One of the Simplest Strategies for Building Vocabulary
Vocabulary is critical, for sure. Not only is a strong vocabulary a major factor in reading comprehension, it’s also important for helping students write with greater precision and clarity. The National Reading Panel (pg. 4-3) even quotes a report from 1925 which said, “Growth in reading power means, therefore, continuous enriching and enlarging of the reading vocabulary and increasing clarity of discrimination in appreciation of word values.” Yes,1925!
“Reading vocabulary is crucial to the comprehension processes of a skilled reader.”
National Reading Panel Report
The NRP called for both implicit and explicit vocabulary learning. Luckily, vocabulary instruction is a key part of most core programs in use today. But given that we want kids to learn these words well enough that they “own them,”–recognize them when reading, know their meaning(s), and use them in conversation and in writing, these programs often don’t spend nearly enough time on them.
I shared eight simple tips for strengthening the provided vocabulary lessons in a previous post, but today I want to dig into a concept that can be used not only during your reading block, but is especially helpful in your content studies.
Using text sets to develop a deeper understanding of content vocabulary is a simple and effective way to do this.
It takes the idea of vocabulary building with an interactive read aloud to a different level, making these texts perfect for teaching vocabulary, building background knowledge, and to highlight reading comprehension strategies. Using a cohesive set of texts on a topic goes beyond relying on background knowledge kids already have.
Text sets allow for new topic knowledge to take hold–exactly what we want kids to learn in school. Put another way, text sets that build both vocabulary and knowledge can “be built and leveraged simultaneously in the interest of students’ literacy development,” as reported by Cervetti, Wright, and Hwang (2016).
It’s a lot of bang for your buck! And so incredibly simple.
Basically, you just gather a small grouping of texts–picture books, articles, and videos–that all center around a content topic. I talk a lot more about how to go about building a strong text set here. You’ll want a variety of complexity levels, including “easy” texts.
Why include easy texts for building vocabulary?
Because that’s where vocabulary building begins. A simple text or a video is a perfect launch point, because they’ll introduce the vocabulary of the concept. The words might be explicitly written in the text, or you might use these resources as a way to explain the words yourself. Then, choose the next text that will slightly expand on that word/concept, and continue with subsequent texts in the same way.
We don’t want to start with the most complex text; rather, the goal is to layer depth of meaning through multiple exposures. In addition to the texts available to you at your school, a great free resource to find simpler texts is textproject.org.
Then, of course, we want to make sure kids use these words in conversation as well as in writing to really solidify the learning. This is the basic concept behind the Writing Revolution. For the simplest ways to use what this book says about writing about learning, check out this previous post.
When done as a part of your science and/or social studies lessons, using text sets to introduce and teach new words is an incredibly simple, fun way to deepen vocabulary and content knowledge!
Could you use some help in developing text sets for deeper vocabulary instruction? Simply email me at michelle@coachfromthecouch.com or reach out for a coaching call from my website.
Who is Coach from the Couch?? I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach. I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can. Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!
And, be sure to join my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment where you can safely ask questions, gain ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!
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