S8 E7: Vocabulary is unconstrained, with Tanya S. Wright

As a writer of several books for teachers and parents, former kindergarten teacher, and current associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, Tanya S. Wright, Ph.D., has maintained focus on a singular question: How can we most effectively work with students in the early education setting? In answering that question, Wright has researched and written on two interesting areas: vocabulary development, and best practices for literacy development in young children. Listeners will come away from this conversation with some great tips and strategies for developing vocabulary, working effectively with younger students, and integrating writing and vocabulary.

Show notes:

• Read: “A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day: The Classroom Essentials Series”
• Read: “Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators”
• More from Dr. Wright: Follow Tanya S. Wright on X

Quotes:

"We need kids to be able to sound out the words, but we also need them to know what they mean. Otherwise, the text won't make sense. So we really need to be working on both of these at the same time." —Tanya S. Wright

"Really value what kids bring to the classroom, even if it's not perfect yet, or if it's not exactly what adults would say." —Tanya S. Wright

"It's really important that we're thinking about purposeful, planned, and intentional vocabulary supports to make sure that everybody is included in the learning and can participate in the classroom." —Tanya S. Wright

"Realistically, kids love to learn big words. They make use of them. They don't really differentiate it. So that's an adult imposition, right? Which ones are the big ones or which ones are the hard ones? If we use them with kids, they will use them too. And enjoy it." —Tanya S. Wright

Episode content timestamps*:
2:00: Introduction: Who is Tanya Wright?
4:00: Journey to studying vocabulary: What is the importance?
6:00: What does it mean to know a word?
11:00: How do knowledge and vocabulary connect and why can't they be divorced?
17:00: Tips for being planned and purposeful with vocabulary instruction
22:00: Integrating vocabulary across content areas
27:00: What would you say to someone who says a word is "too hard" for a kid?
33:00: How has your thinking changed about the approach to vocabulary from when you started your research?
37:00: Final advice for educators

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to the nearest minute. 

Transcript

Tanya S. Wright: 0:31

I think I used to really think a lot about kids learning individual words and which are the right words. And now I think much more about kids learning.

Susan Lambert: 0:48

This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. It's now 2024 and we're kicking off the new year by continuing our season-long exploration of the critical role of knowledge and knowledge building. And on this episode, we'll delve deeper into vocabulary, including how it can be developed purposefully, how to build vocabulary alongside decoding skills, and integrating writing and vocabulary. We'll also be spending some time on working effectively with younger students. Our guest is Dr. Tanya S. Wright, associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Go Green! Wright is a former kindergarten teacher and the author of several books, including "A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development across the Day," and "Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers." Please enjoy our first episode of 2024 with Dr. Tanya Wright. Dr. Tanya Wright, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.

Tanya S. Wright: 2:00

Thanks for having me.

Susan Lambert: 2:02

I would love it, before we get into the meat of what we're going to talk about, if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and just tell us a little bit about who you are.

Tanya S. Wright: 2:11

So I am an associate professor of literacy at Michigan State and I've been at Michigan State for about 14 years now.

Susan Lambert: 2:20

Wow.

Tanya S. Wright: 2:20

I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my lovely husband, who is an elementary school principal, and my two teenage daughters.

Susan Lambert: 2:29

Wow, so you sort of have education in your household there with an elementary school principal and you.

Tanya S. Wright: 2:35

Definitely, keeps me grounded, have someone to tell me if my ideas are too pie-in-the-sky and not gonna work in the real life of school . So that's always very helpful.

Susan Lambert: 2:45

That's awesome. Well, I do have to ask, because I am a Michigan State Sparty fan. Are you Michigan State Sparty fans or are you University of Michigan fans?

Tanya S. Wright: 2:56

Okay, well this is, this is very confusing because I went to U of M for grad school and then got the job at Michigan State. So the students at Michigan State say maize and blue makes green, but I do live in Ann Arbor, so on a Saturday what's going on around me is a whole bunch of U of M fun. So it's a little bit difficult. I like to root for both.

Susan Lambert: 3:18

There you go.

Tanya S. Wright: 3:19

If that's at all possible!

: 3:21

It gives me visions of those t-shirts and sweatshirts that are half and half, the house-divided ones.

Tanya S. Wright: 3:27

And every time they play each other I just say, well, we are playing us either way, we or us are gonna win. So it's okay.

Susan Lambert: 3:34

It's a win-win. Oh, that's great. Um, were you a former teacher yourself or did I get that wrong?

Tanya S. Wright: 3:41

Yes, I taught kindergarten before I went back to get my Ph.D.

Susan Lambert: 3:45

That makes a lot of sense. So we're gonna be talking about a lot of that early literacy world. And so our topic really is about vocabulary and we'll talk a little bit more about other things too. But how is it that vocabulary became so interesting to you?

Tanya S. Wright: 3:59

You know, the more I learned about literacy development, the more I came to understand how important word meanings are for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and learning. Really there's no place or no discipline where vocabulary, and I mean knowing the meanings of words, isn't really important for kids learning. And so the more I learn , the more I realize this is an area that is so important. But also some of my early studies showed that it's really not often addressed well in the early years of schooling. Sometimes folks think our first job is to teach kids to decode words and then we'll teach them the meaning of words later. And it turns out that that's not ideal, right? Because we need kids to be able to sound out the words, but we also need them to know what they mean, otherwise the text won't make sense. So we really need to be working on both of these at the same time.

Susan Lambert: 4:58

Hmm , that's interesting. 'Cause when we think about the world of early literacy too, kids come with vocabulary, some vocabulary already intact in terms of their oral language. So that must have an impact too, right?

Tanya S. Wright: 5:12

Of course, right? All children come with wonderful oral language and and lots of words to school. But then as we learn school things, right, new ideas maybe in science and social studies and mathematics or as we read texts, those all have specialized vocabulary that we need kids to learn to help to comprehend in those sort of school-based domains.

Susan Lambert: 5:37

Hmm . We are gonna get a little bit to some vocabulary instruction in a few minutes, but you talked about vocabulary being , um, knowing the meanings of words. So if I was gonna ask you what does it really mean to know a word, what would you say?

Tanya S. Wright: 5:54

I would say that we need a lot of information about that word and that a dictionary definition is really not enough, especially for little children where a dictionary definition is just gonna have a lot of other words that they don't know what it means in it. But often we think about an informal meaning of the word. If I ask you what a word means, you probably wouldn't give me the dictionary definition. We think about knowing synonyms or antonyms for a word. So, sleepy, fatigued, weary, they all mean tired, right? We think about categorical information, peaches and apples and strawberries are all fruit. We think about multiple meanings of a word. And especially multiple meanings in different contexts and different disciplines. So if I know what an egg is in my refrigerator, that doesn't mean that I understand the role of an egg in reproduction. And it doesn't mean that I know what it means when someone says, "I'm gonna egg you on." Right? So we also need to know how it's spelled, how it's pronounced. Maybe word parts might help us, right? So there's just so much information to learn about a word meaning, and we tend to learn that over time through a range of different information sources.

Susan Lambert: 7:09

And you don't just know a word and not know a word, right? So you learn words deeper and in more context and over time. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tanya S. Wright: 7:20

Yeah, absolutely. So typically we think about needing lots of exposures to meaningful information about a word. So just like anything else, right? We learn it bit by bit over time. So there's no expectation that the first time we explain a word to a child or we point to something and say that word, that they're going to just know it forever and know it perfectly, right? They're gonna build information over time. And that's really important because the more information we have about a word, the better we're gonna be when we encounter that word, for example, in a text or in a situation where we're doing some learning in one of the subject areas in school.

Susan Lambert: 8:03

I often think about words that, I think everybody has an example of a word that you really wanna try it out and you think you know what it means and you use it and it ends up you don't know what it means. And my example is salient. I was convinced I knew what that meant. And so I tried to use it and it was completely wrong.

Tanya S. Wright: 8:25

So, you know, how wonderful that you tried to use it. And I think in classroom spaces, we want to create opportunities for kids to try out new words, new things, even if they're not perfect the first time, we really wanna encourage it. So maybe you don't use it, you know, as the correct part of speech, or maybe you have a slightly different meaning in your head. But that's a wonderful opportunity to calibrate, you know, in a welcoming learning environment. Particularly with kids writing, this shows up, right? Where they only want to write words that they're sure, sure, sure they know what they mean, but how wonderful to say "Let's try some of those new vocabulary words that we've been learning!" You know, write those big words and if it's not perfect, we'll work on it together. And that's okay.

Susan Lambert: 9:12

I love that you mentioned writing, because typically when we talk about vocabulary, you know, we're, we're always talking about reading vocabulary or vocabulary related to reading comprehension, but how important is it to what you just said, help kids understand how to try to use those in writing? And I'm gonna make a guess here that we know receptive language always comes before expressive language. So if, if a child can use that vocabulary word in writing, do we have a pretty good sense that they have a solid and secure understanding of that word?

Tanya S. Wright: 9:45

So yes, right? We're typically able to know more about a word as a listener or as a reader than use it as a writer or a speaker. So we are super excited when kids use new words as writers and speakers and we want to encourage them to do that, even if they don't know it perfectly yet, because that means they really know it and they really hold it and they're ready to try to use it. So that's a really wonderful thing.

Susan Lambert: 10:10

How about any tips you have for sort of helping create this, this atmosphere of playing with words and trying them out, even if it's wrong, anything that you can suggest to teachers to create that environment?

Tanya S. Wright: 10:23

I think it's really a broader classroom environment beyond just vocabulary, right? I think we're really now talking about spaces that see kids as knowing things and as being able to try things and as brilliant, right? So I think we wanna create those spaces, not just for vocabulary, but across disciplines. And also really just valuing what kids bring to the classroom. Even if it's not perfect yet or if it's not exactly what adults would say, but really creating spaces where when kids try things and maybe it's not perfect or correct, we say "thank you for trying," right? That's wonderful. We always want to try new things and to be, to be learners, to be a community of learners.

Susan Lambert: 11:07

I love that. So this season is all about knowledge building, really, and we know the connection between knowledge and vocabulary. Can you talk a little bit about how those two things intersect?

Tanya S. Wright: 11:22

So we always learn new words when we learn new things, even as adults, think about maybe a hobby you've taken up, right? If you take up running, you know what a split is? If you take up gardening, you have to figure out what an annual is, and that might have a slightly different meaning than everyday use of that word. So no matter what is new that we take up, there are associated words, and that is true in classrooms as well. So as kids learn about new topics or new information, there's gonna be associated vocabulary that they need to even discuss that information in a classroom. And our job as teachers is to really make sure that we are including all children in the conversation and learning of the classroom. And that means being purposeful in ensuring that children have the vocabulary to participate in the learning of the classroom.

Susan Lambert: 12:17

Hmm . And I often talk to educators about knowledge building, the importance of knowledge building, but also that if you have knowledge of something, just like you said, you have the vocabulary associated with it, and we can't divorce those two things, either try to teach content in isolation or try to teach vocabulary in isolation, they're really reciprocal and related to each other.

Tanya S. Wright: 12:40

They are deeply integrated. And realistically, when we try to learn something new, we have to learn the ideas and then also the associated language to comprehend those ideas. You know, I had a personal experience of that, this, just recently, I had to have an MRI of my knee. And of course, you know, the reading of it, what the doctors say pops up in your portal before you actually have your doctor's appointment. And so you try to read it and I could pronounce all the words, but I had absolutely no idea what they meant. And even after looking those words up in the dictionary, I still had no idea what the doctor was gonna tell me actually had to happen about my knee, right? And I think, you know, that's the case with all topics or information, right? People who know them well know the information and what it means, but also the words associated with that information. You'll be happy to hear, my knee is fine, it looks like a normal knee for a person of my age. But you know, I had no idea that that's what they were going to tell me until I actually got into the doctor's appointment. And someone who understood the vocabulary and information could sort of translate that for me to everyday language.

Susan Lambert: 13:55

Well, I'm so glad to hear about your knee, but that is a great, that's a great example! I think we've all encountered those situations where we're way out of our realm of knowledge, if you will, or understanding. And so it all feels a little complicated and I love that you bring that up because if you then apply that to, let's say a kindergartner in the classroom, you know, you must have some examples of that as it relates to the classroom situation of kids that just really can't comprehend because they don't know the associated content.

Tanya S. Wright: 14:30

Yeah, I think that that's true. And when I talk kindergarten, here's a great example that I always think about. Um, I don't know if you've ever seen those hundreds math charts. You know, it's 10 numbers and then the next 10 numbers. And I was talking to kids about, which was a lower number, 10 or 20? And every child in that classroom claimed that 20 was a lower number. And it took me a while to figure out that 20 was lower down on the hundreds chart, right? It was below 10, right? So it was lower, just like my cubby is lower than your cubby because it's underneath, right? They thought I meant underneath. And that is a lovely reminder about how when we get in a discipline like math, lower has a very specific meaning. And the same is true for for reading texts, right? There are words in those texts that have very specific meanings. And when kids have a different idea of what it means or don't know what it means, we really need to help them. I like to say open the vocabulary gate to comprehension, right? Because it's gonna be very challenging for them to comprehend that text if they don't know or are not told or helped to figure out what that word means.

Susan Lambert: 15:44

That's a great example. And, and not just comprehending the text, but comprehending a task at hand for them academically.

Tanya S. Wright: 15:53

Yes. That's why I always say, you know, vocabulary is important for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and learning. Because everything that's happening in a classroom where kids are trying to learn vocabulary matters for all of it. And it matters because we are ensuring that when we help kids with vocabulary, they are included in the learning of the classroom. What we don't want is kids, you know, some may know the meaning that is intended in that learning, some may not. And those who do not, feel like they can't participate or are excluded or are not understanding. So it's really important that we're thinking about purposeful, planned, intentional vocabulary supports to make sure that everybody is included in the learning and can participate in the classroom.

Susan Lambert: 16:37

So what would you say to a teacher when they say, "Oh my goodness, but there's so many words that I could include. What words should I include?" You talked a little bit about purposeful and and planned. How do you suggest they think about those words that they should include ?

Tanya S. Wright: 16:56

The first thing I like to say is, don't not do it because there's so many words and it's overwhelming, because sometimes it feels so overwhelming that teachers are like, it doesn't matter, it's not worth it. Too many words to learn, right? So, so first of all, something is gonna be better than nothing in supporting and scaffolding kids to comprehend. What I like to say is think about the learning in the classroom and what is most important for that learning to include children. So if you're reading a fiction text, maybe there's some ideas about the plot of the text that could be very confusing if kids didn't know the meaning of the word. Pick those ones , right? There's gonna be a lot of words kids may not know in that book. Make sure they know the ones that help them to follow the text. In an informational text, there might be some important or main ideas that if you don't know what the word means, you're not gonna understand it. Preview those words, right? That's gonna help kids. Same thing if we're in disciplinary learning. If there are ideas that kids are figuring out or they're trying to make sense of something, once they start to figure it out and they notice there's something they need to name or there's something they need to say, that's a great time to help to teach those words so that they can fully articulate their ideas. So I really like to think about this as driven by kids' ideas and kids' learning and making sure that everyone gets to participate. And if we're doing that all the time across the day, every book, every subject, that's gonna be a lot of words . So we don't have to worry about how much of it we're doing if we're doing it all the time. Um, and so my book, I actually called "Vocabulary Across the Day" for that reason.

Susan Lambert: 18:31

Let's segue to your book because it's brilliant. I love the, not only do I love the content of that book, but I love the format that it's in. It's so digestible and so, congratulations on that. First, before we jump into maybe the content of it, what was the motivation for you to actually author that text?

Tanya S. Wright: 18:50

Well, first let me say that how it looks, there's wonderful team of graphic designers that did that. They're amazing. I didn't do that. So thank you for the graphic designers that made it look so beautiful. Um, what drove me to do this, I was really thinking about being a teacher myself or teachers that I work with, or literacy coaches that I work with in K–2 who are looking for what to do, you know, on Monday morning to support kids' vocabulary development. Maybe they know it's important, but they're not totally sure how to get up to supporting kids. And I would say the other thing that I really thought about with this book was especially our youngest learners in K–2, because sometimes we find that, you know, vocabulary is neglected as kids are learning to decode. We get very focused on decoding, which we should. Very important, of course kids need to learn to decode, but maybe at the expense of building knowledge and vocabulary. And we really need both to be happening in those early grades of school.

Susan Lambert: 19:56

We'll be right back. For this knowledge-focused season of the podcast, we've asked the finalists for the 2023 Science of Reading Star Awards to offer some of their thoughts and advice on knowledge building throughout this season. We're sharing some of their insights. This time we're hearing from Anne Elizabeth Carter , a kindergarten teacher from the Wake County Public School system in North Carolina. Anne was a winner of the Data Dynamo Award.

Anne Elizabeth Carter: 20:25

As a kindergarten teacher, sometimes it can be tricky to collect the data, you know, not only accurately but efficiently. You know, five- and six-year-olds are pretty independent, depending on the time of the year, however, just, you know, I'm sure you know, five- and six-year-olds, they need things to be very explicit. And so in order to collect accurate data, a lot of times that'll take us kind of sitting down one-on-one with the students and having those conversations and kind of digging deeper.e Data is one of the most important pieces, I think, to getting to know the students, taking that data, analyzing it, not just one type of data, but several different types of data. And then using that to plan your instruction. Having those data pieces on each of the children, it is super important in helping me understand just exactly where I need to go next with my instruction and how can I tailor that to better meet the needs of each individual student.

Susan Lambert: 21:33

That was Anne Elizabeth Carter , kindergarten teacher in the Wake County Public School system in North Carolina. Applications are now open for the third-annual Science of Reading Star Awards. Find out more information and submit a nomination at amplify.com/sor-star-awards. And now, back to our conversation with Dr. Tanya S. Wright . So I know you talked a little bit about integrating vocabulary across the curriculum and I think probably this is true for all grade levels, and I think sometimes we think of vocabulary as an ELA sort of endeavor. So can you talk a little bit about what that would look like, vocabulary across all the content areas?

Tanya S. Wright: 22:24

Yeah, so sometimes I think we think of vocabulary as an ELA thing, or we think of it as like a five-words-a-day, to study for your SATs, or you know, one magical word. So it's very out of context or add-on to the learning of the classroom. But if we remember that we learn new words when we learn new things, and hopefully we're learning lots of new things across the day in school, right? That's what school is for. There's lots of opportunities to integrate vocabulary into everything we do. So if we're doing an interactive read-aloud, we can teach vocabulary, whether that's happening during science or during ELA. If we are learning social studies, there are going to be wonderful words. Mathematics are going to be wonderful words. The arts, right? So what we are trying to do is support kids learning and give them the words they need to share their ideas across all the parts of the day, rather than making vocabulary a supplement or, you know, 10 minutes in ELA every day and that's it, because it's not realistic to how we use words in life and in learning.

Susan Lambert: 23:29

Hmm . And when we're thinking about particularly K–2, but this could apply to any grade levels of course, you mentioned the fact that sometimes in those early grades vocabulary or the sort of language development gets overlooked in order to get that word recognition in place. But I think one thing we know about vocabulary development is that, or language in general, is it takes longer, right? To develop some of these and, and vocabulary, like we said, isn't an either-or thing. And so how can we actually get this rich vocabulary to students in these early grades if they can't actually decode it themselves? What are some strategies that we could employ there?

Tanya S. Wright: 24:11

So just to go back to your first point. For sure, right? Scholars call vocabulary an unconstrained skill, because there are always more words to learn. So it's not the same as the letters of the alphabet, which is constrained, right? You know 'em or you don't. So there's always more words even as adults, which is wonderful. That's a wonderful opportunity.

Susan Lambert: 24:32

So how do we get that to, to young kids? Because for me, my vocabulary grows when I hear and listen and read and and write, frankly, when I'm trying to find the right word choice. How do we do that for kids when they can't yet decode those words on the page?

Tanya S. Wright: 24:47

Right. So from birth, when we are speaking to children and or reading aloud to children, we are teaching them vocabulary and words, right? Think about how babies learn new words. We point to things, we name it, we name it again, we name it again. Eventually they do an approximation, they say something similar and we celebrate and then we say it again. Right? So most of our words that we learn, especially as young children, are really through oral language interactions, typically with adults who know more words than the child. So as we interact with kids, we bring lots of wonderful words into the environment and then especially as we read aloud with children, because books often have specialized words that we don't use in our everyday oral language. And these special book words come up as we read with kids and we explain those words to kids and talk to them and show them what it means. That means, right, that we wanna be making sure that we're having interactive read-alouds, that we're having lots of knowledge-building activities as kids are learning to decode. And the hope is that it all sort of comes together. They're decoding fluently and they know what the words mean and they have a lot of knowledge to bring to making inferences about the text and they love reading and read a lot and are very successful readers. That's the goal.

Susan Lambert: 26:07

That's great. What did you say? Magical book words or something like that?

Tanya S. Wright: 26:11

Oh, special book words.

Susan Lambert: 26:12

Special book words.

Tanya S. Wright: 26:13

Right? Because realistically, in classrooms, when we are having a lot of the oral language interactions, especially in early childhood, right? Are things like, "let's put your coat on," "let's zip it up," "it's time to go outside," "what do you want for snack?" Right? So those are everyday oral language and they're very important, but we don't necessarily speak to kids in the ways that books present language, right? Or use language. So there's a lot to learn as children interact with texts.

Susan Lambert: 26:43

What would you say to those that say, "Oh, those words are too hard for a kindergartner, or a first grader, or a second grader, so we don't want to use words that are too hard for them"?

Tanya S. Wright: 26:54

No such thing. Kids learn the words that are in their environment. So if we use words with kids, that's what they say. Um, a favorite story from when I first started working on this, we were talking to kids about pets and which animals make good pets. And one of the things that came up was that pets should not be ferocious, right? And we taught little kids, these were four-year-olds, the word "ferocious." And a few days later we saw kids playing with plastic animals in the dramatic play area, and they were holding up, I think it might've been dinosaurs, and they were saying, "I'm fewocious." Right? They were so into it. Another example, a principal called me to tell me, we did a science unit with kids about how different clouds predict different types of weather. And the principal wanted to tell me that these kindergartners were waiting for the bus and they were having a very heated debate about whether the clouds in the sky were cumulonimbus clouds, because they knew that that kind of cloud were storm clouds, and if they were cumulonimbus clouds, they would not be able to go to baseball today because there'd be a storm and baseball would be canceled. So realistically, kids love to learn big words, they make use of them, they don't really differentiate it, so that's an adult imposition, right? Which ones are the big ones or which ones are the hard ones. If we use them with kids, they will use them, too, and enjoy it.

Susan Lambert: 28:20

That reminds me of a time I was observing in a classroom and the kids were learning about trees, plants , and trees, and they were having quite a conversation , um, if this particular tree was deciduous or if it was not deciduous. And so I was kind of blown away to hear those words come out of a kindergarten student, but it's really fun. It makes them feel like they're part of that conversation, which you talked about earlier in our conversation, is that it helps them feel part of that community or part of that knowledge-building exercise,

Tanya S. Wright: 28:54

You know, and they might not use the words correctly the first time, and that's okay. When my oldest daughter, who's now 16, was really little, I found her kind of crouched in her bed , um, kind of curved , uh, like curled up, and she was supposed to be sleeping. And I said, why are you curled up like that? You're supposed to be asleep. That doesn't seem like a really comfortable position for sleeping. And she said, "I'm being a knock-turtle." So she had heard the word "nocturnal" and she had heard "turtle." And so she decided she wanted to stay up at night and understood something about, if you're a turtle, you won't go to sleep. And so that remains a really funny story in our family. But how wonderful that she tried to figure out this word "nocturnal" and interpret it and applied it to her life.

Susan Lambert: 29:47

Yeah. And, and in ways that make a whole lot of sense, right?

Tanya S. Wright: 29:50

Sure, if you hear it as "nocturtle," you might think you have to be a turtle if you wanna stay up late.

Susan Lambert: 29:56

Well, you have a new book out. So your newest book is called "Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers." So I know it's a little bit broader than just knowledge and vocabulary, that book, is that correct?

Tanya S. Wright: 30:11

Yeah. It really talks about all of the literacy learning that we're hoping to see in our early childhood classrooms with children birthed through age five.

Susan Lambert: 30:21

Such a need for sure. Can you tell us a little bit about those influences on early learning for both knowledge and vocabulary?

Tanya S. Wright: 30:29

Sure. We have a whole chapter called "Clever Communicators," and it's all about building oral language, vocabulary, and knowledge with young children. And really, if you think about everything that I've been saying so far, it's the idea that we give kids new experiences, right? Which for four-year-olds could be things like observing what's going on in their school yard , right? It doesn't have to be, you know, a field trip to the next city or something like that. Right? So it can be small things that are still new for them that help them learn about their world and really how we talk to kids about the new things that they're learning, the new ideas, and that we scaffold and plan opportunities for young children to learn new things, to read texts. Obviously we're reading aloud with them, but to participate in the reading of texts, to engage in discussions and conversations and with our youngest learners to really try to encourage kids to have multi-turn conversations, right? Not just the kid says one word and the teacher says "right." But really encouraging their talk because, like you pointed out, it's the using of the words that really helps them to share their ideas. And then we really know that they know the meaning of those new words.

Susan Lambert: 31:45

Hmm . And it seems to me this information that's in this book, since its birth through age five, would be great to get to parents and caregivers. Is there any momentum that you know of to try to get this information to parents and caregivers to help support the language development of their own children ?

Tanya S. Wright: 32:05

Well, I'm not writing that book right now, but , um, I could! But yeah, no, of course we want families to talk with their children, just, it doesn't have to be some special big activity, right? It doesn't have to be a trip to the zoo. It could be walking around the neighborhood and talking about what we see and what we notice. And that's wonderful. Right? Let's see what's going on with the squirrels in our neighborhood and what are they up to this time of year. That's plenty. There's lots to say and lots to discuss all about that. So I think just looking for opportunities to talk with children about everything that they're up to. And then also, of course, reading books with children, all different kinds of books. Sometimes parents think only storybooks for little ones, but informational books as well. Kids get really interested in learning about the world. So making sure we're exposing kids to a range of books and talking with them about the ideas in those books, including encouraging kids to say what they're thinking and their ideas.

Susan Lambert: 33:09

Hmm . That's great. And when you do write that book for parents and caregivers, let us know and we'll get you on for another episode.

Tanya S. Wright: 33:16

Sounds good.

Susan Lambert: 33:18

So you've been, you've been thinking about vocabulary for a really long time. How has your thinking changed about the approach to vocabulary from when you first started researching?

Tanya S. Wright: 33:29

I think I used to really think a lot about kids learning individual words and which are the right words. And now I think much more about kids learning, kids learning of new things and how we can build vocabulary instruction into all of that. So I think I have a maybe more holistic view about how vocabulary fits into everything we do. Just the more I learn , the more I realize it's not just about learning, you know, words that are gonna be on your SAT some day or in a New York Times article. It's really all the words that let kids participate in all the learning in the classroom. And that if we're doing that repeatedly over time, we're gonna get a lot of words to kids, right? They're gonna learn a lot of words. So I think rather than figuring out which are the best five words that we must learn this week, is really to think about this as an all-the-time teaching practice where we ensure that kids know the important words for their learning. And I think if we're doing that regularly, they're gonna be able to comprehend texts, right? Because they're gonna learn and know a lot of words.

Susan Lambert: 34:43

And when we start getting them in the habit of that, in the early grades, like to your point earlier, it's really an unconstrained, vocabulary's unconstrained. So just like kids in kindergarten are learning words in their context, just like you were trying to learn new words and with your MRI and in the report, right? Once we build that habit of being curious about words in their context, we continue that for the rest of our lives.

Tanya S. Wright: 35:08

I hope so. And you know what's really lovely in a classroom is when children initiate conversations about words and they say, "What does that word mean?" Or they're engaging in discussions about what a word means, and we can support that too, right? We wanna make sure that we're teaching kids vocabulary strategies so that they can figure out a new word when they encounter it and maybe are not in the learning situation of the classroom or someone's planned that for them. So just like we teach decoding strategies, what do you do when you get to a word that you don't automatically recognize? Or we teach comprehension strategies. What do you do when you don't understand, you're reading along and something is tricky. Same thing with vocabulary strategies. What do you do when you get to a word, you know it's important, but you don't know what it means? What are some things you can try as a reader? So we definitely teach kids those things so that they can gain as much as possible independently as they read text, and pay attention to vocabulary.,

Susan Lambert: 36:10

Anything new you're thinking about in terms of research looking forward?

Tanya S. Wright: 36:15

Yeah. So much of my work right now is really about developing curriculum for kids where I actually work in science curriculum a lot of the time with very young children, K–2, a space where we often see science pushed out of the classroom because there's so much to do about ELA and literacy. And I really argue that learning new things opens up opportunities for more literacy learning. So my current work is really developing science curricula with integrated literacy learning, including, of course, lots of vocabulary as kids develop in their science understandings and ideas.

Susan Lambert: 36:54

That's amazing. Well, as we sort of wrap up, do you have any final words of advice for educators as it relates to knowledge and vocabulary?

Tanya S. Wright: 37:04

Start somewhere. If you're not having science and social studies, step one, you need to have those times of day. We have a lot of evidence that those are places where lots of new vocabulary come up and kids need to build that knowledge to support future text comprehension. So if those are being pushed out of the school day, that's something to really fight to have back , um, those times of day. Teach some words, integrate vocabulary into a unit, see what happens when we teach kids lots of wonderful words and they get using them. I think teachers who start to do this get really excited when they see kids using wonderful words to share their ideas, and it'll make you wanna do more. And I think the last thing is work with your colleagues. So it can feel really challenging to have to do planful vocabulary instruction. You know, for every read-aloud that, how do I get started on that? Or for all the science for the whole year, how do I get started on that? But I think we just split it up, right? If each teacher takes three books and plans, a vocabulary-focused interactive read-aloud, and there's four teachers at a grade level, that's 12 books that are planned. Or if each teacher takes one science unit and really thinks about weaving in more vocabulary instruction and you do three science units a year, that's great. You just planned the year, right? And you can use it again the following year. So I think just getting started, and I think if teachers are not already doing this, they're gonna be impressed by what young children can do. They're amazing. They're brilliant, and they love to use big words.

Susan Lambert: 38:36

Well, Dr. Tanya Wright, thank you so much for joining us and we will link our listeners in the show notes to both of these books that we talked about. And it was just a pleasure to have you here today. So thank you very much.

Tanya S. Wright: 38:48

Thank you so much.

Susan Lambert: 38:52

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Dr . Tanya S. Wright, associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Check out the show notes for links to some of the resources we discussed, including the books, "A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day," and "Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers." Let us know what you thought of this conversation 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, a fascinating conversation with a cognitive scientist, Maryanne Wolf, about the reading brain and much more, including the impact of technology on reading.

Maryanne Wolf: 39:49

This is becoming, you know, one of the most, if you will, pernicious invisible threats to reading as well as one of the great advantages, because it both increases what you can read, but potentially short-circuits how you read.

: 40:08

That's coming up next time. Don't miss that or any other upcoming episodes by subscribing to Science of Reading: The Podcast wherever you find your podcasts. While you're there, please consider giving us a rating and review. Thank you again for listening.