of less intensive instruction…. One should not underestimate the value of any meaningful encounter with a word, even if the information gained from the one encounter is relatively small. (pp. 31–32)
Useful guidelines for vocabulary instruction are implicit in these findings. If time is available to provide an in-depth understanding of vocabulary words to students, teachers should by all means encourage as much learning as possible. However, if only a limited amount of time is available, teachers should not neglect direct vocabulary instruction because they are only able to provide a surface-level understanding of the terms. Even brief instructional activities aimed at providing an initial surface-level understanding might help students form a “cup” or container for a word that allows them to connect future learning to that word.
Chapter 1 described elements of effective vocabulary instruction from research and theory. In this chapter, we describe a six-step process for vocabulary instruction based on that research and theory. This process has its own unique body of research supporting its effectiveness (Dunn, Bonner, & Huske, 2007; Gifford & Gore, 2008; Haystead & Marzano, 2009; Marzano, 2005, 2006). The first study supporting the utility of the six-step process (called “Building Academic Vocabulary” or BAV) was completed in 2005 (Marzano, 2005). During the 2004–2005 school year, 11 schools, 118 teachers, and 2,683 students participated in an evaluation study of the BAV process for vocabulary instruction. The study found that “students who participated in the BAV program exhibited greater ability to read and understand grade-appropriate materials in mathematics, science, and general literacy than their counterparts who did not participate in the program” (Marzano, 2006, p. 1). Furthermore, the study found that the BAV program was particularly effective for students who were English learners or who qualified for free and reduced lunch (indicating low socioeconomic status). Given Hart and Risley’s (1995, 2003) previously reviewed conclusion that students from low SES families typically have smaller vocabularies than other students, these findings are particularly compelling.
Additionally, Haystead and Marzano (2009) synthesized the results of a number of studies conducted by classroom teachers on the effectiveness of the six-step process for vocabulary instruction. They found that the process was associated with an effect size of 0.51, which is associated with a gain of 20 percentile points. In other words, a student at the 50th percentile whose teacher used the six-step process for vocabulary instruction would be expected to improve to the 70th percentile, compared to a student whose teacher did not use the process. These findings indicate that the process can be effective in increasing vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension for a variety of students in a variety of school situations.
The six steps of the vocabulary instruction process are as follows:
1. Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term.
2. Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.
3. Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representing the term or phrase.
4. Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabulary notebooks.
5. Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another.
6. Involve students periodically in games that allow them to play with terms.
The process is designed to be used with students of all ages and works equally well in self-contained classrooms (usually at the elementary level where one teacher teaches every subject) or in content-specific classes (as are usually used at the middle and high school levels). Teachers can devote as much or as little time to each step as they have available. As described previously, even surface-level knowledge of words is useful to students. Here, we describe and exemplify each step.
Step 1: Provide a Description, Explanation, or Example of the New Term
The first step involves providing a description, explanation, or example of the term for students. Before you can do that, however, you must determine what students already know. To verify this information, a teacher can simply ask, “What do you think you know about this term?” For example, an eighth-grade mathematics teacher asks students what they know about the term function. The students offer the following comments:
• A function is a kind of event. My mom organizes social functions for her ladies’ club.
• People often say that something “is a function of” something else. My dad says that “the quality of a meal is a function of how hungry you are.”
• A function is what a person does. My uncle functions as the president of our HOA.
• A function is arch-shaped. My brother graphs them on his calculator.
As students reply, the teacher listens for accurate knowledge as well as misconceptions. Accurate knowledge that students already have about a term can be incorporated into the teacher’s subsequent description and explanation of the term. If students have misconceptions about a term, the teacher can correct and clarify these in her explanation of the term. From the student comments, the teacher determines that students have accurate knowledge about different meanings attached to the term function (an event, a relationship, a role) and realizes that she needs to help them focus on the mathematical meaning of “a relationship between two measurements.” She also notes that some students understand that functions can be expressed visually by graphing them but recognizes the misconception that all functions’ graphs are arch-shaped. She decides to refer back to the second comment about “the quality of a meal being a function of how hungry you are” and build on it when she gives examples of different real-world situations expressed by functions.
Once the baseline for student understanding is set, the teacher can begin the six-step process by providing a description for the term.
Definition vs. Description
Providing students with information about a word’s meaning is an integral part of direct vocabulary instruction. Unfortunately, many teachers rely on dictionary definitions for this purpose. This practice is ineffective because the main goal of a dictionary definition is not necessarily to provide the clearest possible explanation for a word. In fact, Sidney Landau (1984) pointed out that one of the most important considerations when writing dictionary definitions is space. Definitions in dictionaries are typically designed to take up as little space as possible, in order to accommodate the large number of words that need to be included.
Additionally, dictionary definitions are designed using a classical structure that classifies, rather than explains, each concept. Stahl (1999) wrote, “There is a form for a definition, dating back to Aristotle, in which the definition first identifies which class (genus) the word belongs to, and then how that word differs from other members of its class (differentia)” (p. 17). For example, the DK Merriam-Webster Children’s Dictionary (2008) defines jeans as “pants [class] made of denim [differentiation]” (p. 450) and countdown as “the process [class] of subtracting the time remaining before an event [differentiation]” (p. 202). Because of this structure, Snow (1990) found that students’ ability to define words depended more on their understanding of the structure of a definition than on their actual understanding of a word.
Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan (2002) suggested that descriptions are more effective than definitions. Descriptions explain and exemplify words, often by using the words in sentences or explaining the contexts in which a word commonly appears. The Collins COBUILD Illustrated Basic Dictionary (Roehr & Carroll, 2010) represents one effort to supply students with descriptions rather than definitions. Table
