Handout - Student Research Day - Dana DiGiansantedigiansanteteachingportfolio.weebly.com/uploads/2/... · Lifting!the!Level!of!Content!Area!Vocabulary!...

+  

+  

Lifting  the  Level  of  Content  Area  Vocabulary  

In  this  action  research  study,  my  experience  of  working  with  English  Language  Learners  and  research  on  the  instruction  of  content  area  vocabulary  informed  my  work  with  two  students  who  struggle  to  accurately  use  content  area  vocabulary.    

Informal  and  formal  student  assessments,  careful  observations,  analysis  of  student  work  and  my  experience  of  working  with  these  students  for  two  years  have  guided  my  instruction  for  this  project.  

Action  Based  Research  Capstone  Project    

 2  

     Introductions        &        Research  

1

 I  decided  to  focus  my  research  on  two  students  

from  Huntington  Elementary  School,  an  elementary  school  

located  in  an  upper-­‐middle  class  suburban  area.  The  school  

prides  itself  on  its  high  academic  standards  and  small  class  

sizes.  The  English  as  a  Second  Language  (ESL)  program  at  

Huntington  utilizes  a  push-­‐in/pull-­‐out  system.  This  system  

means  that  students  who  qualify  for  ESL  receive  both  out  of  

classroom  (pull-­‐out)  and  in  classroom  (push-­‐in)  support  to  

assist  with  their  language  skills.    

  Marie  is  a  third  grade  student  from  Norway.  She  is  

currently  at  an  advanced  English  language  level  within  the  

ESL  program.  Her  strengths  are  decoding,  reading  

comprehension,  and  predictions.  Her  needs  are  inferencing,  

discovering  a  main  idea,  writing,  and  vocabulary.  

Kevin  is  a  third  grade  student  from  Japan.  He  is  also  

currently  at  an  advanced  English  language  level  within  the  

ESL  program.  His  strengths  are  reading  comprehension,  

spelling,  and  writing.  His  needs  are  vocabulary,  inferencing,  

and  predicting.  

2

I  based  my  cycles  off  of  various  research  that  I  

collected  from  books,  articles,  and  journals  on  content  area  

vocabulary  and  ELLs.  I  primarily  based  each  lesson  on  Isabel  

Beck’s  Three  Tier  Modeling  from  her  book,  Bringing  Words  to  

Life:  Robust  Vocabulary  Instruction  (2002).  From  her  

vocabulary  method,  it  outlines  to  specify  “tier  two”  

vocabulary  words  –  the  words  that  are  frequently  used  

throughout  academic  language  and  are  meaningful  words.  I  

was  also  able  to  find  a  great  list  of  appropriate  vocabulary  

assessments  from  Stahl  &  Bravos’  article,  Classroom  

Vocabulary  Assessment  for  Content  Areas  (2011),  in  order  to  

create  informal  assessments  to  monitor  my  students  

understanding  throughout  each  cycle.    

Through  these  and  many  more  resources  I  had  

located,  I  was  able  to  learn  from  each  and  create  

individualized  lessons  that  were  ultimately  my  own.  I  felt  that  

I  was  able  to  create  engaging  and  effective  lessons  focused  

on  vocabulary  instruction.  

+  

 3  

Cycles  

For  the  first  cycle  of  my  capstone  project,  I  chose  to  focus  on  introducing  

the  vocabulary  methods  I  would  be  using  throughout  this  project  &  

administering  a  pre-­‐test.  I  chose  the  words  to  include  for  my  first  cycle  by  

identifying  “Tier  Two”  words,  based  off  of  the  Three  Tier  Vocabulary  

system  After  the  pre-­‐test,  I  had  my  students  begin  to  put  words  that  they  

were  comfortable  explaining  and  could  appropriately  use  in  sentences,  

into  a  graphic  organizer  in  their  Vocabulary  Notebook.  

Research  

Teaching  Reflec\on  

Cycle  1  

Cycle  2  For  the  second  cycle  of  my  capstone  project,  I  added  

more  vocabulary  words  within  an  online  presentation  program,  

called  Prezi,  to  my  group  of  students.  Through  this  program,  I  asked  

questions  and  gave  the  students  scenarios  they  must  choose  from  

in  order  to  understand  the  vocabulary  word  in  different  meaningful  

contexts.  For  this  cycle,  I  had  chosen  to  analyze  the  words  

“Astronomer”  and  “Solar”.  Each  word  in  the  presentation  will  

include  a  definition,  an  example,  a  picture,  a  possible  sentence,  and  

a  scenario  using  that  word  so  that  the  students  may  see  it  in  all  

contexts.  I  have  also  collected  various  readings  on  space  objects,  

which  include  the  words  “Astronomer”  and  “Solar”  in  order  to  tie  in  

different  vocabulary  words  into  their  current  work.  

Cycle  3  For  the  third  cycle  of  my  capstone  project,  I  continued  using  

the  vocabulary  notebooks  and  graphic  organizers  to  teach  

about  the  different  space  bodies  in  the  universe  that  

astronomers  study.  The  words  I  taught  for  this  lesson  were,  

“Asteroid”,  “Comet”,  “Meteor”,  “Meteoroid”,  &  “Meteorite”.  I  

chose  to  focus  on  teaching  the  vocabulary  words  for  these  

different  space  objects  because  my  students  thought  that  they  

were  all  the  same  thing.    By  analyzing  the  differences  and  

charting  it  on  various  graphic  organizers,  I  hope  to  teach  my  

students  the  differences  in  these  objects  and  how  they  can  use  

the  newly  acquired  vocabulary  when  learning  about  astronomy  

in  their  classroom  

Cycle  4  For  the  fourth  cycle  of  my  capstone  project,  I  focused  on  

teaching  my  students  how  they  can  incorporate  the  vocabulary  

we  have  learned  so  far  into  a  5  paragraph  essay.  I  began  by  

providing  my  students  with  a  picture  prompt  and  listed  the  

vocabulary  words  I  had  taught  in  the  previous  lessons  

Cycle  5  For  this  cycle,  I  asked  my  students  to  independently  write  a  

paragraph  based  off  of  a  photo  prompt  and  include  astronomy  

vocabulary  that  we  have  gone  over.  I  read  over  the  directions  

with  them,  introduced  them  to  the  checklist  that  was  on  their  

paper  and  on  the  chart,  and  asked  if  they  had  any  unexplained  

questions.  I  did  this  as  an  informal  post-­‐assessment  and  as  

preparation  for  their  upcoming  state  testing  and  NYSESLAT  

exam.  

+  

 4  

+  Outcome  

Through  this  action  based  research  project,  I  wanted  my  

students  to  gain  a  better  understanding  of  the  academic  language  

they  learn  in  their  main  classroom.  Since  my  students  are  English  

Language  Learners,  I  thought  that  placing  an  extra  focus  on  specific  

key  content  area  vocabulary  words  would  help  them  later  when  

using  the  words  in  context.  In  order  to  instill  a  better  understanding  

of  the  meaning  and  application  of  these  words,  I  designed  many  

lessons  based  on  using  certain  vocabulary  words  in  different  

contexts.  By  identifying  correct  sentences,  images,  and  definitions,  I  

hoped  to  have  put  the  word  in  enough  scenarios  that  my  students  

would  be  able  to  quickly  and  easily  identify  the  meaning  and  use  it  

appropriately  in  writing.  

  In  each  lesson,  I  found  that  my  students  were  getting  more  

and  more  used  to  using  specific  academic  language  about  

astronomy.  They  seemed  comfortable  with  the  application  of  these  

words  and  using  them  within  the  context  we  were  working  in.  They  

enjoyed  the  many  interactive  lessons  I  prepared  for  them  to  use  the  

words  and  seemed  interested  in  the  engaging  readings,  videos,  and  

photographs  I  had  chosen.  

  I  found  that  the  outcome  of  this  project  to  be  successful,  

although  I  wish  I  were  able  to  have  found  more  research  over  a  

longer  period  of  time.  My  students  were  able  to  accurately  define  

and  distinguish  between  the  vocabulary  words,  as  well  write  and  

verbally  explain  in  context  appropriately  with  enough  examples  to  

distinguish  they  understood  the  meaning  of  the  word.  

  I  would  like  to  continue  this  research  for  the  remainder  

of  the  school  year  since  unfortunately  the  NYS  testing  got  in  the  

way  of  my  pull-­‐out  days  with  my  students.  I  think  it  would  be  

interesting  to  monitor  their  success  with  certain  words  after  

spending  a  significant  amount  of  time  analyzing  them.  I  think  long-­‐

term  this  would  be  and  effective  way  to  teach  vocabulary  in  the  

ESL  classroom  during  a  pull-­‐out  session  in  order  to  reinforce  the  

general  classroom’s  lessons  for  science  and  social  studies.    

Astronomy  for  kids  -­‐  KidsAstronomy.com.  (n.d.).  Astronomy  for  kids  -­‐  

KidsAstronomy.com.  Retrieved  April  11,  2013,  from  

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/    

Beck,  I.  L.,  McKeown,  M.  G.,  &  Kucan,  L.  (2002).  Bringing  words  to  life:  

robust  vocabulary  instruction.  New  York:  Guilford  Press.    

Shrum,  J.  L.,  &  Glisan,  E.  W.  (2004).  Teacher's  handbook:  contextualized  

language  instruction  (3rd  ed.).  Boston:  Heinle.  

Stahl,  K.  A.,  &  Bravo,  M.  A.  (2011).  Classroom  vocabulary  assessment  for  

content  areas.  Reading  rockets.  Retrieved  April  11,  2013,  from  

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/415  

References  

Dana  Di  Giansante  [email protected]