|
Welcome!
Our quarterly newsletter for educators provides helpful information about literacy and comprehension instruction in grades 4-12. We hope the information and links will enhance your teaching. Please forward this newsletter to your friends and colleagues!
This Issue's Topic: Vocabulary - Teaching Word Parts |
| Vocabulary Teaching Tips |
Starting in grade 4, students need to build their vocabulary by approximately 2800 words per year. One of the best ways to achieve this is for content teachers to embed both direct and indirect vocabulary instruction into subject lessons. Research shows that there is no single best activity for teaching vocabulary; effective vocabulary instruction must be multi-componential.
Students must be taught how to use word parts to help determine the meaning of a new word.
When students encounter unknown words, they might be able to use knowledge of word parts (roots, suffixes, and prefixes) to determine the word's meaning. Many of the new, academic words students come across beyond grade 4 have Greek or Latin roots to which prefixes and suffixes have been added. Structural analysis of a word draws attention to the individual units of meaning in a word, also known as morphemes.
A prefix comes before a root or base word and changes its meaning. Vocabulary researchers recommend teaching the most common prefixes as the first and best approach to word analysis. In particular, there are 20 prefixes that account for 97% of the 2,960 prefixed words that most frequently appear in school materials. Given how often these 20 prefixes occur, it makes sense to teach their meaning and use.
Click here for the list of common prefixes.
While it is clear that it is important to teach prefixes, there is less agreement about the value of teaching suffixes or root words. Many suffixes have vague or unhelpful meanings. Also, it is difficult to identify specific root words to teach because there are too many to teach directly. The solution is to give limited direct instruction in a few common suffixes and roots to show how these word parts can be combined. The emphasis should be on incidental instruction, where you take advantage of opportunities to model how word parts might be used to determine the meaning of new content words.
|
| Recommended Resources |
We recommend the following books and websites as resources to support instruction of word parts:
Vocabulary Through Morphemes by Susan Ebbers (2004) ISBN 1570359318
The Vocabulary Book by Michael Graves (2006) ISBN 0807746274
Stretching Students' Vocabulary by Karen Bromley (2002) ISBN 0439288398
The Key Vocabulary Routine by Joan Sedita (2009) Click here to order.
How We Learn Vocabulary From Word Parts Click here for the article.
|
| What's New in Adolescent Literacy? |
There are several pending pieces of federal legislation that would greatly support funding and resources for literacy in grades 4-12.
Funding for Striving Readers, a grant program to improve literacy skills of struggling adolescent readers, will most likely be expanded - the President's 2010 budget request would nearly double the funding. Click here for the article.
Both the House and Senate recently proposed similar versions of the LEARN (Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation) Act. It replaces Reading First with its focus on K-3 and expands coverage to Pre-K and grades 4-12. Click here for the article.
Several new reports commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation were recently published, including Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success. The report identifies adolescent literacy as a cornerstone of the current education reform movement, upon which efforts such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act must be built. Click here for the reports. |
| Keys to Literacy News |
| This past summer we published The Key Vocabulary Routine book based on our content vocabulary program. It is a companion to our initial teacher training, but may also be used as a resource for those who are not able to attend the training.
We are also pleased to announce that researchers from the University of Massachusetts and Lehigh University began a one-year efficacy study of our Key Comprehension Routine program at two schools in New England. We look forward to the results of this study and are confident that the project will find that our training is beneficial to both students and teachers.
News from 2009: We began partnering with two organizations that will offer our professional development, The Dunn Institute in Rhode Island, and the New England League of Middle Schools (NELMS). Keys to Literacy delivered teacher training at over 96 schools in 60 districts in 9 states. We trained over 419 educators in our open sessions, and served 200 teachers at our September Adolescent Literacy conference that was co-sponsored with U. Mass Amherst and The Reading Institute.
As a result of our continued growth, we are pleased to welcome three new outstanding, experienced trainers to our staff: Jim Gutstadt, Melissa Juchniewicz, and Kathe Simons. |
| Keys to Literacy |
Keys to Literacy specializes in professional development for teaching comprehension and vocabulary that is embedded in the content classroom.
491 Maple Street, Suite 307
Danvers, MA 01923-4026
T 978-750-4200; F 978-750-4254
www.keystoliteracy.com
| |
|
|
|
A Message From Joan Sedita
|
 |
A teacher recently said to me, "In the quest to create new and different ways to teach literacy, we sometimes forget the value of teaching basic skills that have been proven over time to help students."
Her comment reminded me to highlight the underlying goal of Keys to Literacy professional development: To provide research-based, essential and timeless content literacy instruction that provides students consistency from grade to grade and class to class.
We have infused this premise in our new Key Vocabulary Routine and in our new ANSWER Key to Open Response program.
At Keys to Literacy, we believe it is essential to keep abreast of new research and to be open to incorporating innovative instructional practices. However, after being in this field for 35 years, I am sometimes reminded that new doesn't always mean better! Our programs emphasize both the basics and the innovation to improve student literacy. Sincerely,
Joan Sedita
|
|
|
