CCSS Vocabulary

The CCSS standards emphasize the importance of requiring students to grapple with more complex vocabulary. The focus is on tier two vocabulary. These are words that are more advanced than what a student would typically encounter in spoken speech without being so highly specialized that they are of limited use. Thus big would be a tier one word. Immense would be a tier two word. While lithosphere would be a tier three word.

Then there are specific terms that relate to testing. There are a number of leveled lists that can be helpful with this. There are some important things to consider here. If there are multiple words for the same concept, it will be important to include each of these words. For example, students should know how to find both the root word and the base word.

Students will be expected to know common prefixes and suffixes  and be able to apply these the determine the meaning of a word. This has been somewhat controversial because prefixes and suffixes can be misleading. The argument is that if a child believes that un- at the beginning of a word always means “not” then he is likely to conclude that unicycle mean “not a cycle”. As an experienced teacher, I know that teaching prefixes and suffixes has a big payoff as long as you help students to apply their knowledge flexibly and always attend to context.

This brings me to the most important insight about teaching vocabulary for the Common Core. If you want your students to do well on the tests, you must move beyond merely having them memorize lists of words and definitions.

This was brought home to me years ago when our reading specialist explained that some struggling students were unable to pass the state reading test because it asked them to summarize a passage instead of using the phrase “write a summary”. Why should this have been such a problem? They knew how to write summaries and the meaning of the word summarize should have been clear from the context.

The students were anxious. They weren't sure what to do when they encountered an unknown word, so they just shut down. Children need to have a strategy for dealing with words that they haven't seen before.

First, they have to be able to sound out a new word while being comfortable with the fact that their pronunciation may not be perfect. For years I thought that those little appetizers people served at parties were called horse divorces. Obviously, my pronunciation of the words hors d'oeuvres was not quite correct, but it didn't stop me from understanding the basic meaning.

Context is king. Students need to feel confident that they can understand the meaning of a new word from the way that it is used. This is especially important with multiple meaning words. I remember hearing a little girl tearfully explain why she couldn't answer all the questions on the reading test. “It asked about a reading passage. I know about the Northwest Passage, but how can reading be a passage?”

Finally, students need to realize that they can understand the basic meaning of what they are reading even if they don't have a complete understanding of a word's definition. For example, look at this sentence:

The sad man is glum.

It contains a near synonym and it is fairly easy to determine the meaning of the word “glum”. Now read this sentence:

The kitten finds big dogs distressful.

The reader can make a guess about what the word probably means, but the exact definition is unclear. This is typical of most unknown words that your students will encounter in their reading. The exact meaning will not be immediately clear, but each exposure to the word will give them a better idea of what the word means.

This is why I have had so much success with my phonics program. It really works so much better than the traditional “word of the day” vocabulary program. You can never be confident that you have taught your students every word that they might run across. This program sets them up to tackle any word that they see. My kids don't shut down when they see an unfamiliar word, they attack because this is what they have been doing all year. Check out this sample page:

57.Word Attack

1. The bad man will threaten him with his fist.
   
   
2. I ate some bread at breakfast.
   
   
3. She dreaded meeting the mean man.
   
   
4. That is a leaden pipe.
   
   
5. The big blast was deafening.
   
   
6. Jane dove headlong into the lake.
   
   
7. Exercise is healthful.