledge. On top of that I've found that they genuinely do not know how to study. They may want to study but they literally do not know how because they've never been taught. Maybe they've heard of or seen flashcards, but they don't know what to do with them. You might think I'm exaggerating - after all these kids are in high school - but I can't tell you how many of my student wrote their vocabulary words and definitions together on one side of the card, or wrote multiple words on each card.

So yes, they needed this.

And I gave it to them.

AND IT WORKED.

I'm not going to say that the day they walked in to me smiling way too much, packs of index card in my hands, they were jumping for joy at the idea of making flashcards. In fact they hated it. How could I possibly make them write so much?! Why did they each have to make a set? What was the point of it all? Why does the universe exist?

But I made them do it. And it worked.

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Preparation and Accommodation

Of course I couldn't just give my students the instructions I gave you above and leave them to it. First I had to consider how I may need to adapt this for my kids. Most of them get 100% extended time on their tests and assignments, so I needed to adjust their fluency target. The standard goal is to do 30 words in one minute. In order to provide 100% extended time, I would have to change this in one of two ways: either they could do 30 words in 2 minutes, or 15 words in 1 minute. My students often shut down and won't try if something seems too challenging, so I opted for 15 words in 1 minute.

I also needed to change the chart I would use. The Standard Celleration Chart is an amazing tool, but I knew my student's would never need a chart that went into the 100s. On top of that, one you hit 5 or 10 on the chart, the acceleration of the growth line (basically how sharply it goes up) drops significantly. I felt this would be discouraging to my students who would likely be starting around that point. The chart can also be confusing to look at and complete, and is visually cluttered.

I ended up making a very simple chart for my students to use. We still used dots for corrects and x's for incorrects and even that was confusing for my kiddos so I'm definitely glad I made this change.

Finally, I needed to ease them into using SAFMEDS. Rather than starting them off with a full set of 30 words, we started with 11 words they had already been exposed to in our figurative language unit. I figured this would allow them a chance to practice the mechanics of this strategy without having to learn new words at the same time. It would also increases their chances of early success (and resulting buy in) since they had a head start on learning the words and they would only have to do 11 in a minute to get a 100 on their vocabulary grade.

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Daily Routine

SAFMEDS is now part of our routine. At the start of every class I have a timer displayed on the projector, cueing my kiddos to get their flashcards out. Once everyone is settled I start the timer and they all go through their cards. After the timer is up, they fill out their graphs.

For grading, on Wordy Wednesday, I call the students up to me one by one and have them go through SAFMEDS at my desk, while the rest of the class completes independent work. I then give them a quiz grade based on their total corrects divided by their target. If a student does really poorly they can retake it once more after everyone else has gone, or during lunch.

Doing their quizzes this way takes more time, but I really like the one-on-one time it gives me with them and I get a far better understanding of their knowledge, confidence, and study habits than I would with a traditional quiz.

On Thursdays they are assigned 5 new words which they add to their stack. Gradually we are building up their vocabulary set, and they are continually exposed to all of their words.

*For students on Access Points, IND Curriculum etc, I increase the time to 2 minutes.

*If a student is processing really slowly but getting the words right, I let them keep going after the timer and give them the option of grading based on corrects divided by total cards instead.

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I wish I could say I took data on their vocabulary learning prior to implementing SAFMEDS and could therefore statistically show their improvement after learning the strategy. Unfortunately I can't.

What I can say is this:

• My student were excited to see their progress lines go up and would call me over to show me their graphs. When was the last time you saw high schools excited over vocabulary?
• They were analyzing their graphs. If they noticed their corrects weren't going up as fast, or that they plateaued, they were trying to figure out why and trying new techniques to improve.
• I've seen kids who never speak to each other offering encouragement and studying together.
• Some of my kids challenge each other on Wednesdays to see who will get the top score and or go through all of their cards the fastest.
• Sometimes kids will gather around my desk to cheer for the person taking their quiz.
• Students have told me they now use SAFMEDS for vocabulary in other classes.
• My kids have been spotted reviewing their cards on the bus, in the courtyard, during lunch, and in other classes (sorry coworkers!)
• I no longer stress about vocabulary instruction.

So that's about it. I hope I've done an adequate job explaining SAFMEDS and how useful it can be in the classroom. If not, please let me know and I will post an update!

If you use SAFMEDS, let me know how it goes!

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.