Table Of ContentVOCABULARY FREQUENCY COMPARISONBETWEEN
NYS LIVING ENVIRONMENT TEXTBOOK
AND NYS REGENTS EXAMS
by
Elizabeth M. Wells
A Master’s Project
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science in Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
State University of New York at Fredonia
Fredonia, New York
December 2012
Abstract
How do science content teachers decide which academic vocabulary words to teach to
their students? Do they rely on their district textbook to identify them? Which vocabulary is the
important vocabulary and how much are they going to see and use it? How much vocabulary is
too much vocabulary? This study examined the frequency in which academic vocabulary words
found in a New York State school district textbook compared to the frequency in which they
were found on the New York State Living Environment Regents exams. The analysis of data
indicate that there are significantly more academic vocabulary words identified in the textbook
than what students will see on the New York State Living Environment Regents exam or what
they are capable of learning. The findings from this study will help curriculum directors and
teachers identify which vocabulary is important to teach and in which order to teach them.
Further research will need to be done to determine how the choice of words will impact student
scores on the NYS Living Environment Regents exam.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Project Certification Page……………………………………………………………….. i
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………. ii
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………….. iii
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………... 1
Literature Review……………………………………………………………………….. 3
What is Academic Vocabulary?................................................................................. 3
Domain specific academic vocabulary………………………………………….... 3
General academic vocabulary……………………………………………………. 4
High frequency versus low frequency words…………………………………….. 4
Levels of Vocabulary………………………………………………………………… 5
Three tier level approach………………………………………………………….. 5
Four level framework……………………………………………………………... 5
Principles of Vocabulary Instruction……………………………………………….... 6
Student choice……………………………………………………………………... 6
Multiple exposures………………………………………………………………… 7
Rote memorization………………………………………………………………… 7
Articulated among teachers……………………………………………………….. 8
Active agents and learners………………………………………………............... 8
Firsthand experiences and print resources to enhance learning…………………… 8
Selecting Academic Vocabulary for Instruction……………………………………… 9
Deciding which words to teach…………………………………………………… 9
Who chooses? Teacher or student?.......................................................................... 11
iii
Relationship to assessment………………………………………………………….. 12
Background knowledge…………………………………………………………… 12
Increased vocabularies equal increased question comprehension………………... 12
Role of Textbooks in Curriculum…………………………………………………….. 13
Methodology…………………………………………………………………………..... 15
Participants…………………………………………………………………………... 15
Teachers…………………………………………………………………………... 16
Students…………………………………………………………………………... 16
Curriculum Directors…………………………………………………………….. 16
Setting………………………………………………………………………………... 16
New York State…………………………………………………………………… 16
Students Grade 8, 9, and 10………………………………………………………. 17
Design………………………………………………………………………………. 17
Data collection……………………………………………………………………. 18
Data analysis…………………………………………………………………….... 18
Limitations………………………………………………………………………….... 18
Textbook………………………………………………………………………….. 19
Type of software used……………………………………………………………. 19
Choice of vocabulary words……………………………………………………... 20
Results………………………………………………………………………………….... 21
Discussion……………………………………………………………………………….. 21
References………………………………………………………………………………... 25
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………. 29
iv
Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………… 30
Appendix B…………………………………………………………………………… 31
Appendix C…………………………………………………………………………… 32
Appendix D.................................................................................................................. 33
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WORD FREQUENCY COMPARISON FOR NYS REGENTS EXAM
1
Introduction
This thesis addressed the question of how the frequency of academic vocabulary words
that are found in a school district’s biology textbook matches the frequency in which the
academic vocabulary was found on the New York State Living Environment Regents exam that
is given three times per school year: January, June and August. Each year, content area teachers
are faced with the decision as to which academic vocabulary words they need to teach to their
students in order for them to be successful in the course. Domain specific vocabulary is defined
by Marzano and Pickering (2005) as content specific words used in a specific academic domain
such as biology. General academic vocabulary is defined by Hiebert and Lubliner (2008) as
words whose meaning often change across the different content areas. This thesis focused on
identifying, through frequency count, which words biology teachers should focus on after the
words have been identified as part of the Regents Core Curriculum or Standard Core Curriculum
and how often these words have been seen on the New York State Living Environment Regents
Exam over the past four years. Teachers need to choose from domain specific vocabulary or
general academic vocabulary and decide what is appropriate for the topic or concept that is being
presented.
At the beginning of the school year when I taught a New York State Regents Living
Environment course, I gave the students sample questions from previous New York State
Regents Living Environment exams and soon realized that students were having difficulty with
reading and understanding the questions that were being asked. Many of the students struggled
with comprehension because they did not have the background knowledge and vocabulary
needed in order to understand and answer the question. Could it have been the readability of the
WORD FREQUENCY COMPARISON FOR NYS REGENTS EXAM
2
question? With a large amount of academic vocabulary that is specific to biology, I wondered
how much vocabulary is too much vocabulary? Which vocabulary is the important vocabulary
and how much are students going to see and use it?
The problem is significant because the vocabularies that are used in science denote
meanings that are not always used in everyday general use of a particular word (Rupley and
Slough, 2010). The social problem of the vocabulary acquisition affects students at all academic
levels, regardless of gender, race, or ability. Science teachers who have English Language
Learners (ELLs) in their classroom, not only have to help teach social and academic English but
teach the language of science as a third language. For non ELLs, the language of science can be
seen as a second language just because of the amount of content specific vocabulary that must be
learned (DeLuca, 2010).
Designing effective vocabulary instruction is important to the understanding of content
specific vocabulary. There is a growing consensus that vocabulary instruction should focus on
deeply understanding a small number of words, their elements, and related words in rich context
(Kelly, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Faller, 2010). More common practices teach many words in shorter
time periods (Kelly et al., 2010). Teachers strive to use instructional time to teach as much
content they can in order to meet local and state standards. Research has shown that choosing
words carefully and spending time on the deep learning of general vocabulary, rather than the
vocabulary that delivers content is more valuable than targeting the low-frequency and relatively
unimportant words which are typically highlighted in bold in many textbooks (Kelly et al.,
2010).
Identifying and comparing the frequency of identified vocabulary words found in a
WORD FREQUENCY COMPARISON FOR NYS REGENTS EXAM
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district textbook to New York State Regents Exams could be a starting point for identifying
which academic vocabulary words are important to focus on when teaching the content of the
New York State Regents Living Environment course. The results of this study will allow
teachers to identify relevant academic vocabulary to teach and choose an appropriate teaching
method.
Literature Review
What is Academic Vocabulary?
During the search for a definition of academic vocabulary, I was led to terms such as
general academic vocabulary, academic literacy, domain specific vocabulary, linguistic
knowledge, content vocabulary, academic language, technical vocabulary and academic
language skills. Baumann and Graves (2010) found that researchers, writers and theorists tend to
define academic vocabulary in one of two ways: (1) as domain specific vocabulary, also known
as content specific words used in disciplines such as biology, geometry, geography; or (2) as
general academic vocabulary, which includes broad all-purpose terms that appear across content
areas but may vary in meaning depending on the discipline in which it is being used. Knowing
how to identify the type of academic vocabulary a teacher must teach can allow a teacher to
introduce vocabulary to students that they will need to know in order to understand content
specific subjects.
Domain specific academic vocabulary. Domain specific academic vocabulary is
probably the most common type of academic vocabulary (Baumann & Graves, 2010). Marzano
and Pickering (2005) define domain specific vocabulary as content specific words used in a
