BUILDING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE and VOCABULARY When watching the video, the term Shift Six refers to instructional shifts in ELA/Literacy. The sixth shift is in regards to ACADEMIC VOCABULARY. SIX INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS IN ELA/LITERACY: 1. Balancing informational text and literacy text 2. Building knowledge in the disciplines 3. Staircase of complexity 4. Text based answers 5. Writing from sources 6. Academic vocabulary

Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. By focusing strategically on comprehension of pivotal and commonly found words (such as discourse, generation, theory, and principled) and less on esoteric literary terms (such as onomatopoeia or homonym), teachers constantly build students ability to access more complex texts across the content areas.

Essential Questions What is academic language and where does academic vocabulary fit into this? How do I choose what words to teach to my students? What are some strategies to teach academic vocabulary?

Academic Language Vocabulary knowledge (depth & breadth) Written vocabulary as distinct from oral vocabulary Understanding of complex sentence structures and syntax Understanding the structure of argument, academic discourse, and expository text

At what age do students need academic language? Preschool through 3rd grade Students need to learn age-appropriate vocabulary and language that will give them a strong foundation for academic language in the future 4th grade through 8th grade Instruction should transition in order to teach students more sophisticated academic language skills, including vocabulary and grammatical structures 9th grade through 12th grade Students need to know a large vocabulary of academic words used across academic disciplines, and they need to have access to and use more complicated grammatical structures Taken from: Academic Language for English Language Learners, Robin Scarcella for Colorin Colorado

Why Teach Vocabulary? Students need to know at least 90-95% of the words in a text to fully comprehend what they are reading. Stahl, 1999; Samuels, 2002

ELA/Literacy Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary What the Student Does… Spend more time learning words across webs and associating words with others instead of learning individual, isolated vocabulary words. What the Teacher Does… Develop students ability to use and access words that show up in everyday text and that may be slightly out of reach Be strategic about the kind of vocabulary youre developing and figure out which words fall into which categories- tier 2 vs. tier 3 Determine the words that students are going to read most frequently and spend time mostly on those words Teach fewer words but teach the webs of words around it Shift attention on how to plan vocabulary meaningfully using tiers and transferability strategies

Vocabulary Issues

Academic Vocabulary: What Works Be highly selective about which words to teach Provide multiple encounters with targeted words Provide students direct instruction on how to infer word meanings Promote in-depth word knowledge Provide students with opportunities to extend their word knowledge Taken From: Flynt and Brozos Developing Academic Language: Got Words? Reading Rockets:

What Doesnt Work Looking up words, copying definitions and memorizing those definitions Simply being tested on word definitions (Scott & Nagy, 1997)

Five Types of Vocabulary Listening – the words needed to understand what is heard Speaking – the words used when speaking Reading – the words needed to understand what is read Writing – the words used in writing Sight – those words that can be identified without explicit decoding during reading Nagy, W.E., & Scott, J.A. (2000)

1. Choosing Words: Tiers of Vocabulary Tier 1(General) – very basic, used in everyday language, widely agreed upon meanings – happy, good, hand, telephone, house. Tier 2 (Specialized) – high frequency for mature language, fairly general but sophisticated, often have context specific meaning: loom, remote, absurd, delinquent, travesty. Isabel Beck estimates 8,000; 800/yr K-9; 600/year K-12. Tier 3 (Technical) – low frequency words often limited in use to a particular domain – digraph, schwa, isotope, schemata, concerto, meiosis, abscissa etc. Beck, I. L., McKeown, M.G. & Kucan, L. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

2. Multiple Exposures Students need between 12 & 14 exposures to a word and its meaning across multiple contexts (different texts, classroom discussions, writing activities), in order to gain deep understanding of a word.

3. How to Infer Word Meaning- Teaching Through Context Four Types of Context: Defintion- Jack's duplicity – crafty dishonesty – caused him to steal his coworker's pensions by funneling their money into an offshore account. Synonym- The baseball coach punished the team's duplicity or deceitfulness after they admitted to using steroids to boost their batting averages. Antonym- It was your duplicity that caused me to break up with you! Had you been honest, I wouldn't have felt the need. Example- His duplicity involved lowering his employee's salaries, increasing their stock options, and then stealing the money he saved by doing so. Context clues can be: Words, phrases and sentences surrounding an unfamiliar word. Taken from Diamond and Gutlohns Reading Rockets:

4. In-depth Word Knowledge Strategies Self Assessment of Current Knowledge Teaching Word Relationships Sematic Feature Analysis Categorizing/Word Sorts Learning vocabulary as a part of speech Word Walls Specialized Word Lists to use in writing Focus on Multiple Meaning Words Notice Subtle Differences in Meaning- Word Webs/Word Ladders Kinesthetic in Role Play- act out the words Visual Representations

5. Extending Word Knowledge Morphemic Analysis (word parts) Cognates Morphemic analysis is the process of deriving a word's meaning by analyzing its meaningful parts, or morphemes. Such word parts include root words, prefixes, and suffixes

Most Common Prefixes Anti = against : anti-war De = opposite : destroy Dis = not, opposite of : disagree En(m) = cause to : encode, embrace Fore = before : forecast The four most frequent prefixes are 97% of prefixed words! Most Common Suffixes -able, ible = can be done : doable -al, ial = has property of : personal -ed = past verb : turned -en = made of : golden -er = comparative : higher The four most frequent suffixes are 97% of suffixed words!

Guidelines- Teaching Word Parts Provide explicit instruction in how word analysis words Use word families Promote independent use of word analysis Enhance awareness that word analysis does not always work

Using Cognates for ELLs Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation. While English may share very few cognates with a language like Chinese, 30-40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. For Spanish-speaking ELLs, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language.