Learning All-Purpose Academic Words (Research from CREATE)

Presenters

Catherine Snow (Primary)

SERP-Boston Research Director; Professor of Education
SERP Institute; Harvard Graduate School of Education

Description

In this presentation, Catherine Snow, Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will provide an overview of Word Generation, a program that uses research-based principles for teaching vocabulary in designing instructional units focusing on all-purpose academic words for students in the middle grades. In addition to teaching vocabulary, it provides opportunities to engage in purposeful academic discussion and write persuasive essays. Discussion will also include results from a pilot implementation in three schools that provides some evidence of the program's effectiveness in its main goals as well as in leading to higher levels of student motivation.

The relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary is well-established, and content area teachers recognize their responsibilities to teach students the words associated with their disciplines — words like photosynthesis, legislative, and dodecahedron. Unfortunately, though, second language speakers in particular (and students from low-literacy families more generally) often don't know the all-purpose academic words (words like process, formulate, and structure) that occur with high frequency in both content area textbooks and the definitions of those disciplinary words. There is little space in the structure of departmentalized middle and high schools to teach these words, as important as they are. The presentation will address this need.

This presentation is co-sponsored by SchoolsMovingUp and CREATE (Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners). Visit the CREATE web site for rich resources including instructions on how to join the CREATE's listserv and how to receive CREATE’s newsletter.

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