This episode’s guest is Margaret McKeown, Ph.D., a retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh, decades-long researcher, and former elementary school teacher. In it, Margaret and Susan address why vocabulary is so important, particularly for knowledge building; talk about the various elements of effective vocabulary instruction; discuss the key role of informal instruction in vocabulary building; and share best practices for assessing vocabulary. Listeners will come away from this episode with a deeper understanding of the how and why of vocabulary instruction, as well as tips for bolstering vocabulary instruction in their own communities.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“Good instruction needs to be interactive. We're using words. Vocabulary pervades the day.” —Margaret McKeown
“Relax, because you're never going to be able to teach kids all the words that they really need to know, so just drop that.” —Margaret McKeown
“There is no perfect set of words, so don't worry about which words you're using, just sort of tune your mind to the kinds of words that turn up in texts a lot, ones that go across texts, not so much ones that are just, domain specific, but what words am I going to read in a novel, a social studies text, a newspaper article? Those are the kinds of words.” —Margaret McKeown
“If you do one thing, set up an attitude about words, this idea of reveling in words, and then just drop them in.” —Margaret McKeown
This episode’s guest is Margaret McKeown, Ph.D., a retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh, decades-long researcher, and former elementary school teacher. In it, Margaret and Susan address why vocabulary is so important, particularly for knowledge building; talk about the various elements of effective vocabulary instruction; discuss the key role of informal instruction in vocabulary building; and share best practices for assessing vocabulary. Listeners will come away from this episode with a deeper understanding of the how and why of vocabulary instruction, as well as tips for bolstering vocabulary instruction in their own communities.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“Good instruction needs to be interactive. We're using words. Vocabulary pervades the day.” —Margaret McKeown
“Relax, because you're never going to be able to teach kids all the words that they really need to know, so just drop that.” —Margaret McKeown
“There is no perfect set of words, so don't worry about which words you're using, just sort of tune your mind to the kinds of words that turn up in texts a lot, ones that go across texts, not so much ones that are just, domain specific, but what words am I going to read in a novel, a social studies text, a newspaper article? Those are the kinds of words.” —Margaret McKeown
“If you do one thing, set up an attitude about words, this idea of reveling in words, and then just drop them in.” —Margaret McKeown
Study after study for, you know, going back 60 years, shows that if you have a really strong vocabulary, you're a better reader.
Susan Lambert:This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. On this eighth season of the podcast, we're exploring the critical role of knowledge in literacy development. And on this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Margaret McKeown to dive deep into effective vocabulary instruction. Dr. McKeown is Clinical Professor Emerita at the School of Education and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. During this conversation, Dr. McKeown lays out the various elements of effectively building vocabulary and discusses the critical role of informal instruction. We'll also talk about effectively assessing vocabulary development and share plenty of practical tips. Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Margaret McKeown. Margaret McKeown, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.
Margaret McKeown:I'm really excited to be here. This is, I'm sure this is gonna be a fun conversation.
Susan Lambert:I think it will be a fun conversation. But before we jump in, I would love if you could tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Margaret McKeown:Okay, sure. Well, I'm a retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh, but I still stay active in the field 'cause I, I just can't stop. So I really like being retired 'cause I can just be involved at the level I wanna be. I spent decades researching, particularly with my colleague Isabel Beck , on vocabulary and comprehension. And a lot of that was developing instructional programs. I spent a ton of time in classrooms both teaching lessons, we always tried out lessons ourselves before we let the teacher take it. And observing classrooms. I started out as an elementary school teacher, so I've taught second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade language arts. And that's, yeah, that's, who I am.
Susan Lambert:That's a great arc. I'm sure is a lot more detail in between all of that, but you're really here to help us understand a little bit more about vocabulary. And so I thought before we sort of jump into the details of that, can you just talk a little bit and set the scene a little bit for why vocabulary is so important?
Margaret McKeown:Sure. The major thing is its relationship to reading comprehension. I mean, study after study for, you know, going back 60 years, shows that if you have a really strong vocabulary, you're a better reader. And at first, those studies were just correlational. The folks who scored high on vocabulary tests also scored high on comprehension tests . But lately we've been able to see the details, just sort of see those processes in action, through some cog psych research that shows, for example, it's much more than just, you know the meaning of the word and therefore you're a better reader. But it's what you do with the word in the reading. So, some cog scientists have been able to trace what they call integration processes to see that, for example , a word that's mentioned in a sentence. Like say it says, you know, "the rain came." And then they'll give the subjects a sentence that says something about the storm. And they notice that skilled comprehenders, 'cause they've given all these folks comprehension tests, make a much quicker connection between the idea of rain and a storm. So it's not just being able to know that, well, a storm, you know, rain comes down. But you know that, that it's that same phenomenon being talked about in the text. And that's really the importance of vocabulary and comprehension, is being able to use those words and their associations to make sense of what you're reading. And also, even beyond comprehension, you know, it's your language. It's what we use to interact with people with the world. Whether it's convincing someone of a position or, you know, saying something funny to kind of make people like you or think you're interesting. It seems like, you know, having mastery of your language is part of your self-image.
Susan Lambert:That's a great way to say it. And you know, I've recently been talking with folks about comprehension a little bit, that it's not sort of eitheror. Comprehension isn't black and white, comprehension is really on a continuum, but vocabulary is something like that too. Vocabulary is on a continuum. You don't just know a word or you don't Right?
Margaret McKeown:Right. Absolutely. And there have been different ways to describe that over a long time. And what Isabel and I first said in one of our early articles was knowing a word is not an all-or-nothing proposition. And we showed that in several studies. We did a couple studies where we had different groups of kids that we taught the same words to . And one group, we gave them just definitions and had them do interesting activities, play games with them. But basically all the information they got about the word was a definition, that was a child-friendly definition, but that was it. And maybe we give them a context sentence, you know, one, versus giving this other group of kids, same words, started with the definitions, but this rich, interactive, playing with the word, using it, you know, examining it in context, talking about context, generating context. And we found the kind of knowledge they had was very different. Both groups did well on just a simple definition test, but when we started assessing different aspects of vocabulary, like having them really put it to use, the kids that got the rich instruction did much better. We gave them passages to comprehend passages with the words in them, and then asked them , I think we asked them to retell the stories and found that that was better for the kids who'd gotten the rich instruction. So correct. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition. But the other thing about that is just because somebody knows only the definition of the word doesn't mean they're gonna stay at that stage. Vocabulary is also, an important thing to know about vocabulary knowledge is it's cumulative. You're not gonna learn everything that you need to know about a word the first time you encounter it. Even if you've encountered it in a rich context, you need to keep seeing it because it can mean something slightly different, or it will mean something slightly different to the context. So you need to keep seeing words. And that's one important message that I always like to get across to teachers is if you've taught a set of words and you've got some kids that are really taking off with them and some that aren't, but they kind of seem to know them, that's okay. Those kids can, as long as there's lots of language use and those words stay in a vocabulary notebook or somewhere in their awareness and their reading, that knowledge will continue to grow. You're not gonna get kids all the way, even after a week of good vocabulary instruction. You're not gonna get them all the way.
Susan Lambert:Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Vocabulary, that's one of the , I mean, language in and of itself grows slowly over time, too.
Margaret McKeown:Yes.
Susan Lambert:Yes. And over and over and over again is so important. Okay. Before we get too much further, I'm always curious why people get interested in topics they do. So what is it about vocabulary? How is it that you're like, "Wow, this is a really cool thing and I wanna learn more about it?"
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. It started early. M , my father was educated as an English teacher, but then he served in World War II, came back from the war, and there weren't teaching jobs available. So I became his forever pupil. And so he, you know, he was always aware of words, using words, and so we just, I just began this relationship with language, you know, with him. And just kept it up from there. You know, learning words, knowing how to use words. You know, sometimes we would even be a little snotty about it if we heard somebody using a word not quite right. We'd kind of like, you know, it would be a little joke between us. But, you know , I like to write from an early age, and when I discovered etymology that, you know, words have these, these pieces in them that came from other languages, I was just so excited about that. And when I was teaching, I actually taught some lessons to my fourth and fifth graders about that. And they just caught fire with it. I remember explaining and showing some words and then saying, you know, "When you look up a word in the dictionary, it will say where the word parts came from." And so I gave them a couple of words and I said, "Why don't you try it out?" They flew out of their seats to the dictionaries. It was so exciting. But, you know, that kind of thing can really light fires about language. And I think part of it is because , I think unfortunately for a lot of kids vocabulary is just, "I gotta memorize these definitions." And somehow these definitions are, you know, the real thing. You know, somebody sent them down from Mount Olympus and I just have to learn them. Instead of, you know, your language is something that you use and manipulate. There's a reason, even though the reasons that words, for instance, rhyme but are spelled differently, may seem bizarre. There are reasons for that. And I think understanding that and understanding that, we have parts of words that came from other languages, and that's how language works. It's this messy human creation that, you know, keeps coming down from generations, millennia, and kind of changing and, you know, being made to suit the day. And we can't just go back and clean it all up. And so it's kind of, I think it frees kids from the idea that, "This is this thing that I have to learn." It's this messiness that you can really take hold of and understand why it's like that.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. I remember, that brings me back to when I was teaching third grade, and kids love wordplay, right? They love idioms and, you know, different definitions of words. And recently I revisited the book, "The Phantom Toll Booth."
Margaret McKeown:Oh my gosh.
Susan Lambert:And so I just went back there to think about how much, when kids can separate this idea of what you said, you know, "Vocabulary, sounds so boring," but wordplay is so much more exciting and more fun.
Margaret McKeown:Yeah, yeah. For sure. And, and yeah, that should always have a place in, you know, language instruction and, you know, it does show kids, you know, wordplay is not just fun. It also shows kids kind of how words work or how our language works. One of my favorites that somebody introduced me to, "You could keep pushing the envelope, but it will still be stationary."
Susan Lambert:Oh my gosh, that's great.
Margaret McKeown:And then you explore, "Why is that funny?" And it reminds me of my ninth-grade English teacher who would always say, "The more you know, the more you can laugh," which is exactly right. You need to have the knowledge in order for that wordplay to work.
Susan Lambert:That's great. You know, I also do , in some of my professional development moments, talk about vocabulary being three things. And I probably learned a lot of this from you and Isabel, the idea that vocabulary is you need a breadth of vocabulary, you need depth and vocabulary, but you use those two things so that you have flexibility.
Margaret McKeown:Absolutely.
Susan Lambert:Do those three things resonate with you? The breadth and the depth and flexibility?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Absolutely. You , you need a breadth . You need to know a lot of words. But you need to know a lot of them , a depth, so that you know the different senses of the word, the different contexts it can be used in. Because when we're creating vocabulary knowledge in our heads, what happens is these connections keep forming between a word and other words that might mean similar things or that are used in similar circumstances. And that's what our vocabulary knowledge looks like. It doesn't look like just a bunch of definitions. So that's what you wanna promote and create. And that doing that ensures the flexibility that you're gonna need when you meet a word that you know, or you sort of know, when you meet it in a different context. And you have to be able to say, "Well, I—" This goes on very, very quickly in your head, "Well, I thought it meant this, but it sort of means , seems to mean this." And you have to begin to understand the limits of that flexibility. It's not gonna mean something completely different in a new context, but it could be just a little bit different than you've been thinking about it. So yeah, those elements are really important. The other one that really I've started talking more and more is the top-level one that governs it all ,is interactive. Good instruction needs to be interactive. You need to not just be given information about a word, whether it's, you know, a bunch of different contexts or a definition, you need to actually do something. So we should never think about providing information to students about words. But that sort of , giving a resource or a catalyst, and then you work on that. You know, you give a definition and then you give a context and then ask them how the definition fits the context, or to restate the context without that word. So they have to, you know, do a kind of a synonym of it, or, you know, a description of the word in the sentence. And that's the thing that was really gonna build that depth and that flexibility.
Susan Lambert:Yeah. So that, I think that's one of the things we were talking about in the planning call, was some of those various elements that go into that vocabulary instruction. So the contextual information, the definition of it , multiple exposures, right? And the interactions with it.
Margaret McKeown:Yeah.
Susan Lambert:Where do you think we could help teachers sort of beef up that vocabulary instruction when it comes to those critical elements?
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. Oh, that's such a good question that I've been, you know, mulling around with . I think a big part of it is sort of time, you know, giving time to vocabulary and exactly what to do, because obviously definitions are always there. So it's sort of giving teachers easily accessible resources, you know, about words. And also freeing them from the idea that it always has to be a lesson on vocabulary. I mean, you know, you can have a very quick lesson where you just introduce three or four words, maybe they're in a text you're reading, and after the text you introduce three or four words. You, you know, give a quick definition. You go back to the context that was in the story, and you talk about how that made sense of the context. But then those words are there in the classroom, and just keep using them, keep using them all day. You know, give kids pluses on the blackboard if they use it. Challenge them to use, to find those words outside of school. And just, you know, in the morning, start the day with a question that embeds one of the words. You know , " Who was reluctant to get outta bed this morning?" Or "Let's have a dynamic day. We're gonna put a lot of energy into it." You know, just use, use, use. And the kids pick this up. I mean, just so quickly that these kinds of things really catch fire. But that kind of informal work can do so much. And I don't know if, I mean, I think understanding that would be really helpful to teachers and that they could really take off with that. Unless the thing is also that they've gotta , you know, I don't know how many school districts are still very structured about, "You gotta gimme your lesson plans. You've gotta tell me when were you doing vocabulary?" If that's gonna cause an issue with that. It should not, because, you know, having 15 minutes for vocabulary is not gonna be nearly as useful as having 10 minutes for vocabulary and then doing this kind of all day . You know, we're using words, vocabulary pervades the day. That's what's really gonna build awareness of words , the depth of knowledge that you need , and interest, the kind of, 'cause the other thing about vocabulary, as I mentioned at the beginning, it takes a lot of exposures. You're not gonna learn a word quickly even if you've had a set of good activities, you may be only halfway there to really understanding the nuances of some words. And only if you make it fun and you make it something kids wanna pursue, are they gonna go and fill in the rest of that knowledge. 'Cause otherwise they'll just shut down. They won't pay attention to words that they read. They'll be reading something, see a word that they don't know, and just kind of skip over that sentence. But if you make it interesting and fun and something that's meaningful, and that really becomes part of the kids' , you know, identity, then they will do that. They will pursue that. So, yeah, I think , and just, you know, creating a mindset in which you are aware of opportunities all the time to bring words to kids' attention. And part of that is just, you know, your own mindset. Start noticing words if you don't already, as you read, you know, for pleasure as you read the newspaper, "Oh, here's a word that I know, I keep seeing in all different contexts. Maybe I should introduce that to the kids." And in reading, I mean, I think reading to kids at every level is really good. And stopping and talking about some of the words, you know, sometimes it can be, "Oh, this sentence, I had a feeling it was gonna mean something completely different. But then I hit this word and I know that the author's trying to tell me the character is really good." Noticing language use like that, I think is, again, it will just, it's contagious. It will really lay the groundwork for a lot of of good things in the classroom.
Susan Lambert:That's a really good point about, you know, sort of fostering the curiosity around words and how they're used and what they mean and how authors use them, and how students can use them as they're reading and writing. So we often talk about explicit instruction is really important. And then that sort of informal implicit instruction is important. How do you feel like the role of explicit instruction then should work in the classroom relative to that more informal?
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. You know, that's such an interesting point that I don't think has been made enough in this current talking about the, the Science of Reading. The idea of systematic, direct, explicit instruction is particularly important for, it's usually most often used in the context of phonics. But beyond phonics, those ideas of explicit and systematic kind of change a bit. And maybe that's a problem in that you're thinking about direct, explicit instruction, immediately you jump to definitions of words, or immediately you jump to, you know, strategies as teaching a structured routine. And I think we need to leave that behind. We should not be relying on or focusing on structure, structural aspects, when we teach vocabulary. The explicitness, yes. It's a good idea to explicitly give kids a definition, a child-friendly definition. And it's absolutel, a good idea to deliberately introduce them to multiple context as opposed to just letting kids read a lot and learn words from context. The explicitness of pulling out words, defining them, talking about the context, giving them a context, is absolutely useful and good and valuable. But I think that's what the explicitness means, is bring this information to full awareness, deliberately give it to them, but then don't stay structural. That's not gonna do it. That structure of a definition in a context is not gonna take you all the way. So, yeah, again, we , we just have to get to that use of words.
Susan Lambert:We'll be right back. As we shared on our last episode, we're doing something special for this knowledge-focused season of the podcast. We've asked the finalists of the 2023 Science of Reading Star Awards to offer some of their thoughts and advice on knowledge building throughout this season. We'll share some of their insights this time around. We're going to hear from Virginia Quinn-Mooney, a teacher from New Milford, Connecticut. Virginia was a finalist for the 2023 Changemaker Award and she told us about her experience helping her district shift to the Science of Reading, which included some help from a friend of this podcast.
Virginia Quinn-Mooney:I was lucky enough to host Natalie Wexler, not just once, but twice on a virtual happy hour. And I learned so much about the importance of teaching through content and providing these students with the background knowledge in doing this. Their vocabulary will improve, as will their comprehension. And going forward, my intention is to really introduce much more content in the classroom, providing the background knowledge, and then increasing their comprehension. And I look forward to seeing the same results with the top portion of the Rope that I've seen on the bottom.
Susan Lambert:That was Virginia Quinn-Mooney, a teacher at Northville Elementary School in New Milford, Connecticut. Find more information on the Science of Reading Star Awards at amplify.com/sor-star-awards. And now, back to our conversation with Margaret McKeown. This sort of takes me back to the beginning of our conversation where we talked about language and how it can, you know, it develops differently than things that are just, you know, "This sound matches the spelling" is a different kind of instruction than "We're going to use language in different ways and over time." My question here is, do we think people really understand what language is and its usage? And that sort of concept of it needs this additional time and energy?
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. I think there's still this idea of, learning language is, there's too much structure thought of, like, we're gonna learn grammar, we're gonna learn what a noun is, we're gonna learn what a verb is. And to define those things or to diagram sentences is just not going to get you there. Maybe some of those things can be useful, but it always has to go back to using language, you know, talking about sentences and, you know, a real sentence that's in a text. Okay. "Let's talk about, we've got this piece of it," and sometimes, you know, I read a book and the sentence is like, three lines long and I go, "Wait a minute. I gotta take that apart." But I'm not thinking, "What's the noun? What's the dependent clause? What's the—" I'm really thinking of "Okay, this part refers to this." So it's, again, it's that use of, and that is how language grows. It's by using it. So, a couple of things that I think people are not always consciously aware of. So first, you know, we all learn, have our initial language learning through conversations when we're tiny, tiny kids. And that's where we pick up a lot of the vocabulary, the what we've called Tier One, the really basic concrete words that get used every single day. And for most kids, it's a very natural process. They're gonna pick up these words if they're exposed to them. And they're likely to be exposed to them again and again because they hear them every day . They hear the words "table" and "home" and "sun," and, you know, all those kinds of words. But then there's so many more words out there and ways to use language. That language is something that can't be thoroughly taught in school. It's just infinite. I mean, I think there are estimate of 145,000 words in the English language. Nobody, nobody knows that many words. So, you know , we're always encountering something new with language. And , we can't just learn it by sitting down and being told a bunch of rules. I think that's why it's so hard for people to learn a second language unless they're really immersed in someplace where that language is in use.
Susan Lambert:That makes a lot of sense. So, so far, we've talked a little bit about the importance of the various elements that go into effective vocabulary instruction. We talked about the importance of informal instruction , building that curiosity, I love that. The other thing that you think is really important, I think, is the need for different assessment measures, can you talk about that? Vocabulary is so hard to assess, isn't it?
Margaret McKeown:It is a pain in the butt. So I must say that colleagues and I wrote an entire book on vocabulary assessment. So it's hard to summarize. But in summary, so for the classroom, if you're doing vocabulary assessments, you really need to be aware of what you're getting. So if you give kids a test of definitions, that's fine, as long as you realize it means what they know about the word is the definition. And that can be all you need. For some teachers, they might just need a grade to put in the book. But if you want to know more about your kids' vocabulary, if you wanna know if it has a chance of affecting comprehension, you've got to do something different. You know, it could be giving them a sentence, then asking them to write a sentence that explains that. Or giving them a sentence and write the sentence that might come next or to explain that in a story. We've done things like , as simple as a yes/no test, where we had four sentences for each word. Two that just asked a definition. You know, "Does 'consistent' mean you do things the same all the time?" "Does 'consistent' mean, you know, you're really hungry?" And these would be scattered throughout the test. And then we'd say , we'd give them a sentence and say , " Bob was consistent because he had eggs for breakfast every morning." You know, yes or no. "Is that a good use of consistent?" And then we'd have a sentence that used it incorrectly that didn't make sense. And that would be the no sentence . One of my favorite assessments is what we call context integration. And that really tests, gets closest to testing whether kids are gonna be able to use these words in comprehension. So it would give kids a sentence like, "Suzanne seemed reluctant to ride her new bike," and we would deliberately construct them that way so that the word took it in kind of an unexpected direction. 'Cause you think about, you're talking about a new bike for a kid, that would be something very exciting. But here we have reluctance. So why do you think, why do you think Suzanne was reluctant? And again, this was one of the tests we used with kids we had taught just definitions, and kids we had taught in a rich way. The kids we had taught in a rich way picked up on that and would say, "Oh, maybe she was scared she'd fall off" Or "maybe the bike was too big." Or, you know , something like that. Where the kids that were taught the definitions would either say "Reluctant means..." and then just, you know, they knew the word "reluctant," but they couldn't put it in the context. Or they'd say, " Oh, she must've been really excited 'cause she got a new bike," where the rest of the context would override what they knew about the word. So that's, I mean, that's a hard kind of assessment, I think, for teachers to create. But I think you can get close to it by just giving them sentences that aren't really super obvious, and ask them to explain what it means. And the other thing about different kinds of assessments in the classroom is, almost any activity—so in the books that Isabel and I and Linda Kucan have written, we have tons of examples of activities. Any kind of activity can also be used as assessment. Again, depending on what you want to know. So we have one that we do all the time that's called Example Non-Example. Like we would say , " Which would be astonishing: Your dog says good morning to you, or your dog wants to go outside for a walk? Why?" You know, that can be an assessment, and that can just be an assessment even as you're doing that activity in the classroom, the teacher can kind of be checking off and maybe on a certain day, she's gonna call on these 10 kids and just check off, are they able to do that with their words? And the next day she might call on the other half of the class and just check off. So those kinds of things can be informal assessments, but it really gives the teacher an idea of whether kids are getting to this next level of not just knowing the definition, but really being able to understand the use and developing a facility to explain, to use the word and explaining.
Susan Lambert:I love that example of an activity that can be also used as an assessment. But I also love that it gets kids thinking about using words differently. And you wonder how they generalize that to other new words they encounter and learn.
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. Yeah. And that is , I mean, that's such an interesting part of vocabulary learning that it's real , that, you know, researchers haven't quite conquered yet. There's a lot that we don't know. So when you talk about assessments, there's the classroom, and again, they can be very simple if the teacher just wants to know, "The kids are kind of getting these words." But in research, we really need a better range of assessment. Too often there are studies that will give kids a test on the definitions, and then they'll give them a reading comprehension test. Well, there's a huge chasm between knowing the definition and being able to have those words generalize into comprehension. So we've always emphasized that in our work, you know, there should be intermediate measures where you can just respond to a sentence context. There should be, you know, further out measures. We've, with young kids, we've used pictures and tried to draw the pictures so that they would kind of draw out a word use and then ask them to talk about the picture. There are lots and lots of things that you can do. Not any one of which is gonna give you the full answer, but that's the point. You need a range of measures to really know what kids are getting, how far they're getting on that continuum of knowing a definition and being able to use the word in comprehension. And then the next step is that, at what point, because I think most of us who are dedicated vocabulary researchers completely believe that at some point, as you're learning words, that's gonna start to generalize and help you learn new words or help you understand as you say, new things about words. Other words that they're being taught. When does that happen? What does that look like? We just don't know. We haven't just, we haven't been creative enough to come up with assessments that are gonna tell us that.
Susan Lambert:That makes sense. And I'm sitting here thinking from a teacher's point of view, oh my gosh, this is really great information about vocabulary, about, you know, how difficult it is to learn to be flexible with words. That we need breadth and we need depth, and we need all these things. What in the world am I supposed to do in the classroom in terms of teaching this? So what advice do you have for educators in terms of thinking about how we're supposed to teach and expose kids to words?
Margaret McKeown:Yeah. I think, so part of it is to say, relax, because you're never gonna be able to teach kids all the words that they really need to know. So just drop that. There is no perfect set of words, so don't worry about which words you're using. Just sort of, again, tune your mind to the kinds of words that turn up in texts. A lot. Ones that go across texts, you know, not so much ones that are just domain specific, but what words am I gonna read in a novel, a newspaper article? Those are the kinds of words. So you can familiarize yourself with those kinds of words by looking at various lists. The academic word list, the academic vocabulary list, you know, you could just Google online. And it's not that those are the words you should teach, but that's the kind of word that you should be aiming for. And then it's just like, really think about opportunities. So in the text, you're gonna be reading, just scan it and see what words you can teach. And some words can be very dense with vocabulary. You don't have to teach them all that are there. Sometimes you might just stop, because I'm thinking of a supported reading environment where the teacher is reading with the kids, you know, kid or teacher reads, and then there's some discussion. So the teacher can just stop and just simply explain a sentence with a new word in it. And that word does not have to be followed up. Words can be treated differently. There might be a word that you don't stop for, but then at the end, it just seems like a word kids are gonna come upon again and again, let's work with it. Let's keep that, you know, we'll put it on the wall. You put it in your vocabulary notebooks. And then there are some texts that don't have many words in, new words, but you're gonna be reading that text for some curricular reason. Come up with words about the text. So you can say things like , "These people were without food for a really long time, so they must have felt famished. Famished is another way to say they were very, very hungry." And then that word can become part of it. Relate words that have been learned , or have been hanging around the classroom for some reason, to the current text you're reading. And again, it doesn't have to be words that are in the text, but you might say , "He seemed to really be dominant in his family. We use that word, you know, we learned that word in some other text." So it's those kinds of things that give you as a teacher alexibility. You don't have to think of it as, "I have to have a perfect word list every week," or "I have to have texts that have 10 words in to teach every week." And sometimes you might work, some weeks you might work with three words. Some weeks you might work with eight words just because of the text you're using, or some set of words that seem to fall around each other in their relationships to each other. So I think it's that, if you start thinking about it in that way, and it's still not easy. And I think the best thing is to, you know, get together with some other teachers and start to talk about, "Okay, what words can we focus on?" And if you've got other, you know , fourth-grade or fifth-grade classrooms in your school, that's the best. And then, "Okay, we're gonna work with this same set of words." And then you can help each other create activities for them. And a couple of resources that I always mention to teachers that are just really easy is, you can Google "Sentences with (whatever word)," and you get tons of example sentences. Now they won't all be good, but you can certainly use some of those. Or it will give you ideas of how to use the word. And there's Etym, Etymonline, E-T-Y, so it's like the beginning of "etymology," online. You can look up the etymology of any word if you wanna introduce that aspect to kids, which I think can be very useful, because then that's another way to start to be generative. Like you learn that V-O-C in vocabulary means, you know, sound or voice or word. And then you could start to point that out. It's in vocabulary, it's in advocate, it's in vociferous. It gives kids an awareness of, "Oh, this happens with words," but then also they can start to make those connections.
Susan Lambert:That's great. I just learned something new. Thank you for sharing that. So, you know, this season for us is all about knowledge building, and we know vocabulary fits into that. But we would love, from your point of view, how does vocabulary fit into this whole concept of building knowledge?
Margaret McKeown:Oh man. This has been, I've been on Twitter about this a lot. Every time somebody mentions a knowledge-building curriculum, "it builds knowledge and vocabulary," I'm like, "Okay, hold on. What do you mean?" Because when I talk about building vocabulary, I'm talking about mostly Tier Two words, these general words that go across domains, things like "dominant" and "consistent" and "ominous." Because those are the words that kids are gonna meet across texts, and they're gonna be the most useful to kids, you know, in a more generative way. And it , a couple things are going on. I think when people talk about knowledge building, a knowledge-building curriculum, they think of the words that we're building kids' knowledge of, are those content words, the content domain words. What we'd call Tier Three words, right ? So you're doing a science text and they're gonna learn "molecule," and they're gonna learn "atom," and they're gonna learn that's fine for science. But those aren't the kinds of words that you'll be seeing generatively across texts. So be aware that if you really wanna build kids' vocabulary, you need to focus on the Tier Two words. And also, it turns out that I think, a lot of times, that Tier Two words in continuary text, 'cause we're worried about knowledge building, get ignored. But that's what explains and supports the Tier Three words. And I just have a sentence that I'll read to you that I encountered , a teacher posted on Twitter. This was from, I think, an assessment of reading comprehension. It was supposed to be a non-fiction passage about beavers and how they build their homes. And the sentence is , "The teeth of the beaver are important structures that serve many functions for the survival of the beaver." So that's got 1, 2, 3, 4 Tier Two words in "structures," "serves," "functions," "survival." Those are the words you need to attend to if kids don't know them. And those are the words, again, that are gonna take them across domains.
Susan Lambert:That's such a very good point. Thank you for doing that.
Margaret McKeown:That's my spiel.
Susan Lambert:That's your spiel. I think you also wrote a book about that, didn't you, about vocabulary, the importance of vocabulary, or several of them. And what we'll do is link our listeners in the show notes in case they aren't aware of those books that you authored or co-authored.
Margaret McKeown:Okay. That works for me.
Susan Lambert:Well, this has all been such good information and we love your specific examples. And I wonder, do you have any final words of advice for educators as it comes to, relates to vocabulary?
Margaret McKeown:Sure, I'll try, but I feel like, oh my gosh, I've never said the final words on vocabulary. I could just talk about it for days. But again, I think I would emphasize the idea of just setting, if you do one thing, set up an attitude about words, this idea of reveling in words, and then just drop them in. So it really is, again, interactive, I guess I would give three words, interactive, you just gotta do stuff, you know, you talk about a word and then you ask kids, "So did you ever blah , blah ." Use, get kids to use them, generate context. And then, ongoing. It just has to be, you can't just do a vocabulary lesson in the morning and then come back to vocabulary again the next morning or three days later. The words have to be there in the classroom all the time. The kids have to understand, this isn't just an exercise we do in school. This is language that you use all the time. So those are, I guess, interactive, use, and ongoing would be my final words.
Susan Lambert:That's amazing. Well, now you've given the final words.
Margaret McKeown:I can't say anymore.
Susan Lambert:Well, Margaret, it was such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for the work that you continue to do. And like I said, we will link our listeners in the show notes to all of your valuable resources.
Margaret McKeown:Oh , okay. Thank you, Susan. This was really fun. As you can tell, I like to talk about vocabulary. Always grateful to have an opportunity to do it.
Susan Lambert:That's great. Words are important. Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Dr. Margaret McKeown, Clinical Professor Emerita at the School of Education and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Check out the show notes for links to some of her work, including the books "Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction," "Creating Robust Vocabulary," and "Vocabulary Assessment to Support Instruction." We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Please share your thoughts in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For more information on how amplify leverages the Science of Reading, go to amplify.com/CKLA. Next time on the show, we're featuring the return of Dr . Jasmine Rogers. When Dr. Rogers first joined us back at the beginning of the year, she told us all about her dissertation research. Now she's gotten her doctorate and she's telling us all about what she learned.
Jasmine Rogers:One of the concepts that I wanted to get across is that when we're talking about language, especially when we're talking about different languages across cultures, we need to discuss the why sometimes.
Susan Lambert:That's coming up next time. Don't miss any upcoming episodes by subscribing to Science of Reading: The Podcast wherever you find your podcast. And please do us a favor and consider rating us and leaving us a review. It will help more people find the show . Thank you again for listening.