Voices from the Middle v15, n1 September 2007 Reutzel and Cooter Chapter 4: Vocabulary

1. Mediating the Matthew Effect in Reading: Fostering Word Consciousness Kay Cowan and Peggy Albers Voices from the Middle v15, n1 September 2007 Reutzel and Cooter Chapter 4: Vocabulary Allen Chapter 10: Tangled Readers Paige Cole, Michelle Lindsey, Elizabeth Sears, Stephanie Shumacher

2. Tangled Readers and Vocabulary Acquisition • It’s important to note the correlation between tangled, or struggling, readers and vocabulary acquisition. • According to Allen, tangled readers often struggle with code breaking, using strategies and skills to break the code of text, which eventually leads to comprehension. • One part of code breaking is developing an understanding of text language, or vocabulary.

3. Vocabulary and Comprehension • Reutzel and Cooter reinforce (2009) the importance of vocabulary acquisition and its link to comprehension. • “Children who come to school with thousands of words ‘in their head’ – words they can hear, understand, and use in their daily lives – are already on the path to reading success” (R&C, p. 113). • Students with a rich vocabulary are better able to assimilate new words into their growing vocabulary.

4. Vocabulary and Comprehension, Con’t. • Research also finds that students who come to school with limited vocabulary are at a disadvantage. • “Conversely, children who have small listening, speaking, and reading vocabularies – who are from what could be termed ‘language-deprived backgrounds’ – must receive immediate attention if they are to have any real chance at reading success” (R&C, 113). • Reading is a key component of vocabulary growth, so these students, without intervention, will not experience the vocabulary growth of their language-rich peers.

5. This ever-widening gap in reading and vocabulary which occurs between struggling and proficient readers leads to a phenomenon known as: The Matthew effect

6. What is the Matthew Effect? • For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. – Matthew 25:29 • The notion, borrowed from the Bible, is that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. • Proficient readers become more and more word-rich and thereby better readers; word-poor students and tangled readers “live in silence” and both their vocabularies and literacy experiences remain stunted.

7. What causes the Matthew effect? Kay Cowan and Peggy Albers explore some contributing factors in their article: • Socioeconomic status – poor students “begin school with a huge gap in their vocabularies” (p. 35). • The shift in the middle grades is from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” which in some cases creates and enlarges the gap. When poor readers are challenged by more difficult text or abstract vocabulary, they might shut down or avoid it altogether. • How can teachers begin to close the gap?

8. Kay Cowan and Peggy Albers – Leveling the Playing Field • Kay Cowan is a trained researcher and teacher; Peggy Albers is a literacy researcher who works with Kay. • The students in their classroom represent a diverse group, both in terms of socioeconomic status and also reading ability and vocabulary levels. • In an attempt to mediate some of the disparities in their students’ vocabulary levels and reading abilities, they created a lesson using one of the practices cited in Reutzel and Cooter as a way to boost vocabulary – developing word consciousness. • Word consciousness – an awareness of and interest in words. “Word conscious students enjoy words and are zealous about learning them” (R&C, p. 117). • In building word consciousness, they hope to free their students to enjoy reading for its many purposes and to use language in meaningful, precise, and effective ways.

9. The Lesson • Focuses on the active or expressive side of literacy – speaking, writing and visually representing text. • “…[M]oving words from students’ receptive vocabularies to their expressive vocabularies – that is, from listening and reading to the speaking and writing vocabularies – positions them to be stronger and more articulate communicators” (Albers and Cowan, 36). • Albers and Cowan build their students’ word consciousness through a systematic, scaffolded poetry writing assignment.

10. The Lesson, cont. • Students draw on personal experience to select a word to describe an emotion they felt during a particular experience. • Then they really dig into the word, examining examples and non-examples, playing with shades of meaning, and finally listing synonyms and antonyms and illustrating their word. • The teachers share other poetic examples so that students can explore the ways a word can be personified, brought to life, nuanced through metaphor and simile. • Students apply those same techniques to their chosen words as they draft a metaphorical poem. • Students collaborate with peers in writer’s workshop to hone their word choices and then publish their poems. • The results – “The writing that comes out of this series of lessons is strong. Students demonstrate an extremely high order of understanding of their self-selected words, and they have an increased pride in their writing” (Albers and Cowan, p. 40).

11. What we like about this lesson • Cowan and Albers state that the lesson worked in their classroom to build excitement for words and expand vocabulary. • It is based in solid educational practices – repetition and varied encounters with words, scaffolded instruction, motivation through personal choice and relevance, self-selection, collaborative learning, connection to writing. • It moves systematically from lower to higher-level thinking. • Students are encouraged to play with language until what may start out as a “simple adjective” becomes a powerful living word – in the case of one student, happy became ebullient.

12. Questions Raised • The article does make it seem as if all kids from low SES backgrounds are at a vocabulary deficit. Does deeming students from lower SES backgrounds as automatically at a disadvantage for vocabulary overlook the diversity within lower SES communities? •  We don’t think its usage would apply well to learning difficult words that are content-specific or those “that represent complex concepts that are not part of students’ everyday experiences.” These are situations in which direct instruction is indicated (R&C, p. 116). • Will the length of the lesson plan prevent teachers from using it? • Albers and Cowan claim (2007) that "All the students flourished using this method” (p. 41). This is a bold statement to make without data backing it up. • We think it’s important to note all students can benefit from vocabulary instruction (as the lesson examples at the end of the article shows), not merely those who come from poor or limited English backgrounds.

13. Final Thoughts • The authors say the single most productive thing we as teachers can do to increase vocabulary is to increase the amount students read. (Albers & Cowan, 2009, pg. 34) • We think it is our job as teachers to figure out ways to incorporate more reading time into our daily schedules and to use vocabulary instruction in a way that is meaningful and supports word consciousness.