1:09

Study after study for, you know, going back

1:12

60 years, shows that

1:14

if you have a really strong vocabulary,

1:17

you're a better reader.

1:22

This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science

1:24

of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify,

1:26

where the Science of Reading lives. On

1:29

this eighth season of the podcast, we're

1:32

exploring the critical role of knowledge

1:34

in literacy development. And

1:36

on this episode, I'm joined by

1:38

Dr. Margaret McKeown to dive

1:41

deep into effective vocabulary

1:43

instruction. Dr.

1:45

McKeown is Clinical Professor Emerita

1:47

at the School of Education and Senior

1:50

Scientist at the Learning Research and Development

1:53

Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

1:55

During this conversation, Dr.

1:57

McKeown lays out the various elements

2:00

of effectively building vocabulary and

2:02

discusses the critical role of informal

2:04

instruction. We'll also

2:06

talk about effectively assessing vocabulary

2:09

development and share plenty of

2:11

practical tips. Please enjoy

2:13

this conversation with Dr. Margaret

2:16

McKeown. Margaret

2:19

McKeown, thank you so much for joining us on

2:21

today's episode.

2:22

I'm really excited to be here. This is,

2:25

I'm sure this is gonna be a fun conversation.

2:27

I think it will be a fun conversation. But

2:29

before we jump in, I would love if you could

2:31

tell our listeners just a little bit about

2:34

yourself and what you do.

2:35

Okay, sure. Well, I'm

2:37

a retired professor from the University

2:39

of Pittsburgh, but I still stay

2:41

active in the field 'cause I, I just

2:44

can't stop. So I really

2:46

like being retired 'cause I can just be involved

2:48

at the level I wanna be. I

2:51

spent decades researching, particularly

2:54

with my colleague Isabel Beck , on vocabulary

2:57

and comprehension. And a

2:59

lot of that was developing instructional programs.

3:02

I spent a ton of time in classrooms

3:04

both teaching lessons, we always tried

3:06

out lessons ourselves before we let

3:09

the teacher take it. And observing classrooms.

3:12

I started out as an elementary school teacher, so

3:15

I've taught second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade language

3:18

arts. And that's, yeah,

3:20

that's, who I am.

3:23

That's a great arc. I'm

3:26

sure is a lot more detail in between all

3:28

of that, but you're really here

3:30

to help us understand a little bit more about

3:33

vocabulary. And so I thought before we sort of jump

3:35

into the details of that, can

3:37

you just talk a little bit and

3:40

set the scene a little bit for why vocabulary

3:42

is so important?

3:44

Sure. The major thing is

3:47

its relationship to reading comprehension.

3:49

I mean, study after study for, you know,

3:51

going back 60 years, shows

3:54

that if you have a really

3:56

strong vocabulary, you're a

3:58

better reader. And at first, those

4:00

studies were just correlational. The

4:03

folks who scored high on vocabulary tests also

4:05

scored high on comprehension tests . But

4:08

lately we've been able to see the details,

4:11

just sort of see those processes in action,

4:14

through some cog psych research that

4:17

shows, for example, it's much more

4:19

than just, you know the meaning of the word

4:21

and therefore you're a better reader. But it's what you

4:23

do with the word in the reading. So, some

4:26

cog scientists have been able to trace what they

4:28

call integration processes to

4:31

see that, for example , a

4:33

word that's mentioned in a sentence. Like say it

4:35

says, you know, "the rain came." And

4:37

then they'll give the subjects

4:40

a sentence that says something about the storm.

4:42

And they notice that skilled comprehenders,

4:45

'cause they've given all these folks comprehension tests, make

4:47

a much quicker connection between

4:50

the idea of rain and a storm. So

4:52

it's not just being able to know that, well,

4:55

a storm, you know, rain comes down. But you

4:57

know that, that it's that same phenomenon

4:59

being talked about in the text. And

5:01

that's really the importance

5:03

of vocabulary and comprehension, is

5:06

being able to use those words

5:09

and their associations to

5:11

make sense of what you're reading. And also,

5:14

even beyond comprehension, you

5:16

know, it's your language. It's what we

5:19

use to interact with people with

5:21

the world. Whether it's convincing

5:23

someone of a position or, you know, saying

5:26

something funny to kind of make people like

5:28

you or think you're interesting. It

5:31

seems like, you know, having mastery of your language

5:34

is part of your self-image.

5:37

That's a great way to say it. And you know, I've

5:40

recently been talking with folks about comprehension

5:43

a little bit, that it's not sort of eitheror.

5:45

Comprehension isn't black and white, comprehension

5:48

is really on a continuum, but

5:50

vocabulary is something like that too. Vocabulary

5:53

is on a continuum. You don't just know a

5:55

word or you don't Right?

5:56

Right. Absolutely. And there

5:59

have been different ways to describe that over a

6:01

long time. And what Isabel and I first

6:03

said in one of our early articles was knowing

6:06

a word is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

6:09

And we showed that

6:11

in several studies. We did a couple

6:14

studies where we had different groups of

6:16

kids that we taught the same words

6:18

to . And one group, we gave them just

6:20

definitions and had them do interesting

6:23

activities, play games with them. But basically

6:25

all the information they got about the word was a

6:28

definition, that was a child-friendly definition, but

6:30

that was it. And maybe we give them a

6:32

context sentence, you know, one, versus

6:35

giving this other group of kids, same

6:37

words, started with the definitions, but

6:39

this rich, interactive, playing with

6:41

the word, using it, you know, examining

6:44

it in context, talking about context, generating

6:46

context. And we found the kind of

6:48

knowledge they had was very different. Both

6:51

groups did well on just a simple

6:53

definition test, but

6:56

when we started assessing different

6:58

aspects of vocabulary, like having

7:00

them really put it to use, the

7:02

kids that got the rich instruction did much

7:05

better. We gave them passages

7:07

to comprehend passages with the words

7:09

in them, and then asked them , I think

7:11

we asked them to retell the stories and

7:14

found that that was better for the kids

7:16

who'd gotten the rich instruction. So

7:18

correct. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

7:21

But the other thing about that is

7:24

just because somebody knows only the definition of

7:26

the word doesn't mean they're gonna stay at that stage. Vocabulary

7:29

is also, an important thing to know about

7:31

vocabulary knowledge is it's cumulative. You're

7:33

not gonna learn everything that you need

7:36

to know about a word the first time you encounter

7:38

it. Even if you've encountered it in a rich context,

7:41

you need to keep seeing it because

7:44

it can mean something slightly different, or

7:47

it will mean something slightly different to the

7:49

context. So you need to keep

7:51

seeing words. And that's

7:54

one important message that I

7:56

always like to get across to teachers is if you've

7:58

taught a set of words and you've

8:01

got some kids that are really taking off with them and

8:03

some that aren't, but they kind of seem

8:05

to know them, that's okay. Those

8:07

kids can, as long as there's

8:10

lots of language use and those words stay

8:13

in a vocabulary notebook or somewhere in their

8:15

awareness and their reading, that knowledge

8:17

will continue to grow. You're

8:19

not gonna get kids all the way, even after

8:22

a week of good vocabulary instruction. You're

8:24

not gonna get them all the way.

8:25

Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Vocabulary,

8:28

that's one of the , I mean, language in and

8:30

of itself grows slowly over time,

8:32

too.

8:32

Yes.

8:33

Yes. And over and over and over again is so

8:35

important. Okay. Before we get too

8:37

much further, I'm always curious

8:40

why people get interested in topics

8:42

they do. So what

8:44

is it about vocabulary? How is it

8:46

that you're like, "Wow, this is a really cool thing

8:49

and I wanna learn more about it?"

8:51

Yeah. It started early. M

8:53

, my father was educated

8:55

as an English teacher, but

8:58

then he served in World War II, came

9:00

back from the war, and there weren't teaching jobs available.

9:03

So I became his forever pupil. And

9:06

so he, you know, he

9:08

was always aware of words, using words,

9:12

and so we just, I just began this relationship

9:14

with language, you know, with him.

9:17

And just kept it up from there.

9:20

You know, learning words, knowing how to use words.

9:23

You know, sometimes we would even be a little snotty about it if

9:25

we heard somebody using a word not quite right. We'd

9:28

kind of like, you know, it would be a

9:30

little joke between us. But, you

9:32

know , I like to write from an early age,

9:35

and when I discovered etymology

9:37

that, you know, words have these, these

9:39

pieces in them that came from other languages,

9:42

I was just so excited about that. And

9:44

when I was teaching, I actually taught some lessons

9:47

to my fourth and fifth graders about that. And

9:50

they just caught fire with it.

9:52

I remember explaining and showing some

9:54

words and then saying, you know, "When you look up a word in

9:56

the dictionary, it will say where the word

9:58

parts came from." And so I gave them a couple of words

10:01

and I said, "Why don't you try it out?" They flew

10:03

out of their seats to the dictionaries. It was so

10:06

exciting. But, you know, that kind of thing can

10:08

really light fires about

10:10

language. And I think part of it is because , I

10:14

think unfortunately for a lot of kids vocabulary

10:16

is just, "I gotta memorize these definitions."

10:19

And somehow these definitions are, you

10:21

know, the real thing. You know, somebody

10:24

sent them down from Mount Olympus and

10:26

I just have to learn them. Instead

10:28

of, you know, your language is something that you

10:31

use and manipulate. There's

10:33

a reason, even though the reasons that

10:36

words, for instance, rhyme but are

10:38

spelled differently, may seem bizarre. There are

10:40

reasons for that. And I think understanding

10:43

that and understanding that, we have

10:45

parts of words that came from other languages, and

10:47

that's how language works. It's this messy

10:49

human creation that, you

10:52

know, keeps coming down from

10:54

generations, millennia, and

10:56

kind of changing and, you

10:58

know, being made to suit the day. And we

11:01

can't just go back and clean it all up. And

11:03

so it's kind of, I think

11:05

it frees kids from the idea that, "This is

11:07

this thing that I have to learn." It's

11:10

this messiness that you can really take

11:13

hold of and understand why it's

11:15

like that.

11:16

Yeah. I remember, that brings me back

11:18

to when I was teaching third grade, and

11:21

kids love wordplay, right? They

11:23

love idioms and, you

11:25

know, different definitions of words. And

11:28

recently I revisited the book, "The

11:30

Phantom Toll Booth."

11:32

Oh my gosh.

11:33

And so I just went

11:35

back there to think about how

11:37

much, when kids can separate this

11:40

idea of what you said, you know, "Vocabulary, sounds

11:43

so boring," but wordplay is

11:45

so much more exciting and more

11:47

fun.

11:49

Yeah, yeah. For sure. And, and yeah,

11:51

that should always have a place in,

11:54

you know, language instruction and, you know,

11:56

it does show kids, you know, wordplay is not

11:59

just fun. It also shows kids kind

12:01

of how words work

12:03

or how our language works. One

12:06

of my favorites that somebody introduced

12:08

me to, "You could keep pushing

12:10

the envelope, but it will still be stationary."

12:13

Oh my gosh, that's great.

12:15

And then you explore, "Why is that funny?"

12:17

And it reminds me of my ninth-grade English

12:19

teacher who would always say, "The more you know, the

12:22

more you can laugh," which is exactly

12:24

right. You need to have the knowledge in

12:26

order for that wordplay to work.

12:29

That's great. You know, I also

12:31

do , in some of my professional

12:34

development moments, talk about vocabulary

12:37

being three things. And I probably learned

12:39

a lot of this from you and Isabel, the

12:42

idea that vocabulary is

12:45

you need a breadth of vocabulary, you

12:48

need depth and vocabulary, but

12:50

you use those two things so that you have

12:52

flexibility.

12:54

Absolutely.

12:54

Do those three things resonate with you?

12:57

The breadth and the depth and flexibility?

12:59

Absolutely. Absolutely. You , you

13:01

need a breadth . You need to know a lot of

13:03

words. But you need to know a

13:06

lot of them , a depth, so

13:08

that you know the different senses of the word,

13:11

the different contexts it can be used in.

13:13

Because when we're creating vocabulary

13:16

knowledge in our heads, what happens

13:18

is these connections keep forming

13:20

between a word

13:23

and other words that might mean

13:26

similar things or that are used in similar circumstances.

13:29

And that's what our vocabulary knowledge looks

13:31

like. It doesn't look like just a bunch of definitions.

13:33

So that's what you wanna promote and create.

13:36

And that doing that ensures

13:38

the flexibility that you're gonna need when

13:41

you meet a word that you know, or you

13:43

sort of know, when you meet it in a different context.

13:45

And you have to be able to say, "Well, I—" This goes

13:48

on very, very quickly in your head, "Well, I thought it meant

13:51

this, but it sort of means , seems to mean

13:53

this." And you have to begin to understand the

13:55

limits of that flexibility. It's not gonna

13:57

mean something completely different in

14:00

a new context, but it could be just a

14:02

little bit different than you've been thinking about

14:04

it. So yeah, those elements are really important.

14:07

The other one that really

14:09

I've started talking more and more is the top-level one

14:12

that governs it all ,is interactive.

14:15

Good instruction needs to be interactive.

14:18

You need to not just be given information

14:20

about a word, whether it's, you know, a bunch of

14:22

different contexts or a definition, you

14:24

need to actually do something. So we

14:27

should never think about providing information

14:29

to students about words. But

14:31

that sort of , giving a

14:35

resource or a catalyst, and then you

14:37

work on that. You know, you give a definition

14:39

and then you give a

14:42

context and then ask them how the definition

14:44

fits the context, or to restate

14:47

the context without that word. So

14:49

they have to, you know, do a kind of a synonym

14:51

of it, or, you know, a description

14:54

of the word in the sentence. And that's

14:56

the thing that was really gonna build that depth

14:58

and that flexibility.

15:00

Yeah. So that, I think that's one of the things

15:03

we were talking about in the planning call,

15:05

was some of those various elements that

15:07

go into that vocabulary instruction.

15:09

So the contextual information,

15:11

the definition of it , multiple exposures, right?

15:15

And the interactions with it.

15:17

Yeah.

15:18

Where do you think we could help teachers

15:20

sort of beef up that vocabulary

15:22

instruction when it comes to those critical

15:24

elements?

15:25

Yeah. Oh, that's such a good

15:27

question that I've been, you know, mulling

15:30

around with . I think a

15:33

big part of it is sort

15:35

of time, you know, giving time to vocabulary

15:38

and exactly what to do, because

15:40

obviously definitions are always there. So it's

15:44

sort of giving teachers easily accessible

15:47

resources, you know, about words.

15:50

And also freeing them from the idea that

15:52

it always has to be a lesson on

15:54

vocabulary. I mean, you

15:56

know, you can have a very quick lesson where you just introduce

15:59

three or four words, maybe they're

16:01

in a text you're reading, and after the text you

16:04

introduce three or four words. You, you know, give

16:06

a quick definition. You go back to the context that

16:08

was in the story, and you talk about how that

16:12

made sense of the context. But

16:14

then those words are there in the classroom,

16:16

and just keep using them, keep

16:19

using them all day. You know, give kids

16:21

pluses on the blackboard if they use

16:23

it. Challenge them to use, to

16:25

find those words outside of school. And

16:29

just, you know, in the morning, start the day

16:31

with a question that embeds

16:33

one of the words. You know , " Who was

16:36

reluctant to get outta bed this morning?" Or

16:38

"Let's have a dynamic day. We're gonna put a

16:40

lot of energy into it." You know, just use,

16:42

use, use. And the kids pick this up.

16:44

I mean, just so quickly that

16:47

these kinds of things really catch fire. But

16:49

that kind of informal work can

16:52

do so much. And I don't

16:54

know if, I mean, I think understanding

16:56

that would be really helpful to

16:58

teachers and that they could really take off

17:00

with that. Unless the

17:03

thing is also that they've gotta , you

17:05

know, I don't know how many school districts

17:07

are still very structured

17:09

about, "You gotta gimme your lesson plans.

17:11

You've gotta tell me when were you doing vocabulary?" If

17:15

that's gonna cause an issue with that.

17:17

It should not, because, you know, having 15

17:19

minutes for vocabulary is not gonna be

17:21

nearly as useful as having 10 minutes

17:24

for vocabulary and then doing this kind of

17:26

all day . You know, we're using

17:28

words, vocabulary pervades the day. That's what's

17:31

really gonna build awareness of

17:33

words , the depth

17:36

of knowledge that you need , and

17:39

interest, the kind of, 'cause the other

17:41

thing about vocabulary, as I mentioned

17:43

at the beginning, it takes a lot of exposures.

17:46

You're not gonna learn a word quickly even if you've had

17:48

a set of good activities, you

17:50

may be only halfway there

17:53

to really understanding the nuances

17:55

of some words. And only

17:57

if you make it fun and you make it

17:59

something kids wanna pursue, are

18:01

they gonna go and fill in

18:03

the rest of that knowledge. 'Cause otherwise they'll

18:06

just shut down. They won't pay attention to words that they read. They'll

18:08

be reading something, see a word that they don't know, and

18:10

just kind of skip over that sentence. But

18:13

if you make it interesting and fun and

18:16

something that's meaningful, and that

18:18

really becomes part of the kids'

18:20

, you know, identity, then they will do

18:22

that. They will pursue that. So, yeah, I

18:24

think , and just, you know, creating

18:27

a mindset in which you are

18:29

aware of opportunities all the time

18:32

to bring words to kids' attention.

18:34

And part of that is just, you know, your

18:37

own mindset. Start noticing words

18:39

if you don't already, as you read,

18:41

you know, for pleasure as you read the newspaper,

18:44

"Oh, here's a word that I know, I keep seeing

18:46

in all different contexts. Maybe I should introduce that

18:49

to the kids." And in reading,

18:51

I mean, I think reading to kids

18:53

at every level is really good. And

18:56

stopping and talking about some of the words, you

18:58

know, sometimes it can be, "Oh, this sentence, I

19:00

had a feeling it was gonna mean something completely different.

19:02

But then I hit this word and I

19:04

know that the author's trying to tell me the

19:07

character is really good." Noticing

19:10

language use like that, I think is, again,

19:13

it will just, it's contagious. It will really lay

19:16

the groundwork for a lot of of good things in

19:18

the classroom.

19:19

That's a really good point about, you

19:21

know, sort of fostering the curiosity around

19:23

words and how they're used and what they mean

19:26

and how authors use them, and how students

19:28

can use them as they're reading and writing.

19:31

So we often talk about explicit

19:34

instruction is really important. And

19:36

then that sort of informal implicit

19:38

instruction is important. How do you feel

19:41

like the role of explicit instruction

19:43

then should work in the classroom relative

19:46

to that more informal?

19:48

Yeah. You know, that's such an interesting

19:50

point that I don't think has been made enough

19:54

in this current talking about the,

19:56

the Science of Reading. The idea

19:59

of systematic, direct, explicit

20:02

instruction is particularly important

20:04

for, it's usually most

20:06

often used in the context of phonics. But

20:08

beyond phonics, those ideas of

20:11

explicit and systematic

20:13

kind of change a bit. And

20:15

maybe that's a problem in that you're

20:18

thinking about direct, explicit instruction, immediately

20:21

you jump to definitions of words, or immediately

20:23

you jump to, you know, strategies as teaching

20:26

a structured routine. And I think we need to

20:28

leave that behind. We

20:30

should not be relying on or

20:33

focusing on structure, structural aspects, when

20:35

we teach vocabulary. The explicitness,

20:37

yes. It's a good idea to explicitly

20:40

give kids a definition, a child-friendly

20:42

definition. And it's absolutel,

20:45

a good idea to deliberately introduce them to

20:48

multiple context as opposed

20:51

to just letting kids read

20:53

a lot and learn words from context. The

20:56

explicitness of pulling out words, defining

20:58

them, talking about the context, giving them a

21:00

context, is absolutely useful

21:03

and good and valuable. But I

21:05

think that's what the explicitness

21:08

means, is bring this information

21:10

to full awareness, deliberately

21:13

give it to them, but then don't

21:15

stay structural. That's not gonna do it.

21:17

That structure of a definition in a context

21:19

is not gonna take you all the way. So, yeah,

21:23

again, we , we just have to get to that use of

21:25

words.

21:26

We'll be right back. As

21:29

we shared on our last episode, we're

21:31

doing something special for this knowledge-focused

21:34

season of the podcast. We've

21:36

asked the finalists of the 2023

21:39

Science of Reading Star Awards to

21:41

offer some of their thoughts and advice on

21:43

knowledge building throughout

21:45

this season. We'll share some of their insights

21:49

this time around. We're going to hear from

21:51

Virginia Quinn-Mooney, a teacher from

21:53

New Milford, Connecticut. Virginia

21:55

was a finalist for the 2023 Changemaker

21:57

Award and she told

21:59

us about her experience helping her

22:02

district shift to the Science of Reading, which

22:05

included some help from a friend of this

22:07

podcast.

22:08

I was lucky enough to host Natalie Wexler,

22:10

not just once, but twice on a

22:12

virtual happy hour. And I learned

22:15

so much about the importance of teaching

22:18

through content and providing these students with

22:20

the background knowledge in

22:22

doing this. Their vocabulary will improve,

22:25

as will their comprehension. And going

22:27

forward, my intention is to really

22:29

introduce much more content in

22:32

the classroom, providing the

22:34

background knowledge, and then increasing their

22:36

comprehension. And I look forward to

22:38

seeing the same results with the top portion of the

22:40

Rope that I've seen on the bottom.

22:42

That was Virginia Quinn-Mooney, a

22:44

teacher at Northville Elementary School

22:47

in New Milford, Connecticut. Find

22:49

more information on the Science of Reading

22:51

Star Awards at amplify.com/sor-star-awards.

22:58

And now, back to our conversation

23:00

with Margaret McKeown. This

23:03

sort of takes me back to the beginning of our conversation

23:05

where we talked about language and how it can, you

23:08

know, it develops differently than things

23:11

that are just, you know, "This

23:13

sound matches the spelling" is

23:15

a different kind of instruction than "We're

23:18

going to use language in different

23:20

ways and over time." My

23:23

question here is, do

23:26

we think people really understand

23:29

what language is and its

23:31

usage? And that sort of concept

23:33

of it needs this additional time

23:36

and energy?

23:40

Yeah. I think there's

23:43

still this idea of, learning

23:47

language is, there's

23:49

too much structure thought of, like,

23:51

we're gonna learn grammar, we're gonna learn what a noun

23:53

is, we're gonna learn what a verb is. And

23:55

to define those things or to diagram

23:58

sentences is just not going

24:00

to get you there. Maybe some of those things can be useful,

24:03

but it always has to go back to using

24:06

language, you know, talking about sentences

24:09

and, you know, a real sentence that's in a text.

24:11

Okay. "Let's talk about, we've got this piece

24:13

of it," and sometimes, you know, I read a book and

24:15

the sentence is like, three lines long

24:17

and I go, "Wait a minute. I gotta take that apart." But

24:19

I'm not thinking, "What's the noun? What's the dependent

24:22

clause? What's the—" I'm really thinking of "Okay, this

24:24

part refers to this." So it's,

24:27

again, it's that use of, and that

24:29

is how language grows. It's by

24:31

using it. So, a couple

24:33

of things that I think people are not

24:36

always consciously aware of. So

24:38

first, you know, we all learn, have

24:41

our initial language learning through conversations

24:44

when we're tiny, tiny kids. And

24:47

that's where we pick up a lot of the vocabulary,

24:48

the what we've called Tier One,

24:51

the really basic concrete words

24:53

that get used every single day. And

24:55

for most kids, it's a very natural process. They're

24:58

gonna pick up these words if they're exposed to

25:00

them. And they're likely to be exposed to

25:02

them again and again because they hear them

25:04

every day . They hear the words "table" and

25:06

"home" and "sun," and, you

25:09

know, all those kinds of words. But then there's

25:11

so many more words out there and

25:14

ways to use language. That

25:17

language is something that can't be thoroughly

25:19

taught in school. It's just infinite.

25:22

I mean, I think there are estimate of 145,000

25:25

words in the English language. Nobody, nobody

25:28

knows that many words. So,

25:30

you know , we're always encountering something

25:32

new with language. And , we

25:35

can't just learn it by sitting down and

25:38

being told a bunch of rules. I think

25:41

that's why it's so hard for people

25:43

to learn a second language unless

25:45

they're really immersed in someplace

25:47

where that language is in use.

25:49

That makes a lot of sense. So,

25:52

so far, we've talked a little bit about the

25:54

importance of the various elements

25:56

that go into effective vocabulary instruction.

25:58

We talked about the importance of informal

26:00

instruction , building

26:03

that curiosity, I love that. The other thing

26:05

that you think is really important, I think, is the

26:07

need for different assessment measures, can you

26:10

talk about that? Vocabulary is so hard

26:12

to assess, isn't it?

26:13

It is a pain in the butt. So I

26:17

must say that colleagues and I wrote an entire book on

26:19

vocabulary assessment. So it's

26:21

hard to summarize. But in summary, so

26:26

for the classroom, if you're doing

26:28

vocabulary assessments, you really need to be

26:30

aware of what you're getting. So if

26:32

you give kids a test of definitions,

26:35

that's fine, as long as you realize it

26:38

means what they know about the word is the

26:40

definition. And that can be

26:42

all you need. For some teachers, they might just need

26:44

a grade to put in the book. But if

26:46

you want to know more about

26:48

your kids' vocabulary, if you wanna know if it has

26:51

a chance of affecting comprehension, you've

26:53

got to do something different. You know, it

26:55

could be giving them a sentence, then asking

26:58

them to write a sentence that

27:00

explains that. Or giving them a sentence and

27:02

write the sentence that might come next or to

27:05

explain that in a story. We've done

27:07

things like , as simple as a yes/no

27:10

test, where we had four

27:13

sentences for each word. Two that

27:15

just asked a definition. You know,

27:17

"Does 'consistent' mean you do things the same

27:19

all the time?" "Does 'consistent' mean,

27:21

you know, you're really hungry?" And these

27:24

would be scattered throughout the test. And then we'd say , we'd

27:27

give them a sentence and say , " Bob was

27:29

consistent because he had eggs for breakfast

27:32

every morning." You know, yes or no. "Is that a

27:34

good use of consistent?" And then we'd have a

27:37

sentence that used it incorrectly that didn't

27:40

make sense. And that would be the no sentence

27:42

. One of my favorite assessments

27:44

is what we call context integration.

27:47

And that really tests, gets

27:50

closest to testing whether kids are

27:52

gonna be able to use these words

27:54

in comprehension. So it

27:56

would give kids a sentence like, "Suzanne

27:58

seemed reluctant to ride her new

28:01

bike," and we would deliberately construct

28:03

them that way so that the word

28:06

took it in kind of an unexpected direction.

28:09

'Cause you think about, you're talking about a new bike

28:11

for a kid, that would be something very exciting.

28:13

But here we have reluctance. So why

28:16

do you think, why do you think Suzanne was reluctant?

28:19

And again, this was one of the tests we used with

28:21

kids we had taught just definitions, and

28:23

kids we had taught in a rich way. The

28:25

kids we had taught in a rich way picked

28:27

up on that and would say, "Oh, maybe she was

28:29

scared she'd fall off" Or "maybe the bike

28:31

was too big." Or, you know , something like that. Where the

28:34

kids that were taught the definitions would either

28:36

say "Reluctant means..." and then just,

28:39

you know, they knew the word "reluctant," but they couldn't

28:41

put it in the context. Or they'd say,

28:43

" Oh, she must've been really excited 'cause she got a

28:45

new bike," where the rest of the context would override

28:47

what they knew about the word. So

28:50

that's, I mean, that's a hard kind

28:52

of assessment, I think, for teachers to create.

28:55

But I think you can get close to it by just

28:57

giving them sentences that aren't really

28:59

super obvious, and ask

29:01

them to explain what it means.

29:05

And the other thing about different

29:07

kinds of assessments in the classroom is, almost any activity—so in

29:10

the books that Isabel and I and Linda Kucan

29:12

have written, we have tons of examples of

29:15

activities. Any kind of activity can

29:17

also be used as assessment. Again,

29:19

depending on what you want to know. So

29:21

we have one that we do all the time that's called Example Non-Example. Like

29:26

we would say , " Which would

29:28

be astonishing: Your dog says good morning

29:30

to you, or your dog wants to go outside

29:33

for a walk? Why?" You

29:35

know, that can be an assessment, and that can just

29:37

be an assessment even as you're doing that activity

29:39

in the classroom, the teacher can kind of

29:42

be checking off and maybe on

29:45

a certain day, she's gonna call on these 10

29:47

kids and just check off, are they

29:49

able to do that with their words? And the next day she

29:51

might call on the other half of the class and

29:53

just check off. So those kinds

29:55

of things can be informal assessments,

29:57

but it really gives the teacher an idea of

30:00

whether kids are getting to this

30:02

next level of not just knowing the

30:04

definition, but really being able to understand

30:07

the use and developing

30:09

a facility to explain, to

30:12

use the word and explaining.

30:14

I love that example of an activity that

30:16

can be also used as an assessment. But I also

30:18

love that it gets kids thinking

30:21

about using words differently. And

30:23

you wonder how they generalize

30:25

that to other new words they encounter

30:27

and learn.

30:28

Yeah. Yeah. And that is , I

30:30

mean, that's such an interesting part of vocabulary

30:33

learning that it's real , that, you know, researchers

30:36

haven't quite conquered yet. There's

30:38

a lot that we don't know. So when

30:41

you talk about assessments, there's the classroom,

30:44

and again, they can be very simple if the teacher just

30:46

wants to know, "The kids

30:48

are kind of getting these words." But in research,

30:51

we really need a better range of

30:53

assessment. Too often there are

30:55

studies that will give kids a

30:57

test on the definitions, and then they'll give

30:59

them a reading comprehension test. Well, there's

31:01

a huge chasm between knowing

31:04

the definition and being able to have

31:06

those words generalize into

31:08

comprehension. So we've

31:11

always emphasized that in our work, you

31:13

know, there should be intermediate measures where

31:16

you can just respond to a sentence context.

31:18

There should be, you know, further out

31:20

measures. We've, with young kids, we've

31:22

used pictures and tried to draw

31:25

the pictures so that they would kind of draw out

31:27

a word use and then ask them to talk about

31:29

the picture. There are lots and lots of

31:31

things that you can do. Not any one

31:34

of which is gonna give you the full

31:36

answer, but that's the point. You

31:38

need a range of measures to really know

31:40

what kids are getting, how far

31:42

they're getting on that continuum of knowing

31:45

a definition and being able to use

31:47

the word in comprehension. And

31:49

then the next step is that, at

31:51

what point, because I think most of us who

31:53

are dedicated vocabulary

31:56

researchers completely believe that at

31:58

some point, as you're learning words,

32:00

that's gonna start to generalize and

32:02

help you learn new words or

32:05

help you understand as you say, new things

32:07

about words. Other words that they're

32:09

being taught. When does that happen?

32:11

What does that look like? We just

32:13

don't know. We haven't just, we haven't

32:16

been creative enough to come up with assessments

32:18

that are gonna tell us that.

32:21

That makes sense. And I'm sitting here

32:23

thinking from a teacher's point

32:25

of view, oh my gosh, this is really

32:27

great information about vocabulary, about,

32:30

you know, how difficult it is

32:32

to learn to be flexible with words. That we

32:34

need breadth and we need depth, and we need all these

32:36

things. What in the world am I

32:38

supposed to do in the classroom in

32:41

terms of teaching this? So what

32:44

advice do you have for educators in

32:46

terms of thinking about how we're supposed to teach

32:49

and expose kids to words?

32:52

Yeah. I think, so part of

32:54

it is to say, relax, because

32:59

you're never gonna be able to teach kids all

33:01

the words that they really need to know. So just

33:03

drop that. There is no perfect

33:05

set of words, so don't worry about

33:08

which words you're using. Just sort of, again, tune

33:11

your mind to the kinds of words that

33:14

turn up in texts. A lot. Ones

33:16

that go across texts, you know, not

33:19

so much ones that are just domain

33:22

specific, but what words am

33:24

I gonna read in a novel, a

33:26

newspaper article? Those are the

33:28

kinds of words. So you can familiarize yourself

33:31

with those kinds of words by looking at

33:33

various lists. The academic word list,

33:36

the academic vocabulary list, you know, you

33:39

could just Google online. And it's not that those

33:41

are the words you should teach, but that's

33:43

the kind of word that you should

33:45

be aiming for. And then it's

33:47

just like, really think about

33:49

opportunities. So in the text, you're gonna

33:51

be reading, just scan it and

33:53

see what words you can teach. And some

33:57

words can be very dense with vocabulary. You

33:59

don't have to teach them all that

34:02

are there. Sometimes you might

34:04

just stop, because I'm thinking

34:06

of a supported reading environment

34:08

where the teacher is reading with the kids, you

34:10

know, kid or teacher reads, and then there's

34:12

some discussion. So the teacher can just stop

34:15

and just simply explain a sentence

34:17

with a new word in it. And that word does

34:19

not have to be followed up. Words can be treated

34:21

differently. There might be a word that you

34:23

don't stop for, but then at the

34:25

end, it just seems like a word kids are

34:27

gonna come upon again and again, let's

34:30

work with it. Let's keep that, you know, we'll

34:32

put it on the wall. You put it in your vocabulary notebooks.

34:35

And then there are some texts that don't have many

34:37

words in, new words, but you're

34:39

gonna be reading that text for some curricular

34:41

reason. Come up with words about

34:44

the text. So you can say things

34:47

like , "These people were

34:49

without food for a really long time, so

34:51

they must have felt famished. Famished

34:54

is another way to say they were very, very

34:56

hungry." And then that word can become part

34:58

of it. Relate words that

35:00

have been learned , or have

35:03

been hanging around the classroom for some reason, to

35:05

the current text you're reading. And again, it doesn't have

35:07

to be words that are in the text, but

35:09

you might say , "He

35:11

seemed to really be dominant in

35:14

his family. We use that word, you

35:16

know, we learned that word in some other text." So

35:19

it's those kinds of things that give you

35:21

as a teacher alexibility. You don't

35:23

have to think of it as, "I have to have a perfect

35:26

word list every week," or "I have to have texts

35:28

that have 10 words in to

35:30

teach every week." And sometimes you

35:32

might work, some weeks you might work with three

35:35

words. Some weeks you might work

35:37

with eight words just because

35:39

of the text you're using, or some

35:42

set of words that seem to fall around each

35:44

other in their relationships to each other.

35:47

So I think it's that, if

35:49

you start thinking about it in that way, and

35:52

it's still not easy. And I think the

35:54

best thing is to, you know, get together

35:56

with some other teachers and start to

35:58

talk about, "Okay, what words can we focus on?"

36:01

And if you've got other, you know , fourth-grade or

36:03

fifth-grade classrooms in your school, that's

36:06

the best. And then, "Okay, we're

36:08

gonna work with this same set of words." And

36:10

then you can help each other create

36:13

activities for them. And a

36:15

couple of resources that I always mention to teachers

36:17

that are just really easy is,

36:20

you can Google "Sentences with

36:23

(whatever word)," and you get tons of example

36:25

sentences. Now they won't all be good, but you

36:27

can certainly use some of those. Or it

36:29

will give you ideas of how to use the word. And

36:32

there's Etym, Etymonline, E-T-Y, so it's

36:37

like the beginning of "etymology," online. You

36:40

can look up the etymology of any word if you wanna

36:42

introduce that aspect to kids, which

36:44

I think can be very useful, because

36:46

then that's another way to start to

36:48

be generative. Like you learn that V-O-C

36:50

in vocabulary means, you

36:52

know, sound or voice or word. And

36:55

then you could start to point that out.

36:57

It's in vocabulary, it's in advocate,

36:59

it's in vociferous. It gives kids

37:02

an awareness of, "Oh, this happens with words,"

37:04

but then also they can start to make those connections.

37:08

That's great. I just learned something new. Thank

37:10

you for sharing that. So,

37:13

you know, this season for us is all about knowledge

37:15

building, and we know vocabulary fits

37:17

into that. But we would love, from your point of

37:19

view, how does vocabulary fit into

37:21

this whole concept of building knowledge?

37:24

Oh man. This has been, I've

37:26

been on Twitter about this a lot. Every time somebody

37:29

mentions a knowledge-building curriculum, "it

37:31

builds knowledge and vocabulary," I'm like, "Okay, hold

37:33

on. What do you mean?" Because

37:36

when I talk about building vocabulary, I'm talking

37:38

about mostly Tier Two words, these general

37:41

words that go across domains,

37:43

things like "dominant" and "consistent"

37:45

and "ominous." Because those

37:48

are the words that kids are gonna meet across texts,

37:50

and they're gonna be the most useful to

37:52

kids, you know, in a more generative way.

37:55

And it , a couple things are going on. I

37:57

think when people talk about knowledge

38:00

building, a knowledge-building curriculum, they

38:02

think of the words that we're

38:05

building kids' knowledge of, are those content

38:08

words, the content domain words. What we'd call

38:10

Tier Three words, right ? So you're doing

38:12

a science text and they're gonna learn

38:15

"molecule," and they're gonna learn "atom," and they're gonna learn

38:17

that's fine for science.

38:19

But those aren't the kinds of words

38:21

that you'll be seeing generatively

38:23

across texts. So be

38:26

aware that if you really wanna build

38:29

kids' vocabulary, you need to focus

38:31

on the Tier Two words. And

38:33

also, it turns out that I think, a lot of times, that

38:35

Tier Two words in continuary

38:37

text, 'cause we're worried about knowledge building, get

38:40

ignored. But that's what explains

38:42

and supports the Tier Three words.

38:45

And I just have a sentence that I'll read to

38:47

you that I encountered , a teacher

38:49

posted on Twitter. This was from, I

38:52

think, an assessment of reading comprehension. It was supposed

38:54

to be a non-fiction passage about

38:57

beavers and how they build their homes. And

38:59

the sentence is , "The teeth of the

39:01

beaver are important structures that

39:04

serve many functions for the

39:06

survival of the beaver." So

39:08

that's got 1,

39:10

2, 3, 4 Tier Two words in "structures," "serves,"

39:14

"functions," "survival." Those are

39:16

the words you need to attend to if kids don't

39:19

know them. And those are the words, again,

39:21

that are gonna take them across domains.

39:23

That's such a very good point. Thank

39:25

you for doing that.

39:26

That's my spiel.

39:28

That's your spiel. I think

39:31

you also wrote a book about that, didn't

39:34

you, about vocabulary, the importance of

39:36

vocabulary, or several of them. And

39:38

what we'll do is link our listeners in the show notes in

39:40

case they aren't aware of those books

39:42

that you authored or co-authored.

39:45

Okay. That works for me.

39:47

Well, this has all been such good

39:49

information and we love your specific

39:51

examples. And I wonder, do you have

39:53

any final words of advice for educators

39:56

as it comes to, relates to vocabulary?

39:59

Sure, I'll try, but I feel like, oh

40:01

my gosh, I've never said the final words on

40:03

vocabulary. I could just talk about it for

40:05

days. But again,

40:07

I think I would emphasize the

40:10

idea of just setting, if you

40:13

do one thing, set up an attitude about

40:15

words, this idea of reveling in words,

40:17

and then just drop them in. So

40:19

it really is, again, interactive,

40:23

I guess I would give three words, interactive, you just

40:25

gotta do stuff, you know, you talk about a word

40:27

and then you ask kids, "So did you ever blah , blah

40:29

." Use, get kids to

40:32

use them, generate context. And then,

40:34

ongoing. It just has to be, you

40:36

can't just do a vocabulary lesson in the morning and

40:39

then come back to vocabulary again the next morning

40:41

or three days later. The words have to be

40:43

there in the classroom all the time. The kids

40:45

have to understand, this isn't just an

40:48

exercise we do in school. This

40:50

is language that you use all

40:52

the time. So those are, I guess, interactive,

40:55

use, and ongoing would be my

40:58

final words.

41:00

That's amazing. Well, now you've given

41:02

the final words.

41:02

I can't

41:05

say anymore.

41:08

Well, Margaret, it was such a pleasure to have you on.

41:10

Thank you so much for the work that you continue to

41:12

do. And like I said, we will link our listeners in

41:14

the show notes to all of your valuable

41:17

resources.

41:18

Oh , okay. Thank you, Susan. This was really fun.

41:20

As you can tell, I like to talk about vocabulary. Always

41:24

grateful to have an opportunity to do it.

41:26

That's great. Words are important. Thanks

41:30

so much for listening to my conversation with Dr. Margaret

41:33

McKeown, Clinical Professor Emerita

41:35

at the School of Education and

41:37

Senior Scientist at the Learning Research

41:39

and Development Center at the University

41:42

of Pittsburgh. Check

41:44

out the show notes for links to some of her work,

41:46

including the books "Bringing Words to

41:48

Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction,"

41:51

"Creating Robust Vocabulary," and

41:54

"Vocabulary Assessment to Support Instruction."

41:57

We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode.

42:00

Please share your thoughts in our Facebook

42:02

discussion group, Science of Reading: The

42:04

Community. Science

42:06

of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by

42:09

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42:11

on how amplify leverages the Science

42:13

of Reading, go to amplify.com/CKLA.

42:19

Next time on the show, we're featuring the

42:21

return of Dr . Jasmine

42:24

Rogers. When Dr.

42:26

Rogers first joined us back at the beginning of the year,

42:28

she told us all about her dissertation

42:31

research. Now she's gotten her doctorate

42:34

and she's telling us all about what

42:36

she learned.

42:37

One of the concepts that I wanted to get across

42:39

is that when we're talking about language, especially

42:42

when we're talking about different languages

42:44

across cultures, we need to discuss the

42:46

why sometimes.

42:48

That's coming up next time. Don't

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