Crafting Academic Conversation to Engage Today's Learners

Location

Bowie C

Focused Area

Improving School Climate for Youth-At-Risk

Relevance to Focused Area

Crafting academic conversations empowers the teaching and learning process for all students and engages them in the language of school. Students directly and immediately benefit from the language of advanced tasks (reading, writing and speaking). School environments which promote, support and directly teach scholarly language are empowering places for students . We share strategies which increase access and application of academic vocabulary across all academic domains.

Primary Strand

Academic Achievement & School Leadership

Relevance to Primary Strand

This proposal relates to closing the achievement gap and supporting learning for all students. Having a rich, academic vocabulary is critical to success when preparing for a successful career or college experience. I believe educators know that vocabulary is important but challenged to find ways to effectively reduce the Word Gap. The strategies presented in this proposal will serve all populations of students and allow for instructional routines to ensure quality, effective instruction is provided consistently.

Brief Program Description

Engaging today’s 21st century learner in academic language empowers students to tackle complex tasks. This presentation shares innovative approaches to building academic language for all students in order to improve academic success. Utilizing routines to maximize efficiency, participants receive a host of strategies that increase student interaction and purposeful talk through engaging vocabulary activities. Highly interactive, this is perfect for elementary to middle and school educators.

Summary

Rich, robust vocabulary opens doors of opportunities for students. This workshop will show how to create an immediate bridge between student’s casual home language and advantageous school language. We turn researched-based strategies into engaging, systematic daily practices. Highly interactive, participants will experience engagement tools that extend students’ academic word understanding and use. We will explore which words give leverage, effective ways to teach those words and how to get them to stick. Photos and video segments from Title I schools that have used these methods will be featured. Additionally, participants will receive handouts with specific, researched and classroom based strategies. Immediate application ideas including games to adhere meaning to words, content notebook tips and systematic word consciousness will also be provided. Participants will leave with a host of enriching activities to extend student’s ability to both understand and apply scholarly words to reading, writing and speaking. Activities will intentionally address depth of learning and connections to standard based instruction to reinforce rigor through reading, writing, listening and speaking. Utilizing efficiency and effectiveness, participants will examine instructional approaches that increase Tier 2 and content specific vocabulary. Participants will explore four critical components of successful academic language development: school environment, teacher input, student interaction and engagement. Quick, easy to implement strategies will be provided to develop each component in order to immerse all students in an atmosphere that promotes word learning.

Evidence

Several studies have brought increased attention to the large disparity of at-risk students’ vocabularies in comparison to students with more advantages. (Biemeller & Slonim, 2001; Hart & Risley, 1995) Typically, Title I schools recognize a lack of vocabulary as a key identifier for poor comprehension across subjects. Schools will need to utilize research methods that provide strong vocabulary instruction. Incorporating student interaction, inferences, multiple exposures, and connection to prior knowledge is a better method than simply assigning words and definitions. (Beck et al., 2002; Nagy, 2005). Students should be exposed to new and challenging words that will be seen across multiple settings or subject areas. This type of vocabulary has been identified as Tier 2. (Beck and McKweon, 2002) Meaningful use of words in authentic situations combined with consistent practice is vital to a healthy, balanced vocabulary approach. (Blachowiz & Fisher, 2015)

Biemeller, A., & Slonim, N. (2001). Estimating root word and normative vocabulary growth in normative and advanced populations: Evidence for a common sequence of vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 498-520.

Beck, I., McKeown, M. & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995) Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore: P.H. Brookes.

Nagy, W. (2005). Why vocabulary instruction needs to be long term and comprehensive. In E. Hiebert & M. L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and Learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. (pp. 27-44). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Blachowicz, C. & Fisher, P. (2015). Teaching Vocabulary in all classrooms. National Louis University.

Format

Individual Presentation

Biographical Sketch

LaTina Robinson has more than 20 years of educational experience at both the school and district levels. LaTina, a former K-5 classroom educator, literacy coach, district level staff developer with a Masters in Educational Leadership believes every child should have rich, engaging educational opportunities. Most recently, she co-created One Stop Word Shop, co-authored a series of research-based vocabulary resources, and is known for practical, highly interactive presentations.

Janine Bracco Cox has spent over 25 years in education working to improve the literacy lives of students. As a former Reading Recovery teacher, classroom teacher, interventionist, and now co-creator of One Stop Word Shop Janine is most passionate about making best practices accessible to students, parents, and teachers.

Start Date

10-27-2017 2:00 PM

End Date

10-27-2017 3:15 PM

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Oct 27th, 2:00 PM Oct 27th, 3:15 PM

Crafting Academic Conversation to Engage Today's Learners

Bowie C

Engaging today’s 21st century learner in academic language empowers students to tackle complex tasks. This presentation shares innovative approaches to building academic language for all students in order to improve academic success. Utilizing routines to maximize efficiency, participants receive a host of strategies that increase student interaction and purposeful talk through engaging vocabulary activities. Highly interactive, this is perfect for elementary to middle and school educators.