Using Purposefully Created Stories to Teach Academic Vocabulary

Abstract

Students’ knowledge of vocabulary affects their reading comprehension. Despite abundant research findings in vocabulary learning, practical instructional methods for use in schools are typically underdeveloped. This article proposes a research-based method for teaching the meanings of base academic vocabulary (i.e., Tier 2) words. The method utilizes stories that are purposefully created by using research findings regarding directive and explicit contexts in elaborated narrative texts to teach the meanings of base words. The impact of this method is discussed, and suggestions for implementation are provided.

The Effect of Spanish and English Narrative Intervention on the Language Skills of Young Dual Language Learners

“…First, in narrative interventions the stories can be engineered to be the exact structure, length, and complexity needed to foster academic language of children, regardless of their age and language development. Target vocabulary words and contextual support can be intentionally embedded in the narratives used during intervention (Lee, Roberts, & Coffey, 2017). Second, some storybook reading interventions encourage children to retell parts or entire stories, but it typically requires several repeated readings before young children are able to expressively retell the story.…”

“…A dual language intervention can take advantage of the interrelatedness of narrative structure (or schema) and other shared features of Spanish and English (Fiestas & Peña, 2004) languages to hasten the acquisition of academically related oral language (Cummins, 1984; MacSwan & Rolstad, 2005; Petersen, Thompsen, Guiberson, & Spencer, 2015). If stories used in narrative intervention are carefully constructed, they may be able to facilitate the acquisition of vocabulary in addition to promoting narrative structure and complex syntax (Lee et al, 2017).…”

More Than Just Word of the Day: Vocabulary Apps for English Learners

“…Our tool further evaluates apps on several key aspects of vocabulary instruction: use of visuals, use of example sentences, use of context clues, preteaching of the words prior to completing the activity, and use of association (Blachowicz et al., ; C. Lee, Roberts, & Coffey, ; Peregoy & Boyle, ; Stahl & Fairbanks, ). Additionally, we included two practices specific to ELs: the use of their first language (L1; Wright, ) and the use of cognates (Goldenberg, ).…”