Vocabulary Lesson

295 Pages·2012·2.03 MB·English

by  Cindy Heimbach

Mississippi
STAR

Vocabulary Lessons
Evidence-based Lessons for Vocabulary Instruction
Compiled by: Cindy Heimbach
Lessons from: Priscilla Burns, Cindy Heimbach, &
Jonathan Moore
Contents

Notes to Instructors ......................................................................... 4
How to Use the Lesson Plans ........................................................... 5
Groundwork for a Better Vocabulary (Third Edition)
Unit 1 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 9
Chapter 1 Lesson ............................................................................ 9
Chapter 2 Lesson ............................................................................. 20
Chapter 3 Lesson ............................................................................. 31
Chapter 4 Lesson ............................................................................. 38
Review Lesson Chapters 1-4 ............................................................ 45
Chapter 5 Lesson ............................................................................. 53
Unit 2 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 60
Chapter 6 Lesson ............................................................................. 60
Chapter 7 Lesson ............................................................................. 67
Chapter 8 Lesson ............................................................................. 74
Chapter 9 Lesson ............................................................................. 80
Review Lesson Chapters 6-9 ............................................................ 86
Chapter 10 Lesson ........................................................................... 95
Unit 3 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 102
Chapter 11 Lesson ........................................................................... 102
Chapter 12 Lesson ........................................................................... 110
Chapter 13 Lesson (1) ...................................................................... 119
Chapter 13 Lesson (2) ...................................................................... 126
Chapter 14 Lesson ........................................................................... 132
Chapter 15 Lesson ........................................................................... 139

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Unit 4 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 146
Chapter 16 Lesson ........................................................................... 146
Chapter 17 Lesson ........................................................................... 153
Chapter 18 Lesson ........................................................................... 160
Chapter 19 Lesson ........................................................................... 170
Chapter 20 Lesson ........................................................................... 177
Unit 5 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 184
Chapter 21 Lesson ........................................................................... 184
Chapter 22 Lesson ........................................................................... 191
Chapter 23 Lesson ........................................................................... 198
Chapter 24 Lesson ........................................................................... 204
Chapter 25 Lesson ........................................................................... 210
Unit 6 Lessons .................................................................................. 217
Chapter 26 Lesson ........................................................................... 217
Chapter 27 Lesson ........................................................................... 223
Chapter 28 Lesson ........................................................................... 229
Chapter 29 Lesson ........................................................................... 236
Chapter 30 Lesson ........................................................................... 242
Building Vocabulary Skills (Third Edition)
Unit 1 Lessons Begin ........................................................................ 248
Chapter 1 Lesson ............................................................................. 248
Chapter 2 Lesson ............................................................................. 260
Chapter 3 Lesson ............................................................................. 272
Chapter 4 Lesson ............................................................................. 280
Chapter 5 Lesson ............................................................................. 288

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Evidence-based Vocabulary Instruction
STudent Achievement in Reading
Mississippi STAR Project 2011

Notes to the Instructor

Mississippi began the STudent Achievement in Reading (STAR) project
(evidence-based reading reform initiative) in August 2007 with an Office of
Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) Rural Grant submission. The grant
was awarded in part to the State of Mississippi’s Adult Basic Education
(ABE) program. The part awarded to the state was in the area of teaching
reading to intermediate ABE students using the STAR project. STAR is a
reading reform initiative that includes an online “Tool Kit” (tools and
resources) and the companion professional development package. The
pilot and grant project were so successful that the state decided to sustain
this project by having four individuals become nationally certified state
trainers. After national training, the trainers began training throughout the
state. ABE programs were selected to participate in the STAR training
package. Individuals who participate attend three, two-day institutes
covering: the Overview, Planning, Assessment, Instruction in Fluency,
Alphabetics, Vocabulary, and Comprehension, and Next Step Action Plans.
The online Tool Kit is only available to those individuals who participate in
the STAR program training. The director of an ABE program attends along
with the instructors. After the Institutes, the ABE program implements
evidence-based reading instruction into their classes with intermediate
level students. Mississippi STAR Trainers provide technical assistance to the
participating ABE programs which includes emails, phone calls, and site
visits. Follow-up training is provided at the Mississippi ABE Full-Time
Teachers Conference and regional trainings. During these trainings
instructors requested lesson plans from trainers who have been
implementing STAR for the past three years. This book is a compilation of
those lesson plans. Some of the lesson plans were done at the beginning of
the instructors’ implementation process. It is felt by those instructors that
the later lesson plans are better than those written at the beginning of the
implementation process. These instructors feel they are always in the
learning process. They take the lessons and adapt them for their current
group of students based on their diagnostic testing. Please adapt the lesson
plans to meet the needs of the students in your classroom. Some of the
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reading passages will not be appropriate for your students because they
are at a different instructional grade level than those students for which
these lessons were designed.

How to Use the Lesson Plans: Evidence-based Reading
Instruction (EBRI)

Evidence-based Vocabulary Instruction

When teaching adult learners at the intermediate reading levels (SL3 &
SL4), we must think about what vocabulary words to use for instruction.
Using word tiers is a framework for thinking about the breadth of a
learner’s vocabulary. Tier 1 words are basic words, Tier 3 words are subject
area content words (Ex. science vocabulary), and Tier 2 words are more
abstract. For intermediate reading levels, Tier 2 words should be taught to
the student. These words occur frequently in written language across a
variety of academic areas. There are lists of Tier 2 words on the internet.
The lessons in this book use the following resources which have Tier 2
words: Groundwork for a Better Vocabulary and Improving Vocabulary Skills
from Townsend Press. These books can be found on the website
www.townsendpress.com.

To use the lesson plans in this book you need a brief explanation of EBRI
vocabulary strategies. These lesson plans are based on the assumption that
you will use explicit instruction in the reading lesson. Explicit instruction
contains four parts.

Explanation: The instructor explains the purpose of the instruction and
describes the key concepts or procedures.
Modeling: The instructor demonstrates the procedures. The student
watches as the teacher models.
Guided Practice: The students practice using the new concepts or
procedures while the instructor gives them feedback, support, and
assistance. You may have several guided practice activities.
Application & Monitoring: The students use the new concepts or
procedures on their own. The instructor monitors their success. The goal is
for the student to carry out the task independently at their instructional
level.

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The following lesson plans use this type of instruction. Fill-in-the-Blank or
Read & Respond activities are not just paperwork or busy work. They are
guided practice and application activities. The instructor should have the
students tell why they used a certain word in the Fill-in-the-Blank. There
should be a rich discussion when answering the Read & Respond questions
with students using the vocabulary words. Students should be actively
engaged in the instruction. You must provide numerous practice
opportunities. If your students need more practice opportunities than
these lessons provide, you will need to design your own activities to meet
the students’ needs. You as the instructor will need a way to monitor the
effectiveness of your instruction and give time to the student to reflect on
the usefulness of what they are learning. If the student sees no usefulness
of the vocabulary, then you will see no progress in the area of reading for
your student.

The following are the steps to Vocabulary Instruction:

Step 1: Use direct instruction to introduce the word meanings. Do not ask
the students if they know what a word means. Use a simple word meaning,
and use only one meaning. These steps “look like” the following:
 Write the word and its meaning on the board.
 Tell the students the meaning.
 Give an example using the word in context. (This is indicated in some
of the lessons in yellow highlight. This needs to be your own
experience or example to use the word in context.)
 Ask the students to use the words in their own context by giving
them a prompt or question.

Example of Step 1

Explanation: Explain to the students why they need to know the words and
the process that you will be going through as they learn. Tell them what
they will be expected to do in the class time.

Modeling: Write challenge and its meaning on the board. Tell the students
its meaning. Say to the students, “For me cooking different kinds of food is
a challenge. I usually cook the same thing every week. I want to cook
different things but it takes special effort for me to think of different things.
I don’t have a lot of time so I find it a challenge to do anything different.”
Then give the prompt and have each student in the class answer the
prompt question. This allows the student the opportunity to practice using
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the vocabulary word in context. Encourage the student to use the
vocabulary word as they answer the question. (The whole point is to give
the students the opportunity to use the word and move toward using it in
their own vocabulary. In that way they will understand its meaning, and
when it appears in written material, they will understand what they are
reading which will build reading comprehension.) Ask the students, “What
do you find to be a challenge in your life?” Remember to have each student
answer the question aloud. In some of the lesson plans, you will see a
quadrant chart. If you wish you can have your students make a quadrant
chart on an index card. Put the word, its meaning, an example that helps
them remember the meaning of the word, synonyms and antonyms, or
anything you feel will help the student as they are working with this word.

Step 2: Guiding the student in understanding and applying through
discussion activities is step 2. In the lesson plans, you will see Fill-in-the-
Blank, Sentence Completion, Read & Respond, Yes/No/Why, and Who
Needs to Know this Word activities. Remember to allow the student time
to do the activity with a partner and then alone. Then to have a discussion
allowing the student to tell you why they used a word in a blank or why
they answered the question the way they did. Always have them use the
word during the discussions.

Step 3: Provide students with independent opportunities to use what they
have learned. Activities that allow the students to write using their
vocabulary words will allow them to work independently and allow the
instructor to monitor the progress of the student.

You will notice that the activities stay relatively the same while the words
change. Students become comfortable with the activities and the
procedures used in the lessons. This allows the student to learn the words
without being distracted by learning the procedures of new activities.

Always use reading materials at the student’s instructional reading level.
As an idea of how to create a reading class schedule, one of the pilot sites
used the following schedule. Morning classes at the Grenada Adult
Education Center meet Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. until
noon. These lessons were designed for the morning reading class. The
reading class is approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes. The vocabulary
lesson takes about 30 minutes per day. The instructors introduce 5 words
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each week and provide opportunities to use the words in context. An
average week might look like the following:

Monday – Introduce 5 words. Step 1. See above for explanation.
Tuesday – Guided Practice – Fill-in-the-Blank and Sentence Completion
activities.
Wednesday – Guided Practice/Application – Read & Respond
Thursday – Application – Yes/No/Why Questions and Who Needs to Know
This Word activities.

In the night classes which meet twice a week, these lessons would take two
weeks to complete.

Recommendations:
1. Have a copy or several copies of the Townsend Vocabulary book.
(Groundwork to a Better Vocabulary or Improving Vocabulary Skills)
Some of the lesson plans will refer to an activity in the book. There is
also an Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank that is helpful for testing.
2. Do not use the book as your lesson. EBRI is based on direct and
explicit instruction.
3. Have classroom copies for each student of the books you will use for
the Read & Respond activities. Those mentioned in these lessons
are:
Jamestown’s Timed Readings (Timed Readings, Timed
Readings Plus, Timed Readings Plus in Science, and Timed
Readings Plus in Social Studies) and Six-Way Paragraphs
Middle Level and Six-Way Paragraphs in the Content Areas
Introductory Level books. Each of these series has reading
levels from 4th to 8th grade. Purchase and use the grade level
of your students’ instructional level for reading. These books
can be purchased from McGraw-Hill/Contemporary.
4. Your Local ABE Trainer has videos that demonstrate how to conduct
a vocabulary lesson.

The following lesson plans are from the resource Groundwork For a Better
Vocabulary and Building Vocabulary Skills.
Groundwork for a Better Vocabulary has lessons for each chapter in the
book.
Building Vocabulary Skills has only the first 5 lessons. We have had only a
few students at this level. You can see how the lessons would be
developed in the same way.
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Groundwork for a Better Vocabulary
Unit 1 Chapter 1
(There are two lessons in each segment for a total of 10 words)

Challenge – a test of one’s abilities; anything that calls for a
special effort
For me cooking different kinds of food is a challenge. I usually
cook the same thing every week. I want to cook different things
but it takes special effort for me to think of different things. I
don’t have a lot of time so I find it a challenge to do anything
different.
What do you find to be a challenge in your life?

Dependent – relying on others for aid or support
My children are dependent on me. They need me to teach them
the right way to live and to provide a home, food, love, and
money for things in this world. They are too young to do this on
their own so they are dependent on their parents.
Who is a person you feel is dependent upon you in some way?
Why do you think that person relies on you?

Fertile – producing or able to produce much fruit, large crops, or
many children
My father has land that is fertile. I have seen many different
things grow on his land. Different crops. Now trees are growing
on the land. He always does well with his crops because the land
is very fertile.
Where have you seen fertile ground?

Peculiar – odd; strange
Something peculiar happened to me at the airport. Tell the story
about being put on a different airplane.
Describe something that you do, or that someone you know does,
which might seem peculiar to other people.
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Preference – a choice; first choice; something preferred
When I have a day off my preference is to read a book. I really
like that. If I can choose what to do, that is my preference.
When choosing where to go on vacation, what is your preference?

Activity 1: Fill-in-the-Blanks: Use after explicit teaching

Although Al’s ______________________ is for a daytime job, he
will work at night if necessary.

My basic math course was easy, but I find algebra to be a
___________________.

Our land is __________________. We have many crops growing
on it.

I smell a ________________ odor in the office.

A boy who is too ______________________ on his friends won’t
make any decisions without them.

Activity 2

Read and Respond
th
6 grade instructional vocabulary level –
Keep it Soaring p.15– Timed Reading book three
See handout for questions.

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