https://soundcloud.com/kfetterman/seminar-paper-
Below is also a written copy, if that makes it easier.
The topic of my seminar
paper was explicit vocabulary instructional strategies used before and during
reading, with a focus on special education learners. I chose this topic
because I am a 7th grade special education teacher, and
vocabulary is a major deficit area with my students.
My first study compared a
rehearsal strategy and the keyword strategy, which uses pictures to help jog
students’ memories. The results of this study were clear. The
keyword method was more effective than the rehearsal method for both the recall
measure and the comprehension measure. More importantly, while there was
a difference in effectiveness between the concrete and abstract vocabulary
words for the rehearsal method, there was no major difference between them in
the keyword method. In fact, on the comprehension assessment, students
actually performed better on the abstract vocabulary when using the keyword
method.
In the next study,
students participated in four different conditions; text reading, vocabulary
learning, a combined approach, and a control group when reading science
texts. On the reading fluency measure, all three conditions produced
greater fluency in students than the control condition. However, the
text-reading and the combined conditions provided the greatest amount of words
read. On the vocabulary knowledge measure, the vocabulary learning
condition and the combined condition exhibited the greatest scores, 5.5 to 6.0
words correct, as opposed to 3 on text-reading and 2.5 on the control. On
the passage comprehension measure, the three conditions edged out the control
condition slightly, with scores of 6.5 to 7, compared to 6 for the
control. It is clear that all varying conditions improve the measure
which they are focused on, but can sometimes have positive effects on other
measures as well. For example, the vocabulary learning condition not only
increased the score on the vocabulary knowledge measure, but on the reading
fluency measure as well.
The third study compared
two different types of vocabulary instruction with the regular
curriculum. One was word mapping, a generative morphemic analysis
strategy, and the other was the vocabulary LINCS strategy, where students look
up the meaning of the word and use a series of steps to aid in remembering the
definition. In this study, both students with and without disabilities
from the Word Mapping and LINCS group improved significantly on the
strategy-use and word knowledge tests. On the morphological analysis
assessment, the Word Mapping group made greater gains than the Vocabulary LINCS
and the regular curriculum groups, going from 18% correct to 60% correct.
Interesting to note is the lack of difference between students with and without
disabilities on the assessments.
The final study divided
students into two groups; one would learn new vocabulary through semantic
feature analysis (SFA), and the other would learn through the dictionary
method (DM). In this study, students gained and retained significantly more
knowledge when educated using the semantic feature analysis. Average
scores showed that these students scored approximately eight out of ten on
vocabulary and concept questions, while dictionary method students scored
between five and six out of ten on both. However, both groups showed retention
over 6 months; neither group had any significant loss. The difference in
scores, however, shows that the semantic feature analysis is much more
successful at teaching students new vocabulary and concepts, thus improving
overall reading comprehension. Researchers hypothesized this to be true
because the SFA engaged students and made them think deeply and scaffold new
information, while the DM students were able to complete their pre-reading
assignment with little thought or processing taking place.
All of these studies
addressed different vocabulary acquisition strategies that can be used with
special education learners both before reading and during reading, with varying
levels of success. Whether they taught students strategies to break down
words, memorize words, use prior knowledge, or consult other resources to
supplement their knowledge, each strategy showed some type of improvement in
the vocabulary knowledge of students with disabilities.
The findings of all four
studies are all extremely relevant to special educators, as well as regular
educators. So often, teachers rush to get to the content that they are
supposed to cover without giving a thought to how students will access the new
vocabulary they inevitably come across in the text. These studies exemplify
how crucial pre-reading strategies are to students, and this rings true
especially with our students with disabilities. If students participate
in some sort of pre-reading activity, designed to activate prior knowledge and
scaffold new information, the studies showed that it greatly increased the
overall comprehension of the reader.
In addition to the
success rates of the studies, there were a variety of populations used across
the four studies. Even though the majority of the individual studies were
narrowly focused on a specific population, as a whole, the research completed
varied in areas of the United States. A few also evaluated the results of
their special education learners against the results of regular education
students. That basis of comparison is essential. When writing IEPs,
one major factor is including the deficit level of special education students
with their non-disabled peers. The studies that compared the two groups
showed that there was not a major difference. That is extremely
encouraging news to hear as a special educator. While our students may
need extra modeling, practice, review, and reinforcement of skills, they are
just as capable as a student without a disability.
In my own classroom, I
can see myself implementing a variety of these strategies. The one that
resonated with me the most was the generative morphemic analysis strategy,
referred to as Word Mapping in the study. I found this strategy
particularly useful because it doesn’t rely on a memorization trick or prior
knowledge activation led by the teacher. Once the strategy is taught, the
more students practice it, the better they will become. Word Mapping
teaches students to break an unknown word down into pieces, and create meaning
using the prefix, suffix, and/or root of the word. This is an approach
that can be used throughout a student’s life, whether it be on a standardized
test in high school or in a job interview after graduating college. This
is a tactic I personally use, and once it becomes automatic, it can be
incredibly helpful when an unfamiliar word pops up.
While the researchers of
these studies presented a lot of information, there were some things that were
left to be desired. For example, there was not a lot of discussion about
how time-consuming it was to create the materials used for each of these
strategies. While they are useful, of course, I wondered often about
whether the time put into creating the materials is worth the knowledge gained
by the students. If you create 20 keyword index cards, and students only
retain 4 of the words, it would seem to me that there must be a more effective
way to integrate explicit vocabulary instruction.
In addition, I would be
interested in seeing the long-term use of these strategies by teachers, and how
much that impacted student learning and comprehension in a class as a
whole. A year-long study would be extremely insightful, and might shed
some more light on the learning of our students with disabilities.
In conclusion, it is
clear that teachers implement some sort of explicit vocabulary instruction both
before reading and during reading, particularly when new concepts and ideas are
being introduced. While it is not realistic to expect this to be done
every day, it is an extremely important part of ensuring that all students,
including our students with disabilities, are getting the most out of their
education.
