Increasing Students’ Vocabulary: Word Study in Action


Background Information

The “30 Million Word Gap by Age 3” is a research study, by Betty Hart and Todd Risley, whose gist is that by age 3, children growing up in impoverished households have heard 30 million fewer words than kids growing up in affluent households. This study has since been cited thousands of times; however, in the past couple of years, their findings have become quite debatable due to the small number of families they studied and inconsistency along lines of race. There have been multiple attempts to replicate the original study, and all have failed at finding such large a gap. The studies have still found that a “word gap” does exist, but that the difference is about 4 million words by the age of 4.

So what?

What does this mean for us, as educators? It means we still need to address the “aren’t YET teaching vocabulary, or word study, well.” In Teach Like A Champion 2.0, Doug Lemov writes, “Whereas good teachers get students to develop effective right answers using terms they are already comfortable with (‘Volume is the amount of space something takes up’), great teachers get them to use precise technical vocabulary they’re developing comfort with (‘Volume refers to the cubic units of space an object occupies’). This response expands student vocabularies and builds comfort with the terms students will need when they compete in college.” 

Now what?

  1. Incorporate vocabulary instruction in every class, every day.
    1. This begins addressing the word gap.
    2. This aids in reading comprehension for all subjects.
    3. This helps combat “the Matthew Effect” (Aka: Strong readers read more and thus get better.  Poor readers shy away from reading and thus continue to struggle with reading. The gap widens.)
    4. This helps prepare students for gate-keeping exams (i.e., AP exams, ACT, SAT, GRE).
  2. Tier 1.pngFocus most of your instruction on Tier 2 and Tier 3 words.
    1. Tier 2 examples: persistent, coincidence, absurd, industrious
    2. Tier 3 examples: isotope, peninsula, quadrilateral
  3. Good vocabulary instruction should:
    1. Teach the meaning of most essential words in text.
    2. Apply a variety of strategies for teaching word meanings.
    3. Make connections between words and new concepts.
    4. Encourage using new words in oral and written communication without a teacher prompt. (see example below)

Example: When students would find one of our vocabulary words in a book or article they were reading, they would show a teacher. The teacher would then ask them to explain the word in context. If the student explained it correctly, we wrote the word on a sticker label and they could place it on their forehead. Some days, students entire foreheads were covered in vocabulary words! They took such pride showing the words they knew!

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