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Vocabulary involves understanding the meaning of words and using these words appropriately in language. Vocabulary can be classified into three tiers by the frequency of use, complexity of words, and the meaning of the word.

The three tiers include:

Tier 1 - Basic/General Vocabulary

There are around 8,000 words in this tier of vocabulary. These words are generally established by the end of primary school and, for most children, do not need to be specifically taught. These are words used in everyday conversations that children learn from listening and context. Within this tier, the words generally have one meaning. Tier 1 words include nouns (e.g. girl, tiger), verbs (e.g. run, chased) and adjectives (e.g. blue, beautiful).

Children with a language/learning disorder or who are learning english as a second language may need specific instruction with Tier 1 words.

Tier 2 - Descriptive Vocabulary/High Frequency/Multiple Meaning

There are approximately 7,000 words in Tier 2. These words include words that are used frequently over multiple contexts, words that contain multiple meanings (e.g. spring) and an increased number of descriptive vocabulary. Words in this tier include: disaster, fortunate, measure, terrified, analyse.

Tier 2 words are necessary for:

  • reading comprehension
  • understanding multiple meanings
  • generalising words across learning environments
  • helping students use specific language to describe concepts

To decide if a word belongs to Tier 2 consider:

  • is it generally a useful word to know?
  • does the word relate to other words and ideas that students know or have been learning? (e.g. environment)
  • is the word useful in helping students understand text?

If the answer to the above questions is 'yes' then the word is likely to be a Tier 2 word. If not, it is probably a Tier 3 word.

It is recommended that teachers focus on Tier 2 words for teaching as these words will have the greatest impact on student vocabulary knowledge for reading comprehension and written expression.

Tier 3 - Low Frequency and Context Specific

There are approximately 400,000 words in this tier of vocabulary. These words are specific for each subject/domain and include words such as amino acid, latitude, microeconomics, photosynthesis.

These words are necessary to understand specific concepts taught in subjects. These words are context-specific and necessary for in-depth understanding of subjects. As students move to upper secondary, they are required to understand many Tier 3 words.

These tiers of vocabulary can be used to help determine which words to target during vocabulary intervention support. It is recommended that Tier 2 words are targeted to maximise efficiency of teaching.

Vocabulary lies at the heart of oral and written language skills. The ability to define a word with accuracy and precision is an important skill that has been associated with academic achievement (Marinellie, 2010). A recent study suggests that a short teaching session on how to develop formal word definitions improves a student's ability to give definitions. In the study, Grade 4 children who were performing a grade level below on reading levels, participated in a lesson designed to teach them about the formal structure of a definition and increase the accuracy/precision of word meaning. The procedure outlined below was used to teach students how to write formal word definitions.

Process for Teaching Formal Word Definitions

1. Explain to the student that they will practice writing definitions of words like those in a dictionary. Give an example of a noun e.g. chair - a piece of furniture that a person can sit on; a verb e.g. germinate - to develop from a seed to a plant.

2. Choose five common nouns and five common verbs that can be easily used to form a mental image. (A word that is more easily pictured may be easier to define compared to one that is not easily pictured. Nippold et al, 1999).

Nouns - table, water, hand, house, night, horse, forest, bird, school, farm

Verbs - laugh, walk, draw, buy, talk, listen, carry, save, throw, cry, wash

3. For each noun word, list in the first column five possible categories and in the second category five possible attributes.

4. For each word, read the word and its part of speech (ie. noun or verb) and all the items listed for the first part of the definition.

Noun: Table

a sport                                           that you sit at to eat dinner

a thing                                           that is made of wood

a piece of furniture                          that is able to be moved

a type of food                                 that you cook on

an animal                                       that is heavy

5. Discuss and determine the correct category. Ask the student to write the first part of the definition. Next, discuss the attribute that best fits the definition, the one that most people would agree upon. Ask the student to write the second part of the definition.

6. Throughout the noun lesson, emphasize that a 'good' noun definition begins with with a 'class term' - the word that describes many things that are like this thing. Each class term should be followed with a further description.

e.g. apple is a fruit that grows on a tree and is crunchy

7. Throughout the verb lesson, emphasize that a 'good' verb definition begins with an action using the form 'to + verb', followed by a second description of action.

e.g. reuse - to use something again and again

8. Once the student understands the procedure, choose words that relate to the class topic or words commonly used to describe how to complete a task.

e.g. Nouns - character, extinction, erosion, habitat, community

e.g. Verbs - analyse, classify, identify, illustrate, erupt, reuse

Click here to download writing formal definitions practice sheets.

Marinellie, S. (2010) Improving children's formal word definitions: A feasibility study. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 26:23

Nippold MA, Hegel SL, Sohlberg MM and Schwarz IE (1999) Defining abstract entities: Development in pre-adolescents, adolescents and young adults. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 41: 473-81

Techniques to help students understand and remember vocabulary.

For students to learn effectively, they need to understand and use the key topic vocabulary of a subject. Students must be able to understand the words that teachers use as they share information on a topic and also be able to use the specific vocabulary in their own oral and written language.

Studies have shown that if teachers spend time at the beginning of a lesson reviewing the vocabulary that will be used in teaching, students' comprehension of the lesson improves.

Here are some tips and techniques that you can use to help students effectively learn and use class topic vocabulary.

1. Select and explicitly teach words that are critical to the understanding of the unit of study (i.e. if the student does not know these words, they will have difficulty understanding the unit). Remember - less is more......depth is more.

2. Have the students say the words. This lays down the phonological memory for the word so that the student can access this when they want to use it for an oral explanation or in written work.

3. Teach the new words in the context of a meaningful lesson and provide opportunities for student discussion that revolves around the use of the new words. (Copying definitions from the dictionary is not a meaningful context!)

4. Encourage the student to explain the meaning of the word in their own words (paraphrasing). This helps the students identify the core idea as well as the details important to the meaning of the word.

5. Connect the new word to background knowledge. The word may connect to information already learnt by the student, personal knowledge or experience. It is essential that the student explains the knowledge connection so that the connection is firmly established and can be used to retrieve the meaning of the word at a later time.

6. Identify examples of how the word can be applied as well as non-examples. This is useful to refine the student's understanding of the meaning of the words as well as consolidate knowledge connections.

7. Practice learning and using the word in multiple formats. Writing, drawing, explaining, creating a piece of art, role-playing, mneumonics (e.g. stationary and stationery - Stationery contains er and so does paper; stationary (not moving) contains ar and so does car).

 Click here to download a vocabulary learning map.

The reading of academic texts helps students language in a number of important ways. Firstly, a large amount of new language (vocabulary, sentence structure) can be learned from reading. Reading provides multiple exposures to academic vocabulary that is not used frequently in oral contexts (Elley, 1991) and students also have the opportunity to see a variety of academic text structures that they are unlikely to hear in spoken situations (Zwiers, 2008).

Here are strategies that can be used to help students build their reading vocabulary to support their comprehension.

1. Read-Aloud: students with reading/language difficulties may not attempt a text because of the complexity of words used. Reading aloud helps to give the student access to both the content and the academic language. It helps to build the student's interest in the text, develop academic listening skills (listening for important information), provide multiple exposures to academic vocabulary and build up knowledge needed for class discussions.

2. Comprehend-Aloud: As you read aloud, pause to make comments about what you are thinking and how you are organizing your thoughts in order to comprehend the text e.g. So far, I think the author wants me to understand......

Model how you monitor comprehension and use fix-up strategies (looking back, reading on, reading again) and connect pieces of text. e.g. I need to check back to see why the character said that.

Specifically direct students to words that help understand text e.g. however - an opposing piece of information is about to be given.

3. Pre-teaching vocabulary: select critical vocabulary that will help the student understand the text and build knowledge about each word e.g. formulate a definition, draw a picture/symbol to attach the word to an image, link it with a similar meaning word, link it to an opposite word. Link the word to the student's experience with a 'Have You Ever' question e.g. Have you ever critiqued a movie, chastised your brother or silenced your friend? Ask the student to describe what happened. Use an Idea Completion to give a starter sentence with the target word e.g. Yesterday the teacher chastised a student because.......On Masterchef, the judges critiqued the contestant's dish and said....

4. Mind maps: are an excellent way of taking the most important pieces of information in text and representing them visually. Key vocabulary can be used for sub-headings and helps students to make connections between words and concepts. Using pictures and symbols helps students create a visual image to aide placing the word into long-term memory.

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