Supporting Students' Independent Word Learning

In John Hattie's metaanalysis, the effect size for Vocabulary Programs is 0.67, which is in the medium zone of desired effects. In other words, noteworthy. Teaching vocabulary is complicated by the varying word knowledge of individual students. Even when the text is the same, students all bring a range of word knowledge to the reading. Rather than a one-size fits all approach, Goodman proposed Vocabulary Self-Awareness in 2001.

Consider three aspects of supporting students' independent word learning:

1. Students need to be directly involved. They notice that they need to learn a new word.

2. Students keep records of the words they want to learn.

3. Students share their ideas with others so that their peers can choose to add new words to their learning goals.

There are many ways to approach this. Vocabulary Self-Awareness is just one example where the learning goal is for students to replace all the "words that are new to me" with plus signs by the end of the reading or unit. Students creating vocabulary word cards is another one.

Source: Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning Classroom, Gr 6-12 by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Hattie and Marisol Thayre (2017)