Teaching for Academic Success by Targeting Vocabulary

Instruction

Keith Pruitt, Ed.S.Words of Wisdom Educational Consulting

www.woweducationalconsulting.com

The relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic achievement is well established.-- Robert Marzano, Building Background Knowledge, p 31

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Academic Difference

Academic Dif-ference

Grades 4-12

Gap of 6,000 words

Nagy & Herman, 1984, as quoted in Marzano, 2004

A word is the term used to describe the label given to a packet of information stored in our permanent memories.

Marzano, 2004, p32

Nation insists that there are approximately 570 academic words from the Coxhead List that coupled with the 2,000 most frequently used words from the General Service List that constitute 90% of the reading students are to do.

As quoted by Lebedev, 2008, Pearson, Vocabulary Power 1

For the teacher, then, the supreme task is to store as many words as possible into the

permanent memory of students.

So how would I use the idea

of thematic instruction to teach vocabulary in a

content?

The Powerful Forces of Nature

Universe today.com

ZMEScience.com

NOAA

Public domain

Step 1- Introduce the Big Idea

How Does Nature Change

the Earth around Us?

Step 2- Introduce the theme by introducing the words you will

study.

ERUPT ASH LAVA TYPHOON HURRICANE PLATETREMOR MAGMA EPICENTEREARTHQUAKE STORM SURGE

Step 3- Create Background

Knowledge (Schema)

Step 4- Begin to explore text.

Inclusion of vocabulary. Now we can contextualize.

We also now have supporting information that can lead to projects: Ring of Fire, Vesuvius

We also can now link to career path by pointing students to

www.usgs.gov where they can learn how scientists work with volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.

Wow, that’s cool, dude. I think I might like to study

about volcanoes.

The volcano Etna has been on Sicily for more than a million years, longer than human beings have inhabited the Mediterranean. It has been erupting nearly continuously throughout 3500 years of recorded history, since 1500 BCE, and doubtless for long before that. Etna has had hundreds of recorded major eruptions; another began with the eruptions of spring 2001. And like the hundreds of times before, the local people responded in the ways they always have. But modern technologies have allowed them to respond a bit more effectively, and with a bit less resignation, than before.Etna Then and NowEtna is such an important volcano that the ancients made it the home of Vulcan, blacksmith to the gods. Like the personality of Vulcan himself, Etna is always unpredictable, often gloomy and irritated, sometimes dangerously angry, even on rare occasions playful. All of the seafaring peoples of the ancient Mediterranean knew Etna as a steady beacon and landmark, looming near the strategic Strait of Messina at Sicily's eastern tip.People have always lived near Etna, even upon its sides. The same is true with volcanoes around the world. After all, volcanic ash weathers into rich soil, and the risk of injury or death from an eruption is pretty small. On many volcanoes, you can live your whole life without witnessing an eruption—or if there is one, it won't destroy your part of the mountainside. That's the kind of risk we all accept about the place we live, whether it's prone to earthquakes, hurricanes, sinkholes, or landslides.The 2001 eruption of Etna made news not only because it was a great spectacle, but because there was human drama as well. The lava engulfed an important skiing and tourism center on the mountain, the Rifugio Sapienza. Nowadays we don't just send prayers to our current gods, as the ancients did—although the archbishop of Sicily did just that in 2001. Today the Italian authorities send bulldozers to throw up barriers to the lava.

Acting Against VolcanoesWe've tried other things against volcanoes, too, such as military bombing to divert lava flows. When a volcano threatened the Icelandic town of Westmanneyjar in 1983, the main tactic was spraying the lava with seawater to freeze it solid. But the first successful defense against a volcano was here in Catania, the city of half a million at Etna's foot. In 1669, the Monti Rossi vent on Etna's southern flank began pouring out a river of lava uphill from Catania. The city's existing walls held back the flood for a week. But after part of the wall gave way, the authorities built new walls in the city streets that were effective against the lava's advance.Another tactic tried in 1669 was to break open the roof and sides of the lava tube feeding the flow. It was hoped that this would cool and freeze the molten rock, as well as directing part of the flow elsewhere. The nearby town of Paternò felt so threatened by this measure, it sent out an armed force to stop the work crews. As a result, laws were enacted to forbid tampering with lava flows. These remained in effect until 1983, when more modern techniques were allowed. So the bulldozers of today are still an experimental technology when it comes to fighting eternal Etna.Another experimental technology was tried at Etna in 2009: gas sampling by remote-controlled helicopter. The Scots geologist whose brainstorm that was won a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2008. Remote-observation techniques like this promise to spare volcanologists from some of the danger inherent in their work while helping in eruption forecasts.PS: The Etna eruption, among other things, produced a small quantity of Pele's hair. This fine-fibered volcanic glass is more familiar from Hawaii, where the liquid basaltic lava is readily blown in the wind.

Step 5- Have Students Connect to Text

Step 6- Have students connect to

mediaStep 7- Have students discuss their

learning.

Step 8- Have students create from

their learning.

This is one of the fundamental elements of

Common Core.

Why would we have students do an experiment with earthquakes when

we are studying volcanoes?

Step 1- Introduce the big ideaStep 2-Introduce wordsStep 3- Create BackgroundStep 4-Explore TextStep 5-Have students connect to textStep 6- Have students connect to mediaStep 7- Students discuss their learningStep 8- Students create from their learning

In following this methodology, students can learn in the way the brain directs and learn a host of

vocabulary along the way. And most important, learning will be fun.

Thank YouKeith Pruitt, Ed.S.Words of Wisdom