VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT ACDV B70F - Vocabulary

Words as Tools To access background knowledge To express ideas To learn about new concepts Word knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension and academic success.

Types of Vocabulary Listening – Established by the time student begins kindergarten Speaking – Words used in everyday speech Writing – Words used in both formal and informal written communication Reading – Body of words students must know to read increasingly demanding text with fluency and comprehension On average, students add 2,000-3,000 words a year to their reading vocabularies Six to eight words per day

Two Vocabulary Dimensions Breadth The number of words that a student knows, at least at a superficial level Depth How well the student knows a word, including pronunciation, spelling, meaning, frequency, and morphological and syntactic properties

Breaking Down Types of Words Tier One – In spoken vocabulary: mother, clock, jump Tier Two – Words with wide usage that most readers do not have in their spoken vocabularies: dismayed, paradoxical, absurd, wary. Estimated 7,000 words Tier Three – Highly specialized and are almost never used outside of the disciplines where they are encountered: monozygotic, tetrahedron, bicameral

Strategies to Increase Vocabulary Development Implicit Readers learn new words by repeatedly encountering them in text Explicit Structural Analysis: The use of word parts and compound words. Use of context clues Efficient use of the dictionary

No Context Clues? Not all sentences or text contain context clues. You will need to use other methods to determine the word’s meaning. Pronounce the word aloud. You may hear a word or word part that you know or that you may recall, within the unknown word Carefully analyze the word’s parts. Look up the word in the dictionary.

Read to Improve your Vocabulary If you read minutes a day, you will read millions of words per year Minutes per Day Words per Year 14.2 1,146,000 21.1 1,823,000 65.0 4,358,000

Read to Improve your Vocabulary Read even as little as 15 or 20 minutes per day. Read a significant quantity of material. Read a variety of material. Read consistently – everyday You can stop reading a book before finishing it and choose another one. Read books that are challenging to improve your vocabulary. Keep an informal daily journal of your reading.

How to Make a Word Study Card Write the word in bold letters on one side of an index card vacillate

How to Make a Word Study Card On the other side of the index card write: Vacillate: to waver verb (part of speech) Connie’s parents usually came to a decision quickly and stuck by them. This time they vacillated before deciding. (a sentence the word appeared in) Synonym: waver antonym: decide quickly Any other interesting information you can find