Margaret McKeown
to the classroom: episode 16
September 4, 2023
Today my guest is Dr. Margaret McKeown. We’ll start our conversation discussing vocabulary development and explicit vocabulary instruction, including how to choose words for instruction, how to teach words so students understand them deeply, and how to help students build connections between words. Our conversation then shifts to the Questioning the Author instructional intervention, which focuses on developing comprehension through conversation and can be used to foster independence and discussion amongst students. Later, I’m joined by my colleagues Gina Dignon and Rosie Maurantonio for a conversation about how we’ll bring what we learned to the classroom.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Dr. McKoewn, welcome.
Margaret McKeown:
Thanks so much. I'm delighted to be here. I've enjoyed our interactions over Twitter, so it's really fun to get a chance to actually talk in oral words and sentences and back and forth.
Jennifer Serravallo:
There is a limit to how much you can really understand one another in 140 characters
Margaret McKeown:
Absolutely, yeah.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Well, thank you for accepting this invitation. So let's start off with your research and writing around vocabulary development and explicit vocabulary instruction, which goes back decades. I'm wondering if you could start off by talking a little bit about what has stayed the same about your perspectives about how to approach vocabulary learning, and if there's anything that's changed over time.
Margaret McKeown:
Okay. Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question. I think on first blush, I don't think there's much that has changed. I mean, what seems very clear to me is what was decades ago identified as the most important elements of direct vocabulary instruction, and that's definitional and contextual information, multiple exposures in different contexts and interactions, interactive activities around words. Those are still absolutely key. Maybe what's changed or what's been added is my appreciation for the cumulative nature of vocabulary knowledge. When we're learning a word, we don't learn it all at once, and we kind of realize that from the whole idea, you need multiple exposures, but it really can take a very long time. So even after five days of good lessons in vocabulary, there are definitely going to be some words that kids really don't know fully yet. Every time we meet a word, we're adding something else to what we know. And I think the other aspect of that, relatedly, is that I've become more aware of understanding that what we know about vocabulary is really a network of connections. So it's definitely not just the word in its definition, but it's connections to all these other words that could mean something similar or might be used in the same situations. And that's what we have to build. So it's important to do things like say to kids, can you be both frugal and generous? Because there's not an obvious answer to that. So really for them to think that through and come up with how those two words relate to each other is really what develops this network and this awareness of how words mean.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, and I was reading a poem by Amanda Gorman this morning, and she's just got this gift too, of using language in such unusual, surprising ways. It's not at all how you'd find the definition in the dictionary, but you have to work to still think about what does she mean here? Exactly. Yeah.
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So there's this deepening of each individual word's meaning, and the different ways we can use these words. And then there's the conceptual network between this word and all the other words. So it's just always growing.
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I know a question teachers ask a lot, and I'm sure you get asked this question and you address it in your writing, is how to choose from all the words out there that kids need to know. How do I choose which ones are most worth the time in the classroom to teach? Because there's limited time. We can't teach them all. What's the most bang for our buck?
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah. Yeah. I think the first thing that's really important is something you just touched on. You can't teach them all. So back off of that expectation, give yourself a break. You're not going to do that. And of the words you choose to teach, again, you're not going to teach them thoroughly. You're not going to have all your students learn them thoroughly. That's okay too, because once they've been introduced and had a good introduction and are aware of words and language, they'll continue to build on their own. That said, the words that we want kids to focus on are the ones that are going to be most useful, particularly for text comprehension, because the words we use every day orally, it's a pretty common set, and kids are going to learn those, even if they don't know them all, when they come to school, they're going to learn 'em from conversation. Their meanings tend to be obvious from talking and interactions. So we really want to focus on the words that turn up in text and not so much orally. And the words that go across domains. If a word has a really broad application, that's a good word to teach, and then it's just, we call those tier two words, and we have lots of examples of them in the books that Isabel and I and colleagues have written, but it's kind of getting a sense of that kind of word. So what I think is most helpful for teachers is to first tune your own mindset. As you are reading, look for the words that have that quality. You start to get a feel for that. Oh yeah, that's a word that's going to turn up a lot. Oh yeah, I see consistency. I see structure in a lot of different kinds of texts. Sometimes it helps to look over the lists like the academic word list or the academic vocabulary list. Not that that should dictate your teaching at all, but it gives you a sense of the kind of word you want to look for. But then it's most important if you can find that kind of word in the texts that you're going to be working with in the classroom, because then it has a context that you can start out with and you've got a ready made bundle there. So that's kind of the general outlines. And beyond that, I think I'd say, don't worry so much about whether a word is in tier two or not. If you say, well, I don't know if this is a tier two word, well just think about, does it have those qualities that you think kids are going to get a lot of use for it?
Jennifer Serravallo:
Can we talk a little bit about after the teacher has selected those words, how does the teaching of this word go? You said they need to have contextual knowledge. What else should a teacher be revealing or eliciting from children, and how does this look in the classroom when they're teaching words explicitly?
Margaret McKeown:
Well, so a couple ways to answer that. When we did our vocabulary studies, we had a format in which we would introduce a word, and if it came from a text, we would kind of say in the text it said. Joe had good fortune, so fortune means blah, blah, blah. And we would give a friendly definition for it. And then right away we would take it to a different context and get kids involved by saying something about, do you feel like you have good fortune, why or what? Something like that. But so it's really give them or review a context, give them a friendly definition, and then get it out of that context and move it to get a response from them looking back on it. I think we've done that very consistently in our studies, but it's not the case that you have to do that in that order every time for every word you want to introduce. So the one thing I try to encourage now when I talk to teachers is it can be much more informal. You want those elements. It's really good to start out with a friendly definition in kid terms that they can latch onto, and you got to have a context right away. But then it's like over time or over days, start to play with it. You might even just use a word in the classroom and use it three or four times until somebody says, what does that word mean? So it can be much more informal and flexible. And I think that way too. The concern of it taking so much time gets alleviated. Also, in our research studies, we did every word exactly the same introduction, the same number of encounters. You don't need to do that in the classroom. We had to do that so we could have replicable and measurable patterns and that so that we could understand where the effects were coming from and so that we could describe it. But in the classroom, if you introduce a word and you see somehow it's not taking, just don't even mess with anymore, or you see a word that kids have latched onto immediately, then just do it a couple more. Just drop it into conversation a couple times and then move on. You don't have to do everything the same. And I would say the one thing not to focus on is the definition, even the friendly definition. So what we did in our work was we would give a friendly definition and even have that written down for kids, usually depending on the grade level. But then when we would review definitions, we'd do a paraphrase of that. And when we'd ask kids, so what does that word mean? We wouldn't expect them or even want them to parrot the friendly definition, but to put it more in their own words, and there are a couple reasons for that. One is that then they really are building up the concept of the word instead of a definition. And two, they don't get the idea that a word is its definition because we want them to focus on use. I mean, think of it as challenging kids for word use and not practicing. So those are important. Oh, the other incredibly important thing, and this is another thing that I think I would stress more and more, even more than we did in our work, is using words outside of vocabulary lessons, and particularly outside of class, challenge kids to find words in books they read or video games or menus. I mean, some kids brought examples they'd found in the Bible when they were in Sunday school. That's so important. We found that that really does have a measurable effect. Plus it gets kids, it gets kids excited about vocabulary. It gives 'em this feel of control. Oh, there's that word. I found that word again. And it really shows them that what they're doing with words in school is not just a school exercise. These words are going to help them in their life, in their world. So those things are really, really important. And then it's very generative. If I bring in, oh, I found the word fortune in my fortune cookie, then I share that with the class, the teacher shares that with the class, and then it just helps other kids think about where they might have seen that word, or they might think, Ooh, I got to look for that word. I have to look for another word. So that's really important. And it's one of those things that can be done with very minimal planning and very minimal classroom time
Jennifer Serravallo:
That is just kind of word curiosity and interest. It's just contagious. And it's more than just the vocabulary lesson time. It just creates this culture in the classroom of, oh, look at this one. I found, oh, what's that mean? Yeah. Or you approach your text differently too.
Margaret McKeown:
Yes.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah. And I think another kind of place where we can help kids develop curiosity is around teaching morphology or etymology of words. And I've read a bunch of studies about how generative that is as well. You learn a prefix in this context and you can figure out what other words mean over and over and over again. What are some elements of an effective morphology lesson? What does this look like in the classroom? Unlike phonics, I don't see a lot of scope and sequences for morphology instruction.
Margaret McKeown:
No, I really,
Jennifer Serravallo:
No.
Margaret McKeown:
Right. I don't know that that exists. I have a little bit of an objection to prefixes and suffixes. I just don't like them. Now that said, I know they're really important and they can help kids, but I would never teach them separately. I would never teach them un means this, and here's six words with un, because several reasons, because doesn't always mean the same thing. I think it's important to take the words as they're met in context and think about taking the word apart rather than teaching the parts, taking the word apart and talking about them.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So are you saying that you would kind of approach these words with roots and affixes the same way you'd approach other tier two words, but you're teaching about what the affixes mean in the context of a particular word versus trying to have a systematic way of approaching morphology over time? Am i understanding you correctly?
Margaret McKeown:
That’s exactly it.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I think if you're teaching it that way, kids just develop an awareness of these different affixes or different roots or, oh yeah, I know another word that has that same root. No, I see how these two words are related.
Margaret McKeown:
And they get the idea that, oh, if I see this word, I really can't quite make it out. Okay. We've worked with words that start with un, we've worked with words that start with re-, so maybe I should take that part off. I mean, I don't think they do this consciously, but you build that habit of, okay, so I got to look inside the word and see what's going on. Now the other part of morphology that I really enjoy is etymology or bound working with bound Latin roots, partly because I think it teaches kids, shows kids so much about what language is and how we got here to this just mess of stuff we use. It sort of opens up a whole new vista for them and sort of tells them language isn't a thing that we've all written rules for, and now you have to learn all the rules. It's this, it's kind of messy. You need to, and you can build up some tools and some resources along the way. So it's not as messy. And it's actually kind of interesting. So in some of our vocabularies, we've taught Latin bound Latin roots, and the way we would do that, we would have a word. So in one study, every word that we taught had a Latin route. So we would introduce the words, work with them, and then we'd begin to introduce the roots. We taught the word advocate. So we took out voc, voc and taught that meant voice, and then talked about other words, vocal voice, vocalization. And we would sort of show them, well, how does voice figure into the meaning of that word? Because sometimes it's a lot more distance than voice. So in other words was reside with s i d, or it could be s e d, and it means sit or settle. So you have sedentary and you have sediment, and that's a little more distant, figuring those out. So we would show them the kind of range that it can help you get an idea, but it's not going to tell you the meaning. And then we had an assessment in which we put a word like we had saying about a vociferous crowd and asked them not what the word meant, but what does that tell you about the crowd? And the kids who were taught the roofs were more likely to say, well, they were really noisy or a lot, everybody was talking in the crowd. And that's really what we're going for. So that it's a tool that helps you work out meaning of a context, not because it's probably not going to give you the word meaning directly. And so that it's lots of flexibility, lots of examples, lots of talking about, well, how does sit or settle figure into that? How does that relate to the meaning of that word?
Jennifer Serravallo:
So I think in both of these examples of explicitly teaching tier two vocabulary or exploring the words where it's more teacher directed, then this might be where we differ. I think about then giving kids steps that are replicable that they can then use on their own when they encounter words where there's no teacher there at all. So I call these strategies, and maybe that's where we differ on the terminology, but teaching kids something. So when you come to a word that's long and has lots of parts to it, you can kind of take the word apart, think about the meaning of each part and put it back together. Those are steps you can take. Yeah. Anytime you encounter a really long word that has lots of parts, or saying to kids you want to do more than just have a gist of an understanding, you want to be able to explain what the word means. So in a nonfiction text where that word's going to show up again and again, look for every time it appears, and then put all those different pieces of context together to develop more of an explanation of the word, those are generalizable steps you can take. What do you think about that kind of instruction? Those kind of what I call strategies or a how to for figuring out word meaning on your own?
Margaret McKeown:
I think that exactly what you described are things that I would say to kids at some point, but I guess I wouldn't consider them steps. I was thinking about this, and I think if I use the idea of steps at all, I think it's more like dance steps. So it's always in motion. It's not like I'm going to teach you directly to do this, and then two and then three. And then we get to a word and go, okay, what are your steps? I would just say to the kids, so now what do we do when we see a long word? Or how are we going to get this word this, look at this long word, look at what should we do to figure it out? And if they just go, oh, say, wait a minute, remember. And then somebody will say, it has a lot of parts, so what do we do with those parts? So it would be more of an interaction.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So what advice do you give kids when they're off reading? Maybe a self-selected text or everyone's engaged in content area reading that maybe they're reading different texts, they're reading different short texts about this topic that you're studying in common, and they get to a word they don't know. What's a good practice in the classroom? Should kids be collecting these words? Should they be trying to write a definition in the margin? Should they look the words up? Should they pause their reading and go look it up? What's the best advice for kids when they're reading independently?
Margaret McKeown:
Ooh, that's a tough one. And again, it has to be kind of developing these habits. Because when you run into a word you don't know, sometimes it doesn't matter that much to your comprehension. You don't want them to always think, oh, I better go look this up, or I better look for the clues in the text. Sometimes there aren't clues in the text, so it, it's sort of building the habit of if we're reading along and we get to a place where we don't know what's going on. So that's the most important thing, is building understanding, help kids build understanding of when they do understand something and when their comprehension, they know it's gone off the rails. And then you try to figure out why.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, that makes sense. So it's a flexibility necessary. Yes. Is what I hear you saying in terms of how we approach it and in terms of what we do when we come to that word based on so many of these factors.
Let's shift gears now because I'd love to talk to you a little bit about your questioning the author's instructional intervention. For those who haven't heard of it, can you just give a quick summary of what the approach is about?
Margaret McKeown:
So questioning author is an approach to comprehension that's based on a text processing model. And the heart of the comprehension process is really two things, identifying information and connecting it as we read through a text together, and then the teacher will stop and ask a question, there's some talk, and then you move on and the questions are really bland. Something like, what's going on? So how did the author start us off? What do you think that's about? What did the author mean by, how does that connect? How does that fit in with what we read before? So it's, it's what we call interspersed reading, kind of reading, stop and talk, proceed, read, stop, talk, proceed. The tricky part is really in responding to what kids say because they're not always going to have the whole deal to give you. And the thing is, that's fine. This is teaching them this process. So they build it themselves. So anytime they approach a text, just without even thinking about it, automatically are looking for what's, what the important information is and connecting it so that when they get to the end of that text, they have a mental representation of what that was about. So what happens along the way, say a kid, they don't know what to say or nobody says anything. So the first move is just wait, try to keep them engaged by looking around, making sounds and wait. If nobody says anything, then you might rephrase the question or say, so what do you think? And maybe even call on a kid who usually has something to say or reread, maybe it's a particularly difficult little section and you reread a couple of key sentences and say, so what's the author doing right there? And get them to talk. And when we stop during reading, it's not like we want a big discussion because we're moving through the text trying to put it together. So it can be just quick with one or two responses, but sometimes kids will have a lot to say, so you'll need to call on a couple. And if kids don't know, or if they just repeat the text and say, okay, so what does that mean? Or why is that important? And just get them to think, really what you're trying to do is establish this habit of thinking about what you're reading, kind of sticking it in your head, and then carrying that forward, sticking something else in your head, and then seeing if that connects. We might say, so what's going on there? And if kids are like, mom say, does that do anything like that, does that remind you of anything we read before in the text? Or now the author doesn't really tell us, but what do you think she's getting at? So the goal is really to take them through this process again and again and again till it gets to be a habit. It's not necessarily always the goal to have them have a full understanding of each text you read. Because what often happens, and I'm sure I did this when I was teaching, is, you know, get to the end of a text or even the middle of a text and something important has happened and the kids aren't getting it. So you tell them, and then you get to the end and say, give me a summary of the story or something. The kid says the summary, and you're like, oh, good. He understood it. No he didn't. He's telling you what you told him. So it's much more important that they should be left a little loosey about what that whole text was about. But they've tried, they've applied themselves and they've thought about the content throughout.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, that's so important that this is developing in them a habit of mind and understanding how to approach text so that they're just minds on when they're reading. Yes. And the teacher's not there, right?
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah. In fact, that, right, exactly. That's, that's where we're going. And in the questioning author book, we really talk about when getting students to take the wheel, I think we talk about it. So how do you move them to doing that process on their own? Which is really it. Yeah. The key to the whole thing. Yeah. Couple more things I should mention. We developed what we called teacher moves, and we really took this from what we saw teachers doing that was really effective. So the biggest ones are what we call marking and turning. So a kid says something that's kind of in the direction, maybe there's something, a character's doing something, and then he's not sure he should do it. And somebody says, blah, blah, blah, blah. Second thoughts button. You go, oh, so you think the guy's having second thoughts? What made you think that? Something that turns the kids back. So you mark what a kid said, that's kind of key. You're going to be helpful. And then turn 'em right back to thinking about and giving you more stuff. Then. So Ellis noticed, blah, blah, blah. Why might that be interesting? So mark, and then turn it back to kids. Another one we saw teachers use a lot was what we called Revoicing. And this is Accountable Talk talks about revoicing, and it really is kind of a paraphrasing of what a student said, but sort of cleaning up the language sometimes or highlighting the really key part because when you're working with kids, they'll sort of clump on and give you this three paragraph thing. And the important part was the guy's getting in trouble. So you kind of say, oh, so you're talking about that guy and you think he might be in trouble. And then again, turn it back. Or sometimes it doesn't even have to be a well-formed question. Just throwing words out there. Okay, trouble in the classroom, what do you think's going on? Or wild hair, a rainy day, what's he going to be thinking about? Something like that. Just throw the words out there. And one of the great things that we saw teachers doing, me really personalizing this approach in a lot of different ways. There were teachers that had sounds and noises that they'd make during the lesson that absolutely queued their kids in. Because you know how a classroom culture develops. I remember this one teacher who taught social studies, and it might be during either the reading of a part of a text that was really key, or during a student's response, she would just say, oh. And when she said that, when she made that noise, every kid in the classroom sat up, they knew what was going on. And it's just so much fun to see that kind of thing. But that, I know question, the author can feel kind of uncomfortable at first because you know, play a lesson, but you don't know what's going to happen. It's always an impromptu thing, but as it develops, it really is fun. Cause there gets to be this wonderful interaction where the kids get you and you get the kids and it works. It's really engaging and effective approach to use.
Jennifer Serravallo:
And I think that it's just such a perfect example of how a teacher has a plan. You have questions in mind when you're previewing the text, you think about what kinds of things you might say open-ended questions probably better than really literal questions, right? But then, yeah, at least 50% of what you're doing is responsive, if you're thinking on your feet and you're having these ways to turn the conversation around or redirect the kids or reprompt them or ask them again. I think that your examples are just really helpful. The kinds of patterns in the ways that we redirect or the ways that we can keep our eye on where we're going.
Margaret McKeown:
Yep.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah. Make children do the work.
Margaret McKeown:
Yes.
Jennifer Serravallo:
That's really critical.
Margaret McKeown:
The thing is forming questions so that you're encouraging the kids to do the cognitive work. Just be really aware of taking it over. And I think as teachers, we want to explain and help kids, but realize you just have to go, okay, stop. Don't say anything more and realize that the way you're helping kids most is to get them to do it. Because if you, yeah, I mean, at least half the lesson exactly as you said, should be responsive, reacting to kids. If it's not, then they're probably not learning much if you're just delivering stuff to them or asking questions that are really going to be simple for them to answer. They're not really progressing. They're just doing what they can do already. So yeah, it has to be tough for kids to really learn.
Jennifer Serravallo:
And do you feel like at any point the kids start asking each other these questions? So you get into whether it's a whole class conversation or a literature circle discussion or book club where kids start to learn the kinds of questions that spur on continuing processing of the text and continuing conversation.
Margaret McKeown:
Totally. And exactly.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I think it's just such a powerful practice and shows how comprehension can be supported through conversation and how conversation supports deepening comprehension. It just makes a case for making time for this in the classroom.
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah, and see. Yeah, exactly. And that's another thing that I think concerns me about strategies instruction, because I think a lot of time gets spent on teaching and practicing a strategy instead of just go into that text,
Jennifer Serravallo:
Just do it,
Margaret McKeown:
and be driven by that content.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah. Well, I do want to say, I think I have to send you some videos of me teaching strategies, because I think we're on the same page in
Margaret McKeown:
Terms of,
Jennifer Serravallo:
Of how the strategy fits in. I think that you're right, it doesn't need to be the strategy for the strategy's sake. I see it as just a way to articulate for kids, we just did this thing, just so you're clear, these are the steps that we followed. You could do this too as a way to make it more explicit. But I don't know, maybe after seeing my videos you'd still disagree with me, and that's okay too.
Margaret McKeown:
Yeah, no, I see what you mean. And I think we're, maybe we're just, it's not, so we're different. We're just slightly on the other side.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Well, Dr. McKeown, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Margaret McKeown:
You're so welcome. It's been really fun.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I now welcome my colleagues, Rosie Maurantonio and Gina Dignon for a conversation about practical takeaways. I loved that conversation. What did you both think?
Rosie Maurantonio:
Oh, I think it was great. What I love is that she's all about everything within the context of what you're doing. And it's not like vocabulary instruction is not another program we need to layer in, but I just think, and I've worked with the Bringing Words to Life book before, and I just think the approach is really great, bringing it in through read aloud. And I like what she said about choosing words that are most meaningful for kids. But even for first grade, I'm always thinking about even feeling words and trait words and action words and words that kids can use when they're talking about books, talking about their feelings when they're writing their stories. I think that's really the most powerful. And what she's talked about with transferring at home, I use some of the suggestions about when kids are using words at home, they have to write it down on a post-it and they can bring it in share, and we tally how often we're using the words and who used it in their writing and just making sure. I think the biggest thing is seeing them in different contexts. So starting with that read aloud and how the character might be feeling, or a trait that describes that character in that book, but then also looking at that in our lives and at the world at large,
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, I think sometimes when there's not a program or a scope and sequence or a curriculum to follow, sometimes things slip by the wayside, of course, because the classroom is so busy. I know when the Common Core didn't have explicit standards around poetry, for example, and everyone was really moving to just teaching narrative and expository, and then people were like, well just sprinkle it in, do a poem of the week or put it in. And I saw poetry just really slip out of the classroom. So I'm wondering, just practically as a teacher, are you thinking, okay, in every read aloud, I'm going to try to make sure I pick at least one new word to teach them that, something like that? Yeah,
Rosie Maurantonio:
That's sort of what I did. I think in their book, they recommend the book, it recommends were three to five words in a book or something like that. But I went with one and it was kind of like I use the protocol that's in the book and I have that printed out for certain books I've read, and I stick it at the end. So after we've talked about the theme and the book at large, we go back to that word. And one thing that really helped kids to transfer that is to, and I had gotten this idea from someone else, was I photocopy the cover of the book with the character maybe and the word underneath it, and it's hanging up in the classroom, so kids will look over and remember, oh, we use that word in that book, and it helps kind of transfer that. But I think choosing one, even if it's not maybe one word in every book, maybe across the week at least choosing three to four or something like that is more manageable because you're right, it can be easy to forget or just to put that to the side or with all the things we have to do.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah. Gina, what were some of your thoughts about vocabulary instruction or what have you seen as you're visiting classrooms around the country?
Gina Dignon:
Frankly, I think a lot of programs have way too many vocabulary words that go with each text that teachers are being asked to make sure kids, know, and I mean, that's a whole other conversation for how does someone actually know a word? But I think Dr. McKoewn was saying it's fluid. Not everybody's going to have that word in their working vocabulary after you teach it, even after you teach it wel., And so that's sort of an interesting thing to talk further about, but I couldn't really sure what her hangup was on the strategy thing, because when she started to talk about it, basically, she was
Rosie Maurantonio:
Basically, it does.
Gina Dignon:
Basically saying a strategy. But I think her point about rigidity was important, though. But I mean, I don't think that that's in opposition to what you say in all of your work, Jen, I feel like we talk a lot with teachers around helping kids know when to use a strategy. But I think she's just conscious of trying to keep the, that it's not like these are the steps teachers should check this list off. I think she was trying to make sure that it's the interactions you have with students and what you were talking about with the responsiveness of teaching. I think it's more about how I think sometimes it's valuable to tell kids the steps, practice it, or do a demonstration and then repeat the steps. Just really explicit heads up, here's how we're going to do it. Let's do it. Remember it. Here's how we did it. Whether it's a small group or a whole class instruction. But I think her point, I hope I'm getting this right, is that she wants the kids to be active participants in figuring it out. And then maybe at the end you tell them, okay, so here's what we did in a generalizable way, or here's the questions that we found to be really helpful so that they transfer it to independence so that we, what did she say? Hand it over to them or take the wheel. That's what she said.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So I think it's more about when the articulation of the strategy comes into play, I think that might be where we disagree. And I think she might be a little bit more wanting kids to just be active, almost like if you think about the gradual release triangle, for her it might be a little bit more inverted, right? Right. Where it's more, we're doing it together, maybe even more of an inquiry approach. How did we do this? And then at the end becomes the articulation from the teacher. I don't know what, Rosie, what did you think about that?
Rosie Maurantonio:
Oh, I was also wondering too, does she know the way that yes, of course we're explicit with strategies when working that small group, or whether it's the mini lesson or it's in one-on-one conference, but we already like the work that she's talking about, that engaging, we do with the strategies we do during read aloud. So I will sometimes say like, oh, okay, well wait a second. What have we learned from that? So I'll have more of an interactive approach there, and we are doing that work together in read aloud so that let's like, oh, and what we do, what you would say is, remember during read aloud when we got to that word, we weren't sure and we did X, Y, and Z. Let's see if we can do it here. So I don't know, in terms of that whole comprehensive approach, just strategy group work is important, but it's always, we give different levels of support throughout our day at different times, if that makes sense. So I don't know if she's seeing that as well, because it did seem like there was so much overlap and it was the terminology of strategy, or was it, I don't know. Or does it, the idea that we always go back to there's multiple strategies and this one might not work, so you might try that and it's not working for this word.
Gina Dignon:
But with the vocabulary, were you understanding that she prioritized the context of that particular text initially? And then kids are, you're supposed to encourage kids to take those words outside of that text. Is that kind of what you understood her to say?
Jennifer Serravallo:
It's a few different steps. So the first step is while reading, you just tuck in the kid-friendly definition to maintain comprehension of that text. Then, maybe later, because you probably don't want to pause for a long period of time and break up the flow of the reading. Later you return to it, that word and say, remember we learned, or we came upon this word and this is what it meant. Here's some other ways you can use that word, or here's other context for that word. And then you ask questions. This, does it, does this make sense? Or does this make sense? And try to get them to actively process that word so they're getting the benefit of the first initial context as well as seeing how that word can be used in other contexts as well. Rosie, does that kind of match how you've been following the protocol?
Rosie Maurantonio:
Yeah, yeah, I've done that. And then even afterwards, there's other components to it too, making choices. I have an example I have here from when I taught kids about the word confident. I'm like, if it, does this situation sound like a situation where you would need to be confident riding a two-wheeler for the first time or walking on the sidewalk and the kids have to process that, or, oh, when the girl was walking on the balance beam, a teacher told her to be confident. Why? So there's lots of, they gave all these different, I think their examples are questions, reasons, and examples. There's making choices, and then children create examples. So after the reading of the text is when they had that word play. And it could be immediately after, but it could also be something, you know, continue on the next few days. But it is, it's understanding what that word means within the context of the story, but then also making sure you extend it, because otherwise the kids will just limit it to that situation. I know when I taught resilient and I talked about falling off your bicycle, they thought anytime you're resilient is when you fall on the floor and then you get back up ice skating or bike riding. But it's like, no, it could be, it's like when there's some sort of trouble that you've encountered or you feel let down.
Gina Dignon:
My only other thought is about word walls, because I feel like right now for this, it sounded like you did a concept wall, Rosie with this relates to this character around trait language or because I feel like people have the best intentions with word walls, and when you go into a classroom halfway through, you're, it hasn't been updated, or it's just too hard to keep up with because of this. I think this iterative process that happens when you're talking about vocabulary and kids are trying different things on. So I don't know what your thoughts are about that. Should kids have personal vocabulary word walls, but then there's all these sound walls and word walls for high frequency words. It, it's so much there. It's all important. Kids at certain grade levels need different things, but I don't know what you guys are thinking about that.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I feel like there's, when I first started teaching, the word wall was for the purpose of sharing irregularly spelled high frequency words. It was really a spelling support, right? And I think what you're talking about is using classroom wall real estate to really remind kids of the vocabulary that they know and the way that Rosie was describing, or I could see words related to math or science or social studies or other tier two vocabulary words that we're encountering in our read aloud that we are seeing across contexts. And Freddie Hebert, I'm reminded of her amazing resource textproject.org, and she's got a lot of concept maps of showing, for example, oh yeah, I was just looking at where on the other day the word earth and how earth can refer to the planet. It can refer to soil, it can refer to something, can be earthy. It's just got these really cool webs. You can just even download or be inspired by that show kids the interconnectedness or the ways that words are used in multiple ways. So I could see some of those being displayed. I don't know. What are you thinking, Rosie?
Rosie Maurantonio:
So I think, I know when I taught fourth grade, I kind of displayed the words by the content area. So if it was something we're doing towards science and social studies, just because for my mind, I don't know if that was the best, but the kids did pretty well using that. I mean, for first grade, the way I've done it with these photos of the read aloud chart and the word that goes with it, I've either put it as almost like a border around the classroom, so it's totally separate. After we've kind of used those words quite a bit, I've kind of put all the traits on a chart and the feelings on a chart kind of like that. But now, again, after the last podcast we had done, I'm totally abandoning the word wall. I think I'm going to just do a sound wall now. I'm excited for that. I don't know, it's not going to necessarily, I'm not sure what it's going to look like, but I am definitely sold on a sound wall for helping with kids with spelling and reading. I think that's much more of a way to go with that. So I don't know if that's helpful, Gina, but that's sort of what I'm thinking.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So I think there's the use of the specific words. So we came to this word and read aloud. I'm going to try to weave it in somewhere. I think that probably takes a lot of cognitive effort and energy to think of that and think of your learning objectives and listen to the kids. But it could be cool. But I also just think using more sophisticated vocabulary generally, not stopping yourself and simplifying your language, but using the words you might use in adult conversation and in a classroom community where kids are word conscious and word curious and they know they can always ask you, I don't know. I think that could be really powerful. And it's reminding me of the conversation with Tanya Wright from season one. She also said that it's one of the ways that important ways that we learn words. We encountered them in books. We learn new hobbies, and we need to learn the words that go with those hobbies. And we're around people that use those words in meaningful context, and we learn them in that way as well. So absolutely, I think teachers using more sophisticated words could be a huge boon to kids' vocabulary development.
Rosie Maurantonio:
And I think you said then, making sure that it's an environment where kids feel comfortable asking questions. I know now my nephew is three, and now he's the kind of kid who asks about everything. So you have to explain it to him. But he's like, well, what is that? What's that? And that's really how he's learning. It's forcing me to explain, well, that word, what does it really mean? And he's just asking questions about it. So that makes sense is if we use, use the words that are maybe a little bit higher than we typically use, as long as we set up that environment where kids feel comfortable asking and that, or there's a time and a place for it, for asking, I think that's how they'll acquire. And the more we just use them,
Jennifer Serravallo:
It's important. Or to be, to be Lemony Snicket and just use big words and then just tuck in into definition all day long. Just be using big words and tucking in definitions. Kids think about how many words the kids can learn across the day
Rosie Maurantonio:
And an issue. And I think the more we use them and the more we use them naturally too. I think in this year, my class, I had a child who asked to go to the nurse multiple times a day. So I'd be like, you always come in with an ailment. And all the kids were like, she's got another ailment today. It was just kind of funny that the kids all just started using it. So that's kind of a funny thing.
Jennifer Serravallo:
That's a great example.
Gina Dignon:
One way I think to help with that atmosphere of being able to ask questions and if you don't understand something is kind of what she was saying around the kinds of prompting that you do to get the kids to be doing more of the work. Just to invite the kids in right away, that we don't have to be the dispensers of the vocabulary definitions. It's more of we can directly teach the word, give them, give them a context of how it appears in the text. To give it a try. And I feel like those are the kinds of classrooms where kids are going to ask questions and not be afraid to be confused. Like she said, that it's okay, it that's what learning is.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Absolutely. Okay, well, let's stop there for today. Thank you so much. Thank you both so much for joining me for this conversation.
Gina Dignon:
All right, thanks, Jen.
Rosie Maurantonio:
Thank you.