METHODS FOR TEACHING Things and The Words
That Signify Them
Things
The term things is adopted from Roger
Brown’s book Words and Things: An
Introduction to Language (Free Press, 1958). The word things as used here refers to any
object feeling action or idea
in the real or imaginary world. It is assumed there is
nothing in the entirety of the physical, intellectual and social universes that
cannot be classified into one of these four categories. Brown is not the only, or even the first,
person to use things as a shorthand
referent to any or every object, feeling, action, or idea: moralists such as
Things
do not move from one category to another. True, the word depression may signify
an object (an indentation or dip), a feeling (sad, lonely, etc.) or an action
(“the stock market is depressed”); but these are all different things. It just
happens that these different things are signified by the same word.
Word
Words are a series of sounds
(phonemes) or written letters (graphemes) that signify one or more things. The
association between a word and its meaning—the thing it signifies—is arbitrary
and must be learned. One word may signify more than one thing: e.g., depression
signifying a dent or dip, a feeling, or an action. Knowing what meaning a word
has—or what a word signifies—often depends upon the context in which it is
used.
Direct Teaching
Direct
teaching of meaning vocabulary means explicitly teaching the child the meaning
of a word(s). Direct teaching
occurs in many ways, not just teaching in the classroom: e.g.,
- repetitive naming (What’s that? Is that a ?)
- labeling in mother-child interaction (Roger
Brown)
- picture books for pre-school children
- parents reading picture books to pre-school
children
- direct teaching of vocabulary
- lists of words to be learned in secondary schools
- glossaries, etc. in textbooks.
Direct Teaching: RINS
Peters, Charles (1974-1975). “A
comparison between the Frayer model of concept
attainment and the textbook approach to concept attainment” (abstract). International Reading Association Outstanding Dissertation. Reading Research Quarterly,
10, 252-254.
Working with the Dorothy Frayer model of concept learning, Charles Peters (1974-75)
experimentally contrasted two methods of teaching concepts (things and their
words) and found that the following four steps of instruction led to
significantly better learning of concepts than did the traditional method of
looking up definitions.
a. define the thing’s relevant attributes
(i.e., where it belongs in the world of things or the intrinsic qualities
common to all examples of this thing);
b. state its irrelevant attributes (i.e.,
qualities or specific types that are not endemic to all examples of the thing);
c. state non-examples (i.e., plausible
alternatives to test the student to see if s/he has learned the distinguishing
characteristics); and
d. state its relation to other similar
concepts.
In
the Center for Literacy and Reading Instruction, we use the acronym RINS to
refer to Peters’ methods for directly teaching a thing and the word that
signifies that thing:
R is for the
thing’s Relevant
attributes,
I is for the
thing’s Irrelevant
attributes,
N is for Non-examples of the thing, and
S is for the
word’s relation to Similar
things.
Note that this method is for teaching a student a
concept that is not known—which means that the word signifying that concept would also not be
known. The major task of the teaching here, however, is not teaching the word,
but teaching the concept to which the word is associated. Teaching a student
another word (e.g., synonym) for a word and concept the student already knows
does not involve instruction as elaborate as RINS (e.g., swift for fast, tome for book).
Example: atoll
1. Relevant attributes: island that is ring shaped, made of coral and
encircles a lagoon
2. Irrelevant attributes: size, location (which ocean), inhabited/non-inhabited
3. Non-examples: coral reef, desert island,
4. Relation to similar concepts: relation to islands, peninsulas
RINS is not only a guideline for teachers to help
them plan the direct teaching of a concept, but it is also a very useful
cognitive organizer that students may apply when trying to learn a
concept. RINS is a good rubric for
helping the student focus attention the essential requirements of learning the
sense of a word’s meaning. That is, to learn a thing or concept, students need to
know that they must know the relevant and irrelevant attributes of the thing
and be able to non-similar and similar things. RINS is an acronym that will
help them remember the aspects of a concept that they must attend to.
Direct Teaching: Concept of Definition
Schwartz, Robert M., & Raphael,
Taffy E. (1985). Concept of
definition: A key to improving students’ vocabulary. The
Schwartz, Robert M. (1988). Learning
to read vocabulary in content area textbooks. Journal of
Schwartz and Raphael’s ideas for teaching the
meaning of a specific word when the student does not already know the concept
that present are not much different than Peters’ and RINS. Further, their
framework can also be conceived as a cognitive organizer of the major aspects
of a concept. Again, like RINS, Schwartz and Raphael’s Concept of Definition
not only provides a guide for the teacher for planning how to teach a specific
concept or thing, but it also provides a cognitive organizer for students to
know the features of a concept to which they must attend as they are trying to
that concept. Their framework contains four major components which are arranged
as shown in the following figure. The software package Inspiration provides a
template for the Concept of Definition, though it has a slightly different
appearance than the one Schwartz and Raphael published.
Schwartz
and Raphael’s Inspiration’s
Template for
Concept
of Definition Defining
Concepts
Key Words, Mnemonics
Pressley, Michael, Levin, Joel R.,
& McDaniel, Mark A. (1987).
Remembering versus inferring what a word means: Mnemonic and contextual
approaches. In Margaret G. McKeown & Mary E.
Curtis (Eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition (pp.
107-128).
“The most common version of the keyword method
involves construction of interactive visual images. The learner generates an
image of the definition referent interacting with a keyword, which is simply a
familiar concrete word that resembles a salient part of the unfamiliar word.” (Pressley, Levin, & McDaniel, 1987, p. 109).
e.g.,
The word carlin means old woman.
Using the keyword car, a student is
able to generate a visual image of an old woman driving a car. When the student
next sees the word carlin,
a connection will be seen between the car in carlin because of the acoustic similarity of the two, which
in turn is supposed to lead to the visual image containing the old woman.
Key
words do not have to be generated by the learner, which is important because
younger students (e.g., pre-grade four) will have much difficulty generating
keyword images. Teachers may generate these images for younger students, and
research findings support the conclusion that such teacher-generated keyword
images do facilitate learning new word meanings. Research findings support the
use of the keyword method with average students, low-ability students, and
students encountering reading or learning problems.
Contextual Vocabulary
Acquisition (CVA)
Sternberg’s Views on CVA
Sternberg, Robert J. (1987). Most vocabulary is
learned from context. In Margaret G. McKeown &
Mary E. Curtis (Eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition (pp.
89-105).
Sternberg, Robert J., & Powell,
Janet S. (1983). Comprehending verbal comprehension. American Psychologist, 38, 878-893.
A. CVA and Knowledge Acquisition Processes
1. Selective
Encoding—separating relevant from irrelevant information
2. Selective
Combination—combining relevant cues
3. Selective
Comparison—comparing new information (from text) with previous information
(good examples are Linus Pauling’s
“fitting new thing into his picture of the world” and G.B. Shaw’s Major Barbara
who’s “spirit was troubled” upon learning something new, to which her father
said, “You have learnt something. That always feels as if you have lost
something.”
B. Contextual Cues
1. Temporal
Cues: duration or frequency of X.
2. Spatial
Cues: locations, possible locations where X may be found.
3. Value Cues:
the worth or desirability of X.
4.
Stative Descriptive Cues: properties of X such as color, size, shape, odor,
feel, etc.).
5. Functional Descriptive Cues: possible
purposes or uses of X or actions or functions X can do.
6.
Causal/Enablement Cues: possible causes of X or enabling conditions of
X.
7. Class
Membership Cues: class(es) to which X belongs, or other members of class(es) to which X belongs.
8. Equivalence
Cues: specific referents to meaning or opposite meaning (e.g., restatement,
definition in parenthesis or sentence phrase/dependent clause).
C. Moderating Variables
1. Number of times X occurs.
2. Variability in the contexts in which X
occurs.
3..
Importance of X to comprehending the text in which X appears.
4. Helpfulness of surrounding context.
5. Density of unknown words in text.
6. Ability to retrieve prior knowledge, recognize its relevance, and apply it.
Lee Deighton’s Context Clues
(adapted from Lee Deighton, 1974)
Deighton,
Lee. (1974). Vocabulary
development in the classroom.
a. Definition: an outright definition of the
word, term or phrase; usually the unknown word is followed by a form of the
word be—e.g.,
• clones are; a
computer is
b. Examples: usually include signal words that
indicate an example is about to follow—e.g.,
• such, such as, like, especially, for example, other, this or
these (followed by a synonym), the way, in the way that
c. Modifiers: phrases, clauses or words often
coming after a linking verb—e.g.,
• The
women’s movement, which seeks equality with men, is . . . .
d. Restatement, used most frequently: the
writer’s conscious restatement when recognizing that more needs to be said that
usually includes signal word–e.g.,
• in other
words; i.e.; that is; that is to say; —
— (dashes); ( ) (parentheses); bold face type; italics; the word or plus a synonym (e.g., things or
concepts); appositives (e.g., Abe Lincoln, our 16th president, was very . . . )
e. Inference: requires the reader to
distinguish sentences that develop a thought and sentences that rephrase a
thought. Inferences are not explicit and not directly teachable.
f. Inferences with established
connections—e.g.,
• parallel sentence structure;
• repetition of key words;
• restatement in opposites or same;
• connecting
words such as: yet, hence, thus, therefore, thereupon.
Babe Ruth hit the over the fence.
This differs a great deal
from using context for word meaning—which
is when the reader (usually an upper-elementary reader or better) is able to
identify the word (sound it out probably), but does not know its meaning: i.e.,
The palimpsest made reading the work difficult.
Context for word meaning is
different than context for word recognition. Bear this in mind in reading
1. Clues derived from language experience or familiar
expressions (idioms).
I
wonder how much the security of the country is being safeguarded by the paunchy
reservist who spends one evening a week at the Reserve center thacing (chewing)
the fat with the boys, thereby escaping from the dishes at home.
2. Clues using modifying phrases or clauses.
She
ran but he caught up with her, knocked her down and shoered (slashed) her repeatedly
with a knife.
3. Clues using definition or description.
Some
even looked alive, though no steet (blood) flowed beneath the skin.
4. Clues provided through words connected or in a series.
Could
any one man have poured out all the beauty and truth of the sonnets and grods (plays) of
William Shakespeare?
5. Comparison or contrast clues.
What
will we do with all this spare time?
Will it be a blessing or a fome (bane)?
6. Synonym clues.
Their
achievement was so breath-taking that it whodeted (provoked) – and still
provokes – a kind of idolatry and the great controversy.
7. Clues provided by tone, setting, and mood of text.
Not
a single chair was to be seen, and my whole body was trembling from the maodly (deadly)
chill that had entered my veins.
8. Referral clues.
In
the next 24 hours 290 babies will die, either at birth or before reaching their
first birthday. This is 2 ½ times the
number of lives that will be lost in auto accidents in the same rugoul (period),
and exceeds the total claimed in a day by lung, breast and stomach cancer.
9. Association clues.
Surely
it will take a hundred Louvres and
10.
Clues derived
from the main idea or supporting details pattern of paragraph organization.
However,
I soon found a spemgelan
(practical) use for it. I began storing
orange juice in it, since it fitted nicely inside the refrigerator.
11.
Clues provided
through the question-answer pattern of paragraph organization.
Now
it’s becoming interesting to ask, “How does the human brain do it?” And, for the first time, within the last year
or two, we’re vocting
(getting) a real idea of that.
12.
Preposition
clues.
A little later, as he sped northward along a
13.
Clues utilizing
non-restrictive clauses or appositive phrases (an appositive is a placement of
a word or expression beside another so that the second explains and has the
same grammatical elements as the first).
14.
Clues derived
from cause and effect pattern of paragraph and sentence organization.
Foremost,
of course, drivers need to realize that by cheating the insurance companies,
they are only pushing their own premiums lorter (higher).