Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Albert J. Hilarides Michigan State University

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Section I: Brief Background and Reason for Project Focus

I have been a high school Social Studies teacher for the past two years and over that I time I have found that many of the students, even if they are at grade level when it comes to their reading scores, have trouble understanding complex vocabulary especially in primary sources and informational texts. This causes students to not understand important information that they should be able to take out of these primary sources; this ability to understand complex text directly affects the students ACT scores as well. Because we are trying to get these students to be college ready I would like to focus on helping students comprehend complex vocabulary within primary source documents. Students need to be taught reading strategies that allow them to get through complex documents and comprehend what the author is saying. The reading strategies that I would like to address with my student, when it comes to understanding vocabulary, are looking at the content around the new word, which will help the student understand the term and breaking the vocabulary word down. These two strategies can be very beneficial for some student who have difficulty understanding primary source documents with complex vocabulary like the ones that are used in the ACT test.

Section II: Home and Family The student that I have chosen is an eleventh grade, sixteen-year-old girl that is currently taking World History at Harper Creek High School; lets call her Grace. Harper Creek is not a very diverse district with 92% Caucasian student body, and Grace is part of the majority at this school. The school has roughly 900 students who attend and Grace is a member of one of the smaller classes at the school. Many of the Harper Creek students parents are either farmers or

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

work either at the Post or Kelloggs factories in the area. The average score on the ACT in our district is a 17 and because Harper Creek has a low score on the ACT the school has adopted goals aimed at improving the reading scores on the ACT. The student that I am working with, Grace, is at grade level when it comes to their reading scores. However, she does struggle when it comes to comprehending difficult vocabulary with primary source documents. She has received As and Bs in the high school level English classes that she has taken thus far, and she is also taking classes at the local community college. Grace does not receive any type of supplementary support or accommodations. Grace comes from a very tight knit English speaking Caucasian family. Her parents were born and raised on the eastern side of Michigan while she, her older brother, and older sister were all born and raised on the west side of the state. Grace reads for enjoyment like her mother and two siblings, and tends to read primarily fictional texts and almost no non-fictional texts. She mentioned that her father reads sporadically but when he does read he tends to read informational text, like newspapers and political novels, so she does have access to these but chooses to read fictional books.

Section III: Emotional Climate As I have stated above, Grace is taking the required World History course that all Junior level students at Harper Creek are taking. Depending on the way that this course is taught students tend to be taught through hands on assignments, many primary source readings, and lectures. This class is set up as a college style class where much of the learning comes through lectures, readings, discussions, and projects because so many standards need to be covered. The assignments consist of personalized Facebook accounts for past historical figures, amusement

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

park guide books (each ride deals with an historical event from the unit), and multiple research papers (just to name a few). The classroom is always open to discussion and when students have debates over covered material they have to discuss it in a civilized manner. Many of the assignments that are done in this course are completed without a partner. The only times students really collaborate are during group discussion about information in a lecture or reading that we have finished recently. However, since my school is heading into the new Common Core standards I could see us moving towards more reading and writing based classrooms. Because this course is required of them by the state for graduation and will be covered in future standardized tests there is not much wiggle room on what needs to be covered. This causes many students to go through the motions of the class because they are just taking the class because of the requirement and not because they choose too. Like I have stated many times Grace is a very gifted reader, but, she does not show much interest in the readings that we have done in class. She has told me repeatedly that not only does the information in class not interest her but she doesnt understand why they have to read it in the first place. Grace like many of her classmates tend to want to get out of the class as soon as possible because of the way the class is set up. However, just because Grace does not enjoy the readings presented in class does not mean that she does not do the readings/assignments. Not only does she complete them but she does an above average job.

From the rare moments that I have seen Grace work in groups in my class I have noticed she tends to take much more ownership than when she works by herself. When she is reading articles with other students she tends to try much harder than when she works alone. I think that

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

she feels much more comfortable and motivated by collaborating in a group than when she is left to do it on her own. Even though Grace doesnt enjoy the class she still turns in quality work and participates in classroom discussions. She received an A in World History and also did very well on the Facebook and Amusement Park assignments. She stands out as hardworking and motivated by getting good marks in this class. Grace also gets very motivated when we have our discussions over covered material. John Guthrie states that, when teachers emphasize positive interpersonal relationships, student motivation increases (Guthrie, 2011, pg. 181). I think the way that World History is set up, with open discussion, students feel comfortable in sharing their ideas without the possibility of being ridiculed by the class and/or teacher.

Section IV: Literacy History Graces parents are both college graduates and have high literacy levels. Graces father graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. and teaches music at a local high school. Her mother graduated from Kellogg Community College with her associate degree and is a registered nurse at a local hospital. Both parents have professions and through conversations with Grace and them I have found that growing up Grace was read to quite a bit. Research has shown, On average, professional parents talked to their toddlers more than three times as much as parents of families on welfare did. Not surprisingly, the difference resulted in a big discrepancy in the childrens vocabulary size it also shows, The average 3-year-old from a welfaredependent family demonstrated an active vocabulary of around 500 words, whereas a 3-year-old from a professional family demonstrated a vocabulary of more than 1,000 words (Blachowicz, Fisher, 2011, pg. 226).

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Grace is currently in her junior year at Harper Creek High School. As of right now her GPA stands at a 3.9. After high school she plans on moving to California to pursue a career as a professional dancer. She will also take classes at a community college where she will study business. When looking at Graces grades in her Social Studies and English classes she has consistently teeter-tottered between a B+ and A-. When asked why she doesnt always get an A in these types of classes she gives the answers of either the required texts do not interest her or that her parents are happy with those grades. When asked if she enjoys reading in English and Social Studies classes she stated that she would much rather pick what she reads in English classes and when it comes to Social Studies she enjoys it when discussions are included with the readings. When I asked about Graces past reading history, she explained that she loves to read, she enjoys reading fictional novels like Twisted and Safe Haven. Grace also stated that she does not dislike reading in school but she would prefer to read texts that she picks out. However, as Duke points out, the volume of experiences students have interacting with texts both in and out of the classroom significantly correlates with their overall reading success (Duke, Pearson, Strachan, Billman, 2011, pg. 58). Therefore, even though Grace does not read historical readings for fun she still has a larger vocabulary. I also asked if she struggles with any of the readings and she said that she mainly struggles with historical primary sources. She has a difficult time understanding what they are saying because it is written in old English. Grace currently lives with her mother and father. She receives plenty of support at home when she needs it but she stated that she tends to do most of her homework during school. Nevertheless, if she needs help at home her father will sit down with her at the dining room table

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

and help where he can. She also said that her mother proofreads many of the papers that she has written. Also, her parents are consistently checking her grades on PowerSchool (online grades) and are up to date on how their daughter is doing in school. Paratore and Edwards wrote that, students of involved parents have high rates of school attendance, better social skills and behavior, higher grades and test scores, lower rate of retention, and higher rates of high school graduation and postsecondary education (Paratore & Edwards, 2011, pg. 437). Graces parents involvement in her schooling has and will continue to have a positive impact on her growth as a student.

Section V: Tests Given and Summary of Test Results In order to understand Graces strengths and weaknesses when it comes to her vocabulary comprehension I gave her a combination of ACT prep reading tests. The first test I gave was a blend of an ACT prep reading tests (appendix 1 & 2) in order to gain some perspective at where her abilities lie when it comes to complex texts and the vocabulary that goes along with them. The ACT has many sections that depend heavily on students having a broad vocabulary base; if they do not have that base vocabulary knowledge, then they at least need to know of strategies that they can use in order to work through the question by using the information around the word in the text to help them decode it. The particular ACT prep test that I have chose for her has questions that just deal exclusively the use of text around multiple vocabulary words in order to discover their meanings. After the test is complete I will be able to discuss with her the steps she used to try to figure out the meaning of the vocabulary words and give us a jumping off point for the remainder of our time together. On our last meeting I will give her a similar ACT prep test so that she use the skills that she has attained during our last couple of meetings. I should be able to see growth between the pre and the post test.
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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

At the end of the ACT prep pretest I was able to see what skills my student struggles with. Grace can read very well she just has a difficult time, like many students, understanding the meaning of unfamiliar words. Adams points out that, Mature readers can read aloud pseudowrds very nearly as quickly as they can read aloud familiar, real words. (Adams, 2011, pg. 6) This quote explains Grace very well. She can read everything on the page but she does not always understand everything that she is reading. She was reminded that she could use any reading strategy that she would want and write anywhere she would like on the paper. When I collected the document it looked as if she had given the document a once over and picked the first word that she thought was the correct meaning. When I asked her at the end of the assessment if she knew any of those words she replied that she thought she might know some but not all of the words, which was apparent in her test results. There were no signs on the document that would suggest that she used any type of reading strategy. For example, there was no note taking or underlining whatsoever. It is possible the reason why she struggled on an ACT prep test is because of the type of reading she does at her home. Many of the books that Grace reads are not informational text. Grace tends to read fictional novels like Twisted and Safe Haven. The reason I point this out is that these books do not challenge a reader to learn words that would beneficial for them to know in informational texts. Even though reading these texts are a plus, she has not been exposed enough to newspapers, primary sources, and informational novels. I have come to the conclusion that I need to focus primarily on informational texts rather than fictional texts. Since Grace spends much of her time reading fictional novels she may not come across the vocabulary that you would find in informational novels/newspapers.

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

For the comprehension post test instead of giving a similar ACT prep vocabulary/comprehension test I decided that I wanted to see if Grace could take what she had learned and make her own connections to the reading. Research has shown that, The research of language and vocabulary to reading is well established and Vocabulary impacts Comprehension (Duke, Pearson, Strachan, Billman, 2011, pg. 74). In order for Grace to comprehend what she is reading she not only needs to know the vocabulary but she needs to be able to make connections between vocabulary and meaning. However, I would not truly know if Grace was able to use the skills that we had worked on unless I had her put them into action. Also, with schools moving towards the Common Core Standards we need to work within what those standards are looking for teachers to do. Common Core states, Comprehension and composition play a central role in these standards (Madda, Griffo, Pearson, Raphael, 2011, pg. 38). Therefore, instead of having her take another ACT prep vocabulary test I gave her Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address and her assignment (Appendix 6) was to read through the speech, analyze the text and write a paragraph about the importance of leadership. She needed include content and vocabulary used in the speech in her paragraph; consequently, she had to use the two reading strategies that we had worked on (using the content around the word, breaking down the vocabulary). When looking just at the speech itself I can see that Grace has improved in comprehending the content by reading through the notes that she had taken on the speech. She underlined important information throughout the text, she summarized areas, she used the content around words that she did not know to find out their meaning, and she also broke down vocabulary words to make them more manageable for herself. Comparing where she is to the beginning of our time together I can see that these strategies have been beneficial for her.

Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Not only did Grace have the ability to understand the text but she was able to then put it into her words and make connections. Through both lessons we had been working on not only reading and knowing the words but comprehending what the entire paragraph was trying to say. However, I would have liked her to take more notes on the text before starting to write the paragraph. In our first lesson (Lesson Plan 1) we worked on taking notes through the paragraph not on just the area where she did not know the meaning of a word instead of just underlining areas of the texts. This tells me that even though Grace has improved in this area she still has room for growth. This makes me contemplate whether I should have taught Grace a third strategy of using Graphic organizers. That way instead of just underlining areas Grace would have literally drawn out meanings not only to the words she did not know but to the entire text. However, as Blackowzic and Fisher wrote, It is critical to note, however, that mere construction of such maps (graphic organizers), without discussion, is not effective (Blackowzic, Fisher, 2011, pg. 233). With taking this into mind having Grace create a graphic organizer on her own may have been futile.

Section VI: Lesson Plan Matrix

Lesson Foci/Date Objectives (include including performance, conditions, and criterion. State the Common Core State Standard at the end of each objective. Student will take a ACT prep test to see where I will be able to determine her strengths and weaknesses when it comes to reading/comprehending Instructional materials (what will use to deliver the main objectives of the lesson) On-going assessment (to measure attainment of objectives)

ACT prep pretest: 5/28/2013

ACT prep pretest- Social Studies Passage II

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary complex vocabulary. -CCSS.ELALiteracy.RL.11-12.4Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings -CCSS.ELALiteracy.L.11-12.4Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases Understanding vocabulary by the surround context: 5/30/12
-CCSS.ELALiteracy.RL.11-12.4Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings o -CCSS.ELALiteracy.L.11-12.4aUse context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a words position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. -CCSS.ELALiteracy.L.11-12.4b Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., conceive, conception, conceivable). -CCSS.ELALiteracy.RL.11-12.4Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings

-ACT reading assessment/worksheet: Natural Science

-ACT reading assessment: Natural Science- A worksheet will be given to students to work through similar problems that they may/will face in the post test.

o Understanding vocabulary by breaking down the word: 6/6/2013

-ACT reading assessment/worksheet: Fictional

-ACT reading assessment: Fictional- A worksheet will be given to students to work through similar problems that they may/will face in the post test.

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Post test: 6/11/13

Student will take a ACT prep test to see where I will be able to determine her strengths and weaknesses when it comes to reading/comprehending complex vocabulary. -CCSS.ELALiteracy.RL.11-12.4Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings -CCSS.ELALiteracy.L.11-12.4Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases

Gettysburg Address: Comprehension paragraph (Importance of leadership)

Section VII: Reflections on Your Differentiated Literacy Lesson Plans When I was originally looking through Graces pretest I had notice that she had not taken any notes throughout the entire reading. It was as if she did not use or know any reading strategies that could help her comprehend what was being said in the text. It was at that point that I decided the best thing to do to help her was to work with her using a few reading strategies. Since she is college bound she needs to know of strategies that will help her comprehend complex text. As Learned, Stockdill and Moje said, Students exposed to reading strategy instruction performed better than their peers who had not learned strategies (Learned, Stockdill, Moje, 2011, pg. 172.). I believed that if Grace knew how to use the content clues strategy and breaking down vocabulary reading strategies it would improve her comprehension of complex text.
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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Opening the first lesson Grace and I discussed how she did on the ACT prep pretest (Appendix 1 & 2). She had thought that she had done alright without taking any notes or using what seemed like any visual strategies. When I asked why she did not use any visual strategies she said it was because she was a strong reader and did not think that she needed any extra help understanding what was in front of her. She said that taking notes never really helped her. I also asked Grace if she had re-read the passages multiple times to help her answer the questions. She said that she had but only the lines where the questions were stated (i.e. as it is used in line 17). After we discussed how she did on the pretest and how using reading strategies would strengthen her comprehension on difficult vocabulary words. I knew that the first thing that I wanted to have Grace use were context clues because students need to understand context and how to use it (Blachowicz, Fisher, 2011, pg. 231). Therefore, I had Grace underline words that she did not know in a new ACT prep test (Appendix 2 & 3) on her own. I wanted to make sure that we were dealing with words that Grace did not know just by looking at them. By having Grace use context clues and take notes I was able to look through her notes at the end and see if there was more room for improvement. After Grace had finished underlining the words we used a read-aloud method to go through the text together. I also wanted to use the outline of set up by Duke, Pearson, Strachman, and Billman in Ch. 3 of What Reasearchers Have to Say About Reading Instruction (Duke, Pearson, Strachman, Billman, 2011, pg. 64-66). The outline starts with the student knowing exactly what the strategy they are going to be using and when it should be used. I did this through discussion with Grace at the beginning of the lesson when we were discussing the importance of note taking. The next point is teacher/student modeling the strategy. While we were reading-aloud we were discussing the context of the paragraphs around the words while

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

Grace was taking notes on her page. After she had written down the notes we discussed why she had taken those notes on the section. Next we needed to collaborate the strategy in action; again, we discussed what we thought those words may have meant using our context clues and why we thought that. The finally outline point we got to was guided practice using the strategy. Grace was using the strategy on her own near the end of the worksheet with little to no help from me on her note taking. At the beginning of the lesson Grace was simply underlining parts of the text without taking notes. I had asked her why this was and it was to remind her of important parts of the story. I added that it would be beneficial for her to not only underline areas of the text but to also write down notes of why she did. Unfortunately, as Fisher and Frey pointed out, students often do not know how to take good notes (Fisher, Frey, 2011, pg. 353) that lead us to a discussion about what good note taking was and what wasnt. After that throughout the lesson I would stop her periodically and ask her why she took or did not take notes on certain context clues. She would then try to describe the importance of those particular areas of the text. By the end of the strategy Grace was going back through the worksheet and re-reading areas and adding in more notes. She became increasingly more comfortable using this strategy and discussing the context of each paragraph with me by the end of the lesson. At the end of the lesson I stepped back and had her describe the context to me and the meaning of the vocabulary that she had underlined at the beginning of the lesson. By having Grace use the notes that she had taken and the discussion that we had it was obvious that Grace had a better understanding of what the section meant and she also understood what the words she had underlined meanings.

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

At the end of the lesson Grace and I discussed the strategy that she had worked on. I asked her if she had felt more comfortable understanding the text using the context based strategy. She said it was helpful and that she would use it with future tests. The second lesson that we dealt with, I wanted Grace to move from using context clues to understanding how to break down vocabulary words to understand their meaning. During this lesson Grace and I would discuss the prefix and suffix of a word, possible synonyms of a word, and finally the base words. Like at the beginning of the original lesson, I gave Grace an ACT Natural Science prep test (Appendix 4 & 5) and had her read through it picking out words that she did not recognize. I made sure that I asked her not to use the strategy we used the last time that we met during this lesson. After she had done this we discussed the meaning and importance of knowing the prefix, suffix and the base word of the vocabulary word that she was having trouble with. As Joan Sedita discusses in her article Effective Vocabulary Instruction, When students encounter unknown words they can use knowledge of word parts (root words, suffixes, and prefixes to help determine word meaning. This is especially true when reading content textbooks because these texts often contain many words that are derived from the same word parts (Sedita, 2005, pg. 6). We started by using a word that she has picked out in one of the final paragraphs of the text which was interstices. We used this word to work on and discuss prefixes; prefixes are put at the beginning of words to alter their meaning. Therefore, if Grace was able to understand what the beginning of a word meant it would allow her to understand what the whole meant. When we took interstices we looked at the beginning of the word which is inter, the prefix inter means inside. She then was able to take the knowledge of the prefix to move towards understanding the whole word.

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

We then worked together on the base word. The word that we worked on in the beginning was vindication. We discussed that the base word of this is vindicate. From that base word, Grace was able to identify that the base of the word had to do with clearing someone of blame. By looking just at the base word she was able to come up with a general meaning of the word. I then helped her identify the entire meaning of the word by helping her understand the suffix of the word as well. I explained to her that the suffix of the word is a stem off the end of the base word. We then went over what the suffix of the word tion adds to the meaning of the word. The suffix tion makes the word an action or a state. That means that the word goes from being a verb to a noun. After teaching Grace how to identify prefixes, base words, and suffixes to understand the meaning of the word, she was able to get more practice working through the rest of the words on her own. She was able to use what she learned to identify word meanings throughout the rest of the reading and also in the final assessment. VII. Recommendations to Teachers and Parents/Caregivers Grace is a very gifted, talented, and overall hard working student. Through my time working with Grace I had found that she did not reading strategy skills to comprehend complex non-fictional text. She is a college bound student; therefore, I recommend that she continues focusing on reading non-fictional complex text because in the future this will help her in her future endeavors. When working with Grace I noticed that she did not have the reading strategy skills to be successful with complex non-fictional text. At the beginning of our time together when working on a ACT preptest she did not make any attempt to take notes, look for context clues, or break down words (prefix, suffix, and root words) throughout the entire worksheet. I believed the best

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Improving Comprehension of Complex Vocabulary

way to help Grace was to help her develop these reading strategies. I believed that if she developed these strategies her comprehension of complex non-fictional text would improve. It would be beneficial for Grace if she continued reading non-fictional complex text to gain experience. She should focus on reading information magazines, newspapers, or nonfictional books. Just having Grace become more familiar with these texts will help her greatly in her bright future. She also may need reminding that she needs to continue using the reading strategies that she has learned.

Bibliography
Blachowicz, C., & Fisher, P. (2011). Best practices in vocabulary instruction revisited. Best practices in literacy instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 224-249). London: The Guilford Press. Guthrie, J. (2011). Best practices in motivating students to read. Best practices in literacy instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 177-198). London: The Guilford Press.

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Duke, N., Pearson, P., Strachan, S., & Billman, A. (2011). Essential elements of fostering and teaching reading comprehension. What research has to say about reading instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 51-93). Newark: International Reading Association. Paratore, J., & Edwards, P. (2011). Parent-teacher partnerships that make a difference in childrens literacy achievement. Best practices in literacy instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 436454). London: The Guilford Press. Adams, M. (2011). The relation between alphabetic basics, word recognition, and read. What research has to say about reading instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 4-24). Newark: International Reading Association. Madda, C., Griffo, V., Pearson, P., & Raphael, T. (2011). Balance in comprehensive literacy instruction. Best practices in literacy instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 37-63). London: The Guilford Press. Learned, J., Stockdill, D., & Moje, E. (2011). Integrating reading strategies and knowledge building in adolescent literacy instruction. What research has to say about reading instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 159-185). Newark: Internation Reading Association. Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2011). Best practices in content-area literacy. Best practices in literacy instruction (4th edition ed., pp. 343-360). London: The Guilford Press. Sedita, Joan. "Effective vocabulary instruction." Insights on Learning Disabilities: From Prevailing Theories to Validated Practices ' (2005): 33-45. Keys to literacy. Web. 19 June 2013.

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