A group of words, labeled the core vocabulary, can be expected to be prominent across all texts. Scholarship made possible by digital databases of words and new analytic systems has shown that ...approximately 2,500 morphological families account for most of the words in texts—an average of 91.5% of all words in the Common Core State Standards exemplars from kindergarten through College and Career Ready. The rare vocabulary of texts is so extensive and varied that, without a foundation in the core vocabulary, students are likely to struggle with the meanings of rare words. Words are in the core vocabulary because they represent critical concepts, are part of morphological or word families that share a root word, and are often versatile in their meaning and function. The author describes the semantic, morphological, and multiple‐meaning knowledge represented by these 2,500 word families and ways in which teachers can foster these proficiencies.
Knowledge of word meanings is critical to success in reading. A reader cannot fully understand a text in which the meaning to a significant number of words is unknown. Vocabulary knowledge has long ...been correlated with proficiency in reading. Yet, national surveys of student vocabulary knowledge have demonstrated that student growth in vocabulary has been stagnant at best. This volume offers new insights into vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary teaching. Articles range from a presentation of theories of vocabulary that guide instruction to innovative methods and approaches for teaching vocabulary. Special emphasis is placed on teaching academic and disciplinary vocabulary that is critical to success in content area learning. Our hope for this volume is that it may spark a renewed interest in research into vocabulary and vocabulary instruction and move toward making vocabulary instruction an even more integral part of all literacy and disciplinary instruction.
Students with limited vocabulary knowledge are at high risk for reading comprehension difficulties. Previous studies have found that teaching morphology may support vocabulary growth. In the present ...study, the authors aimed to replicate and extend these findings by investigating both immediate and long‐term transfer effects to untaught words and untaught pseudowords with well‐known root morphemes. Fifth‐grade students (N = 332) were randomly assigned to a morphological intervention, an alternative vocabulary intervention, or a control condition. The morphological intervention was found to produce large short‐term effects with respect to the students’ abilities to segment and explain both taught and untaught words containing taught morphemes, and medium effects on explanations of likely meanings of pseudowords with well‐known root morphemes. Medium to large effects were still present 10 months later with taught words and transfer words. Training had a small effect on reading comprehension with trained words but no effect on standard measures of reading comprehension or vocabulary.
This study examined how well second language (L2) recall and recognition vocabulary tests correlated with a reading test, how well each vocabulary test discriminated between reading proficiency ...levels, and how accurate each test was in predicting reading proficiency when compared with corpus studies. A total of 116 college-level learners of English as a foreign language took a reading test and 2 vocabulary size tests: meaning recall and meaning recognition. Participants were divided into 4 reading proficiency levels based on the reading scores. We correlated the reading scores with the 2 vocabulary scores, compared the 4 reading groups on each vocabulary test, and compared the vocabulary size of each of the reading proficiency groups with corpus studies. Both vocabulary tests were good predictors of reading, but the recognition test fared slightly better. We introduce the notion of 'comprehension vocabulary' and suggest that a recall test is more appropriate for measuring sight vocabulary while a recognition test is more appropriate for measuring comprehension vocabulary.
Vocabulary knowledge greatly affects writing performance (Stæhr in Lang Learn J 36:139–152, 2008; Johnson in Tesol J 7:700-715 2016), but little is known about the relative contribution of different ...dimensions of vocabulary knowledge to reading-to-write performance. The current study attempted to investigates the contribution of receptive/orthographic (RecOrth) vocabulary knowledge, productive/orthographic knowledge (ProOrth), productive/phonological (ProPhon) vocabulary knowledge and depth of vocabulary knowledge to reading-to-write scores. For this purpose, 154 Chinese English as foreign language (EFL) learners took a battery of vocabulary knowledge tests and a reading-to-write test. The extent to which vocabulary at different word frequencies predicted reading-to-write was also investigated. The results of regression indicated that ProOrth academic level, vocabulary depth, and RecOrth 2, 000 frequency level explained 40.2% of the reading-to-write score variance. Among the high-performing group, ProOrth academic and vocabulary depth were predictive of the reading-to-write score, while only ProOrth academic vocabulary explained the variance in the reading-to-write score for the low-performing group. The findings reveal the important relationship among dimensions of vocabulary knowledge and reading-to-write and stress the need for systematic vocabulary instruction.
When discussing vocabulary, a distinction is often made between size of vocabulary (number of known words) and depth of knowledge (how well those words are known). However, the relationship between ...the two constructs is still unclear. Some scholars argue that there is little real difference between the two, while regression analyses show that depth typically adds unique explanatory power compared to size alone. Ultimately, the relationship between size and depth of vocabulary knowledge depends on how each is conceptualized and measured. In an attempt to provide an empirical basis for exploring the size–depth relationship, this critical synthesis identifies studies that contain measures of both size and depth. Based on a number of different conceptualizations of depth, various patterns emerged. For higher frequency words and for learners with smaller vocabulary sizes, there is often little difference between size and a variety of depth measures. However, for lower frequency words and for larger vocabulary sizes, there is often a gap between size and depth, as depth measures lag behind the measures of size. Furthermore, some types of word knowledge (e.g., derivative knowledge) seem to have generally lower correlations with size than other types.
Vocabulary by Gamification Kingsley, Tara L.; Grabner-Hagen, Melissa M.
The Reading teacher,
March/April 2018, Volume:
71, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Gamification uses game elements such as quests, challenges, levels, and rewards to motivate and engage students in the classroom. Given the engagement that students feel during gameplay, it is ...sensible to include elements of game design to motivate students and create a space for comprehensive vocabulary instruction. Designing a gamified vocabulary curriculum begins with clear learning goals, a careful selection of key terms, and the transformation of activities into quest challenges. This article shares how to design a gamified vocabulary curriculum to scaffold higher order thinking skills. Snapshots and examples of vocabulary gamification, along with suggestions for everyday practice, are included and aligned to the levels of Bloom's taxonomy. A discussion on how gamification supports student autonomy and mastery learning in a goal‐oriented environment is provided.
The efficient use of working memory (WM) increases the potential of a learner’s cognitive abilities in learning through multimedia. The present study aims to explore the role of working memory in ...vocabulary learning through multimedia input. In particular, we explore the possible associations between two components of WM – executive WM and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) – and the effects of three types of input conditions (Definition + Word information + Video, Definition + Word information, and Definition) on second language (L2) vocabulary learning. A total of 95 students completed learning under the three conditions and took two WM tests: a reading span test, which measures complex executive WM, and a non-word span test, which gauges PSTM. We administered a vocabulary knowledge test, which included receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge, immediately and after two weeks. Our findings, based on repeated-measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), support the pronounced effects of the Definition + Word information + Video condition in vocabulary learning and retention, as well as the significant role of complex and phonological WM in vocabulary learning and retention under the three conditions. Theoretical and pedagogical implications concerning the role of WM in vocabulary learning through multimedia input are discussed.
The current study investigates the extent to which receptive vocabulary size test scores can predict second language (L2) speaking ability. Forty-six international students with an advanced level of ...L2 proficiency completed a receptive vocabulary task (Yes/No test; Meara & Miralpeix, 2017) and a spontaneous speaking task (oral picture narrative). Elicited speech samples were submitted to expert rating based on speakers’ vocabulary features as well as lexical sophistication measures. Results indicate that vocabulary size was significantly associated with vocabulary rating. However, learners with large vocabulary sizes did not necessarily produce lexically sophisticated L2 words during speech. A closer examination of the data reveals complexities regarding the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and speaking. Based on these findings, we explore implications for L2 vocabulary assessment in classroom teaching contexts and provide important suggestions for future research on the vocabulary-and-speaking link.
General academic words are those which are typically learned through exposure to school texts and occur across disciplines. We examined academic vocabulary assessment data from a group of ...English‐speaking middle school students (N = 1,747). We tested how word frequency, complexity, proximity, polysemy, and diversity related to students’ knowledge of target words across ability levels. Our results affirm the strong relation between vocabulary and reading at the individual level. Strong readers were more likely to know the meanings of words than struggling readers were, regardless of the features of the academic words tested. Words with more meanings were easier for all students, on average. The relation between word frequency and item difficulty was stronger among better readers, whereas the relation between word complexity and item difficulty was stronger among less proficient readers. Our examination of academic words’ characteristics and how these characteristics relate to word difficulty across reading performance has implications for instruction.
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