CHAPTER 9

CHILDREN WHO LACK BACKGROUND EXPERIENCES AND/OR VOCABULARY

You will find that some of your students have very limited background experiences. They may not know many words or know an accurate word for a given situation. Often these children refer to objects and ideas as thingee or by some other general term. They may be from families with limited resources and education. Perhaps their parents cannot read so they have never read to children. Obviously, your student cannot understand what he reads if he does not know what the words mean. Your task in working with these children is a challenging one.

Manzo and Manzo (1993) indicate that vocabulary is acquired initially in four ways:

• reading and conversation
• direct instruction
• self-instruction (looking words up in dictionary)
• through mental manipulation while thinking, speaking, and writing.

In order to help your student develop vocabulary, the four means of acquiring vocabulary are key (p. 270). You will use each of them at some time.

STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP VOCABULARY

Conversation

Talk to your child about things of interest to him. When you notice him struggling for a word or using a general term when a more specific one is appropriate, work that word into the conversation. With practice you can do this without seeming to lecture. Conversation, the most casual way to teach vocabulary, may develop from books you read with your child. Do not assume he knows the meanings of words used in speech or print.

Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever

Direct instruction of words can result from looking at Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever which has 48 categories of words, with most categories on a double page. For example, the first category is The New Day with pictures about what a person does in the morning to get ready for the day, such as brushing teeth, putting on one's clothes, and washing. The page facing these illustrated activities has different things one might eat for breakfast such as juice, pancakes, cereal, milk, toast, jam, and butter. At the bottom of the page are labeled dishes and utensils that could be used at breakfast. The words are in a context in this book and are nicely illustrated. Besides talking about the illustrations and the words, the child could dictate a language experience story using a specific number of words from the page. This story could then be used for reading instruction.

Find a New Word

You could get your student to focus on words he has never heard before by encouraging him to tell you a new word he has learned. You could make this reciprocal by telling him about a word you think he probably does not know. Keep a list of words you want to use this way and if he knows the first one you mention, tell him about the next one. This strategy causes your student to focus on words and learning them. You may want to keep a list of words he has learned while working with you. This will be concrete evidence of the progress he is making.

What It's Not

When you have a word that you want your student to learn, you can talk about what it is. The student may have more fun talking about what it is not. For example, if the word is principal, you should first explain that the principal is the head of the school. What the principal is not is a kid, a student, a teacher, a blackboard, a cook, an office, or a sliding board.

Context

When your student encounters an unknown word in his reading, show him how he can determine the meaning of the word by thinking aloud your thought processes in unlocking the word's meaning, based on context.

Making Words from a Root Word

Another activity or game you can play is to see how many words your student can make from a root word such as happy. He might be able to produce words such as unhappy, happiness, and happier. These families of words can be written, discussed, displayed, and reviewed throughout your time in working with that student.

Analyze the Word

You can analyze the word to help the child understand what it is. For example, if the unknown idea is storytime, you can talk about what a story is and what time is. Then put the two ideas together and ask the child what he thinks would occur in a storytime.

What's Another Word?

The game called What's Another Word is one you can play in those odd moments when you do not have time to start a new activity but cannot send the child back to class. The tutor says, "I'm thinking of the word friend. What's another word that means friend?" The student responds and you record in writing his responses that might include words like, bud, buddy, chum, and pal. As the year progresses, you may add words to your friend list.

Journal

Because some of the same thought processes are used in reading and writing, it is a good idea to write with your student. Using a notebook or pages stapled together, write a note to your student and ask him to respond in writing. A dialogue journal is a means of getting to know your student, getting him to write, and it can be a place for you to introduce new vocabulary. The purpose of the journal is to communicate with your student. You can write him about your activities at or away from school and he can respond about his activities. Poor handwriting and spelling are ignored because the point of the journal is communication. You can make vocabulary building a secondary goal by including words that you believe are unknown to your student.

Mapping

Mapping is a process of visually displaying word associations. This is based on the notion that everything that is learned is based on something that is known and understood. For instance, if the unknown word were shovel, then you would write that word in the center of the board or paper. Have the child think of related words and place them in categories around shovel. Words that he thinks of might include hose, faucet, hoe, garden, flower, vegetable, grave, seeds, hole, sweat, work, and cemetery.

Word Sorts

Lay out about 20 of the student's flashcards, face-up. Select four or five of the words that are semantically related and lay them in a separate place. Tell the student that these words have something in common and have him guess the common feature. For instance, if you selected play, run, hop, walk, and sing, the commonality could be that they are all things that you do. Of course if the student gives a plausible answer but not the one you had in mind, you should give him credit. Then the roles are reversed and the student selects words and the tutor guesses what they have in common.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Reading to your students will be helpful to their vocabulary and background development. Because vocabulary is most readily developed by reading and discussion and background experience deficits are helped by the vicarious adventure of reading and by discussion about events, you may find that the best things you can do for your students is to read to them and talk with them.

The gift of creative reading, like all natural

gifts, must be nourished or it will atrophy.

And you nourish it in much the same way

you nourish the gift of writing--you read, think,

talk, look, listen, hate, fear, love, weep--

and bring all your life like a sieve to what you

read. That which is not worthy of your gift

will quickly pass through, but the gold remains.

--Katherine Paterson