Morphemes, Cognates, & Vocabulary: A GTN Study

Kenneth McKee and Emily Dodson

Buncombe County Schools

Charles D. Owen High School

Using Action Research

To Empower North Carolina EducatorsA Race to the Top Initiative

NC Department of Public Instruction

Educator Effectiveness Division

Outcomes

Distinguish between Tier 1, 2, and 3 vocabulary.

Explain the connection between Tier 2 vocabulary and morphology (roots, prefixes, and suffixes).

Play the role of students in an intervention lesson.

Design a lesson incorporating morphological instruction, connected reading, and games to support vocabulary acquisition.

Articulate to ways to support ELLs’ vocabulary development.

What is Action Research?

Systematic inquiry conducted by teachers and other educators to find solutions for critical, challenging, relevant issues in their classrooms and schools.

(Mills, 2014)

What is Action Research?

Main Goals Include:

•Positively impact student outcomes

•Identify and promote effective instructional practices

•Create opportunities for teachers to become reflective practitioners

•Share research results with other educators

(Mills, 2014)

What is Action Research?

A systematic research process to:● Identify an area of focus (critical, challenging

issue)

● Develop an action research plan

● Implement action research plan in classroom/school

● Collect, analyze, and interpret data

● Share findings to inform practice

(Mills, 2014)

Improving English Language Learners’ Academic Vocabulary

Problem of Practice:

How can I systematically and effectively improve English Language Learners' general academic

(or Tier 2) word knowledge?

What do you already know about Word Tiers?

Tier 1 words:

Tier 2 words:

Tier 3 words:

Word Bank

Adjust Depend Mitosis SadAllegory Girl Monarchy StructureBook Hypotenuse Run Translation

3 Tiers of Vocabulary

Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3

Everyday Words High Frequency Content Specific

(common in speech) Multiple Meaning

All Contents

(commonly written)

Zwiers, J. (2008). Building academic vocabulary: Essential practices for content classrooms, grades 5-12. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Word Tiers

Tier 1

(everyday speech words)

Tier 2

(general academic

vocabulary)

Tier 3

(domain-specific vocabulary)

Basic words that require little to no instruction.

Precise or sophisticated words that appear across domains.

Low-frequency words that appear in specific domains.

Book, girl, sad, run, etc.

Adjust, translation, depend, structure, etc.

Allegory, monarchy, hypotenuse, mitosis, etc.

Any Comments on Word Tiers

Thoughts?

Ah-has?

Why is general academic vocabulary important?

• Students who lack extensive knowledge of general academic vocabulary are at a serious disadvantage in academic environments (Baumann & Graves, 2010; Coxhead, 2000).

• General academic vocabulary is most commonly an academic barrier for English Language Learners (ELL’s) and economically disadvantaged native English speakers (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2010).

Why is it important?

Limited Tier 2 vocabulary inhibits:

• Reading comprehension• Writing• Academic discourse• Achievement on assessments

Why is it important?

Secondary teachers teach domain-specific vocabulary, but general academic vocabulary (Tier 2) often goes untaught.

Blob Tree

Which blob best represents how you feel about about teaching general academic (Tier 2) vocabulary?

When the music stops, find someone with a different blob and discuss why you chose it.

Blob Tree

Now let’s think-pair-square, join with another pair and discuss your blobs!

This time introduce your original partner to the new pair.

Share his/her blob and reasoning.

Numbered Heads Together

Number off your group 1 through 4.

Discuss the following question:

“Why is Tier 2 vocabulary difficult to teach?”

We’ll roll dice to determine which group members will share.

Who would benefit from this research?

Any educator who works with English Language Learners – so…

pretty much any 21st century educator!

What Does Peer-Reviewed Research say about my focus area?

•Vocabulary should be connected to real reading (Bear et al., 2012; Donnelly & Roe, 2010; Kelley et al., 2010; Hiebert& Lubliner, 2008).

•Vocabulary should be introduced early in lessons (Donnelly & Roe, 2010; Flanigan, Templeton, & Hayes, 2012).

•Students need frequent opportunities (reading, talking, writing, playing games) to use words (Kelley et al., 2010; Townsend, 2009).

What Does Peer-Reviewed Research say about my focus

area?•Tier 2 words are morphologically complex.

•Morphemes generally retain meanings across languages.

Morph (shape,form); ology (study of)

(Bear et al., 2012; Coxhead, 2000; Hiebert & Lubliner, 2008)

Generative Morphology

Prefixes

Suffixes

Roots

Students generate“known” words to link to“new”

words.

(Bear et al., 2012)

Cognate Knowledge

• Better comprehension in English texts correlates with the ability to see cognate relationships.

• Worse comprehension for students who do not recognize cognate relationships.

(Nagy et al., 1993)

What Does Peer-Reviewed Research say about my focus

area?Generative vocabulary principles include:

1. move from concrete and familiar to more abstract and unfamiliar,

2. model and demonstrate generative processes to guide students, and

3. apply knowledge in support of individual learning.

(Bear et al., 2012; Flanigan, Templeton, & Hayes, 2012).

What Does Peer-Reviewed Research say about my focus

area?Teaching students how words work, so they make inferences and connections between words, may be more efficient than teaching individual general academic words.

(Flanigan, Templeton, & Hayes, 2012; Hiebert & Lubliner, 2008)

Any Comments on the Research

Thoughts?

Ah-has?

Concerns?

Procedures?

Fun Facts about Tier 2 Vocabulary

We are going to use Plickers in order to learn some more about what research says about Tier 2 words.

How will this innovation benefit students?

• Increase Tier vocabulary of selected words.• Use morphology to infer meanings of Tier 2

words in any reading.• Improve speaking vocabulary.• Increase students’ abilities to leverage first

language knowledge in learning English.• Increase engagement in vocabulary learning.

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lan Focus Statement

How can I systematically and effectively improve English Language Learners' general academic (Tier 2) word knowledge?

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lan Purpose of the Study

To determine the impact of morphological instruction on the general academic vocabulary development of English Language Learners in a high school setting.

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lan Study Participants

• Four ESL students

• First language is Spanish

• In the U.S. between one and three years.

• 3 boys and 1 girl

• Other students participated in class activities…

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lan Study Variables

•General academic vocabulary knowledge - the familiarity students have with sophisticated words that appear in texts regardless of the discipline. These words are often untaught as many teachers focus on the discipline-specific words students must know for their content areas.

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English Language Learners- students whose first language is not English. Although the English mastery of each student in the class varies, none of the students are considered proficient in English by ACCESS tests of language, reading, and writing.

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lan Research Questions

• Does morphological knowledge assist students in unlocking the meanings of general academic vocabulary?

• Which instructional strategies best develop students’ general academic word knowledge?

• What impact does using student background word knowledge have upon new word learning?

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lan Innovation/Intervention

1. Teacher selects short, engaging text.

2. A Tier 2 word from the text is selected for vocabulary instruction.

3. The word is introduced before reading the text .

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4. Teacher provides explicit instruction on the meaning of morphemes within the word.

5. Student groups generate English and Spanish words that share morphemes and meaning with the target morpheme. These words are collected on a poster.

6. Teacher will introduce other words to students that are morphologically related.

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7. Students will read, making note of target words and morphologically-related words.

8. Target words and morphologically-related words will be regularly integrated through vocabulary games.

Selecting Texts

• Pre-Survey about Student Interests

• Student Responses

Selecting Texts

Word Generation Mini-Lessons

Cognates

Target Word Introduction

(Nat)ive= associated with the country, region, or

circumstances of a person's birth.

Nat - (occasionally nais or nasc) – birth

Nav-, nat, nac- en espanol

Word Generation Mini-Lessons

Nat = birth

English (sometimes nais, nasc)

Espanol(sometimes

nav, nac)

Word Generation Mini-Lessons

Let’s go!

Reading Instruction

Reading Instruction: Building Background/Creating InterestWe will use visuals to spur thinking.

• Describe details you can observe in the pictures.

• What are similarities and differences you see in the two pictures?

• What are your reactions to these two pictures?

Reading Instruction

Go ahead, and make some notes about your personal reactions to Pharrell’s dress on the T-chart.

Reading Instruction: Reading for Purpose

As you read the Newsela article,

“Native Americans urge others to stop wearing feathered headdresses,” adapted from The Kansas City Star…

Collect evidence on the T-chart that would support either position.

Reading Instruction: Synthesizing Evidence

Use your thoughts and textual evidence to write a statement representing your argument.

We have included some sentence frames to assist you.

Games

Kahoot!

This is a review game we played after studying the following morphemes:

• Con-, com-, co-, cor- = together, with• Rupt = break• Nat = birth

Let’s play!

Brainburst

1. Select a root. Set a timer for two minutes. Each team generates as many words as possible derived from that root.

2. When timer goes off, each group draws a line under their last word and counts the total number of words.

3. The group with the longest list reads the list aloud. If any other group has the word, it is crossed off from all lists. Any words that are not on another list are crossed off.

Brainburst

4. Each group in turn reads any words that have not been called to determine if they have a unique word. Disputes can be settled with the help of a dictionary.

5. The team with the most unique words wins the round.

Questions about the Lesson

Thoughts?

Ah-has?

Concerns?

Procedures?

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Dat

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ecte

d Data Collected

Quantitative

•Adapted vocabulary knowledge rating pretest and posttest

•Student attitude surveys

Qualitative

•Ongoing interviews with the regular classroom teacher

•Student interviews

•Researcher journal

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Vocabulary lessons had a positive impact on Tier 2 word knowledge. (46%)

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Related (but not explicitly taught) word knowledge grew! (31%)

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Students said:

• Studying word parts helps them learn new words.

• Studying word parts is interesting.

• Talking about words helps them learn.

• Making words with word parts is enjoyable.

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Cognate Relationships work!

Every student strongly agreed with this statement:

Comparing how words parts are used in English and Spanish helps me learn words.

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Highly effective strategies included:

• Morpheme anchor charts

• Connecting vocabulary to text

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Bonus: High Student Engagement!

• Game play• Thematic units around

student interests• Modeling reading and

vocabulary activities• Movement

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• Morphology should be explicitly taught

• Context clues can assist “within-word” knowledge of morphemes, but they are not enough alone.

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• Morphology instruction is more successful when it is connected to words in informational texts

• Student engagement increases when informational texts relate to their interests.

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• Integrating cognates utilizes student background knowledge for new word learning

• Exploring cognates shows students the value of their first language in learning English

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• Anchor charts both provide scaffolding and inspiration in word learning.

• Games are awesome!

Any Questions About Data and Findings

Thoughts?

Ah-has?

Concerns?

Procedures?

Build Your Own Lesson!

Either scan the QR Code or use the following address to access materials to construct your own lesson.

Conclusion of Presentation

Kenneth McKee, Buncombe County Schools

(828)230-3286

Kenny.mckee@bcsemail.org

Kennycmckee.com; @kennycmckee

Emily Dodson, Owen High, Buncombe County Schools

Emily.dodson@bcsemail.org

References

Baumann, J. F., & Graves, M. F. (2010). What is academic vocabulary? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1), 4-12.

doi:1598/JAAL. 54.1.1

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238. doi:10.2307/3587951

Donnelly, W. B., & Roe, C. J. (2010). Using sentence frames to develop academic vocabulary for English learners. The Reading Teacher, 64(2), 131-136. doi:10.1598/RT.64.2.5

ReferencesFlanigan, K., Templeton, S., & Hayes, L. (2012). What’s in a word? Using

content vocabulary to generate growth in general academic vocabulary knowledge. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(2), 132-140. doi:10.1002/JAAL.00114

Hiebert, E. H., & Lubliner, S. (2008). The nature, learning, and instruction of general academic vocabulary. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.). What research has to say about vocabulary instruction (p. 150-181). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kelley, J. G., Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., & Faller, S. E. (2010). Effective academic vocabulary instruction in the urban middle school. The Reading Teacher, 64(1), 5- 14. doi:10.1598/RT.64.1.1

ReferencesKieffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. K. (2010). Morphing into adolescents: Active

word learning for English language learners and their classmates in middle school. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 54(1), 47-56. doi:1598/JAAL.54.1.5

Mills, G. E. (2014) Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher. Boston, MA: Pearson

Nagy, W. E., Garcia, G. E., Durgunoglu, A. Y., & Hancin-Bhatt, B. (1993). Spanish-English bilingual students’ use of cognates in English reading. Journal of Literacy Research, 25(3), 241-259. doi:10.1080/10862969009547816

References

Townsend, D. (2009). Building academic vocabulary in after-school settings: Games for growth with middle school English-language learners. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 242-251. doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.3.5

Zwiers, J. (2008). Building academic vocabulary: Essential practices for content classrooms, grades 5-12. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Questions

Thoughts?

Ah-has?

Concerns?

Procedures?