Wednesday 7 June 2017

Tackling New Vocabulary Strategies

Marc Milford is the Literacy Co-Ordinator (see his blog here) at Tamaki College, and yesterday presented some key strategies for teachers to help increase student's decoding skills of new words for our PCT meeting. We started by brainstorming the strategies we use, even as adults, to attack words we come across which we are unfamiliar of (see right). Marc quickly explained that students do not have these strategies, unless they are taught them, like we were. Therefore, even if we aren't English teachers, we need to be thinking about the texts we ask students to read, and how we are 'attacking' unfamiliar words with students.

See below Marc's presentation notes - we discussed some of the key problems/difficulties students have when attempting to make sense of a text and/or learn new words. One of the most common responses to new words I have seen in class, is giving up. Many of our students would rather give up, than try to break the word down, or to read around the word. As a result, their reading does not progress and they continue to struggle. Therefore, the mindset of a student towards their reading and vocabulary is incredibly important, as well as the strategies they are taught to attack words.



Throughout our discussion, I was thinking about how behind many of our students are, and the real need to accelerate our learners. Last year we spoke about the importance of talking, to be exposed to new words, that talking really does matter. Decile 1 students hear about 30 million less spoken words than their peers from other schools. Hence, the need to increase their vocabulary through reading, writing and discussions. The more students read, the more exposed they are to words, the more they recognise words and the more they put these words into practice. Our job is to help with this process.

As an addition to Marc's presentation and our discussion today, he provided us with the reading "8 Cs and a G" written by Dorothy Brown. Brown discusses her 9 strategies for teachers to support student vocabulary development, see my notes/thoughts about the reading here. I have reflected on the reading and today's session, and thought about how I could implement some of these strategies into my classes. I realised I am already doing many of them, but in different ways! See additional examples for English Language Leaners on TKI here.

Possible strategies moving forward:
- Use of clines for the affects of a drug on the body (short through to long term)
- Use of clines for responses to exercise (acute through to chronic)
- Collocations and clusters can be used to create webs/brainstorms of similar words to the new word, and to link the new word with common words. Could also weave in SOLO hexagons.
- Use of a thesaurus to teach students how synonyms can support with new vocabulary
- I need more 'creativity' - so providing students with multiple ways to learn/revise/apply their knowledge more often, such as Drawings, Slides, videos or essays.

A quote which I loved from the reading I keep pondering is "if the guess was wrong, still an effort was made and that in itself is better than being passive in the learning process" (p. 111). So, as teachers, irrespective of our subject, we need to help with decoding, breaking down and attacking new words to support's student vocabulary!

12 comments:

  1. G you have a talent for succinctly explaining your teaching and learning observations, thoughts and ideas! Ka rawe tõu mahi! :)

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    1. I really enjoy trying to take every opportunity of learning something new, and trying to apply it to my practice, particularly when the learning can positively affect student's success! Tēnā rawa atu koe :)

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  2. Hi Georgia, I am delighted to see you connecting with Marc's expertise and benefitting from it. I work with Marc on Fridays this year in the DI Intensive programme and I think you could offer him digital support in exchange :)

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    1. Yes I have been following his blogposts! Sounds like he is really enjoying the programme. I will definitely offer my assistance, hopefully I can help him even a little, because this session really engaged me!

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  3. What a wonderfully thoughtful and thorough blog! I'm so delighted that non-English teachers are interested in vocab and reading strategies - let's all work together on these really important skills!

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    1. As you say, they are important skills, hence the need to stick together and help build students confidence tackling new words. Thanks for the comment :)

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  4. Kia ora Georgia,

    Great post! I work alongside Dorothy on Fridays and Marc is a member of the group we support. This is a fantastic opportunity to see another side to Marc's expertise and I really appreciate this window into a different part of his world.

    It's great to see you reflecting on this new learning. I especially like the quote you shared in your post. It made me really think about several things and is one I would like to share with several colleagues.

    Thanks for sharing your learning.

    James

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  5. Thanks for your feedback James, I really enjoyed writing this post and all the reading and reflection it encouraged. The quote stuck with me too, because I think guessing is an important part of the learning process. Personally, knowing the answer to a question is not as important as attempting the answer, wanting to give it a go and wanting to learn. This is something I'm saddened many of my students don't do, because they're afraid and embarrassed to be wrong. Hopefully this begins to change!

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  6. Love your blog Georgia - you are like a sponge, soaking all of this knowledge up and your reflections are pretty inspirational!! (P.s Love the photo- isn't the wharenui a warm place to learn! - next staff PLD in their would rock much)

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    1. Thanks Dot, happy to hear I am inspirational! I really enjoy learning in the wharenui, I feel like I am literally leaving everything behind when I take my shoes off at the door! I think that staff PLD there would be great. Look forward to reading more of your posts, faafetai :)

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  7. Georgia, thank you for this amazing review. In the fifteen odd years I've been running literacy workshops, I don't think I’ve ever had such a thorough and detailed response. I’m also very impressed by the way workshop participants, like yourself, immediately used a number of the strategies with their classes. I don’t recall that ever happening before either. Thank you for taking the time to analyse the material covered in the workshop and I would love to hear how your students responded to, or benefited from, these strategies. Some family members keep asking me, why I continue to work full time, I now think I have an answer for them. Literacy rocks, ok.

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    1. I am very thankful for this opportunity, and has opened my mind up to a new thing to factor into my planning. I have often thought that I don't know how to support learners with vocabulary development, and this session alongside the readings gave me stepping stones. So, thank you for sharing with us! I will hopefully be including some of these strategies in the coming weeks, and would love to write a post including a reflection of the strategies used. Literacy does rock! I would love a session getting our heads around data and how we can use data to inform planning (such as e-Asttle or PAT tests). Food for thought :)

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Thank you for your feedback! :)