8 focuses on terms to expand students’ word choices beyond the simple or slang terms they often fall back on and overuse.
I recommend digital tools and resources in some minilessons. Websites and applications are suggested only when they seem to fit the content well or add extra support or enrichment. Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to access live links to the websites suggested throughout this book. Additionally, an appendix featuring an index of vocabulary words (page 245) lists all words that are included in these minilessons, so you can quickly look up any specific word to see if it’s covered in this resource. This feature can support you as you find important vocabulary in content-area classroom materials that you plan to use in instruction.
This book is not a program, a textbook, or a workbook. It does not have to be digested or utilized in any set manner; the way you use what’s offered here is up to you. It’s a collection of ideas that—when brought to life based on your unique teaching situation—can change the lives of your students for the better. My hope is that you’ll find support for what you already do and inspiration for things you could do differently. As teachers know, with larger vocabularies, your students have a greater chance of being successful in their academic work, communities, and future workplaces.
Final Thoughts
Vocabulary in a SNAP is a resource for you no matter where you are on the vocabulary instruction spectrum. If you’re just beginning to feel the itch to improve in this area, terrific! If you’ve been tinkering with vocabulary instruction for a while, you will find detailed ideas here that can supplement what you’re already doing. And if you’re already an expert teacher of vocabulary, you will find precise suggestions and tools here that save you time and give you new ideas.
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Minilesson Management
Obviously, you’re interested in what you can do to help your students embrace word learning and enlarge their vocabularies. This book can be a handy resource for you and for other professionals in the building who want to address students’ critical need for high levels of vocabulary knowledge. By addressing this critical need, you will be helping students move more clearly toward success in academia and in the world of work.
Vocabulary in a SNAP can fuel teacher inquiry and data collection. After using some of the minilessons, ask your students if they feel they’re learning more words. Ask them if they are excited about word learning. Analyze their speaking and writing for improved word choice. Along with trusted colleagues, determine which minilessons, instructional strategies, and digital tools work best, and continue refining vocabulary instruction at your school. This chapter lays out the research basis for the SNAP minilessons, highlights the flexibility and adaptability of this framework, clarifies the structure and components of the minilessons in depth, and explains the logistics of implementing the minilessons in your classroom.
Research Basis
This book does not purport to be the one, end-all, be-all collection of words that will guarantee students finish their K–5 years prepared for all that lies ahead of them. In fact, no such word list exists, and even if it did, it would not take into account all that good teachers bring to instruction in order to meet their students’ needs.
The excellent teachers I’ve observed and supported as a professional development provider heavily influenced this work. The teachers and students I’ve worked with in settings as dissimilar as West Valley City, Utah, and Zwolle, Louisiana, were first and foremost in my mind. What would I say and do if we were teaching these lessons to their students? How would I work with teachers to adapt the lessons?
I consulted several credible resources to decide which words to include in this book, in addition to consulting many dedicated educators who have been studying vocabulary instruction with me. The following published works have most influenced word selection in this book.
• A New Academic Word List by Averil Coxhead (2000)
• The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (5th ed.) by Edward B. Fry and Jacqueline E. Kress (2000)
• Vocabulary for the Common Core by Robert J. Marzano and Julia A. Simms (2013)
All word definitions appearing in the minilessons are my own paraphrases and have been developed mainly by consulting the following online resources: Merriam-Webster (www.merriam-webster.com), Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com), Thesaurus.com (www.thesaurus.com), Cambridge Dictionary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us), and The Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com). I have also often turned to WordHippo (www.wordhippo.com) as a go-to resource for synonyms and example sentences. The instructional strategies throughout align with either the seminal work Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001) or other influential syntheses of effective instructional strategies.
I suggest that you use this book as only one resource to help plan effective vocabulary lessons. Other resources that should impact your decisions about which words to teach include the core instructional texts that you use (textbooks and other texts), the high-stakes tests your students need to prepare for, the wisdom of colleagues who are joining you in this endeavor, your expertise about the most critical content-area words your students need to know, and your experience in effectively meeting your students where they are in their learning.
Flexibility and Adaptability
These minilessons are not a curriculum. They’re not a program or a series of lessons that you should use in any particular order. You can use any minilesson at any time and adapt it as you see fit for your curriculum and your students. The minilessons are highly flexible. The text shows only one of many ways to use the framework to teach specific words. While the minilessons in this book are organized thematically, I recognize that there may be other ways to group them. If you and your colleagues want to take the ideas herein and totally reorganize them, you can do so without compromising effectiveness. Make things make sense for you. Remember, the ultimate goal is for students to see the words, make the words, associate them, tinker with them alongside peers, and individually apply them. All these steps are designed to increase the “stickiness” of the target words so that when students encounter unfamiliar academic vocabulary, they aren’t so flummoxed that they can’t move forward—the word will have stuck with them. I also encourage you to use the framework to design your own minilessons when appropriate. So consider this book a book of possibilities.
Vocabulary in a SNAP consists of enough minilessons to use a different one several times a week during the entire school year if you wish. I’m not recommending that you implement the minilessons in any specific number or sequence, however. Use your best judgment and, if possible, undertake this work with colleagues and find what kind of implementation works best for your situation. Also, just because you teach a minilesson once doesn’t mean that it can’t be repeated later for review. Multiple exposures to unfamiliar words are important for long-term memory. Any minilesson can also be a part of your word study instruction when it might best make sense. In short, there are many ways to use these lessons along with your current literature series, balanced literacy model, and so on.
