Ohio Resource Center > AdLIT > In Perspective Magazine > Content-Area Vocabulary: A Cri... - 0 views
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We all want our students to demonstrate newly learned concepts with the words they know as they discuss, write, and visually represent specific topics.
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In fact, teaching vocabulary in the content areas of mathematics, science, history, and English is not a separate entity from teaching the core understandings of each domain. As Vacca and Vacca (2008) have always stated, words are labels for concepts, and so teaching vocabulary is actually teaching about the ideas they represent.
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Therefore, in regard to teaching words in any content area, we need to keep in mind that different students will have different levels of understanding about a term and will internalize new information through each successive engagement with the term.
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Words representing concepts are not taught in a vacuum, but rather in contexts that illustrate how they are associated with other words and ideas. This feature of word knowledge is at the heart of effective content-area teaching and critical to vocabulary building.
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These examples show how words and their meanings are intricately related to each other and how these relationships are tied to conceptual understanding. It is important then to help students understand these relationships and connections.
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We must be very cognizant of how students might interpret a word definition that makes sense to us but may be misleading and confusing to those with less background knowledge.
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Broadly defined learning opportunities include the incorporation of wide reading in content classes as well as word consciousness. Reading widely about a topic across a variety of texts provides students with multiple exposures to newly learned words along with opportunities for incidental word learning to occur.
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In addition, broad learning opportunities include the development of word consciousness or awareness, where students learn habits of attending to new and interesting vocabulary that will enable them to acquire appropriate language for communicating in particular content areas (Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008; Stahl & Nagy, 2006).
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Too many targeted words can be overwhelming to students, especially those who struggle with reading.
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Such responses are more indicative of learning. Other activities for relating, connecting, clarifying, and applying word meanings are described in Instructional Strategies for Teaching Content Vocabulary, Grades 4–12 (Harmon, Wood, & Hedrick, 2006).