Keyword Strategies Work Best Under the Following Circumstances

The Keyword Strategy

Keyword strategies work best under the following circumstances:

1.  When a keyword is obviously and readily available. If students spend time fruitlessly trying to think of a keyword and cannot find one, then the technique is not likely to be productive.

2.  When the association between the keyword and the target word can be vividly and unambiguously pictured in the visual memory.

3.  When both the word to be learned and the keyword are concrete rather than abstract.

4.  When the word to be learned is related to concepts that already exist within the learner’s long-term memory.

5.  When the strategy is combined with other strategies, such as examining its root meaning, looking for analogies with other words, or using the word actively and often in meaningful contexts.

6.  When learners generate the keyword associations themselves, rather than having them delivered by a teacher or textbook.

Letter Strategy:

Teaching letter strategies involves the use of acronyms and acrostics. Acronyms are words whose individual letters can represent elements in lists of information, such as HOMES to represent the Great Lakes (e.g., Huron, Ontario, Michigan). Acrostics are sentences whose first letters represent to-be-remembered information, such as “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas,” to remember the nine planets in order (e.g., Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars). Teachers can use these letter strategies to help students remember lists of information.

Exercise #1

Use the initials from your name as an acronym. Can you come up with any phrases that could be used with your initials? (ex. Jim Carrey: JC which could stand for Jeering Comedy)

Your Initials: ______

Your Acronym:

Exercise #2:

Below is a list of some common acronyms. Work as a team to come up with the best answer for each (some have more than one).

CSI

DVD

RADAR

PBS

NOAA

IDEA

Letter Strategy

Teaching letter strategies involves the use of acronyms and acrostics. Acronyms are words whose individual letters can represent elements in lists of information, such as HOMES to represent the Great Lakes (e.g., Huron, Ontario, Michigan). Acrostics are sentences whose first letters represent to-be-remembered information, such as “My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas,” to remember the nine planets in order (e.g., Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars). Teachers can use these letter strategies to help students remember lists of information.

Example A

The mnemonic “IT FITS” (King-Sears, Mercer, & Sindelar, 1992) is an acronym providing the following steps to create mnemonics for vocabulary words:

I dentify the term (vocabulary word, e.g., “impecunious”).

T ell the definition of the term (e.g., “having no money”).

Fi nd a keyword (e.g., “penniless imp”).

T hink about the definition as it relates to the keyword, and imagine the definition doing something with the keyword. For example, “An imp tried to buy something but found that his pockets contained no money.”

S tudy what you imagined until you know the definition.

Example B

Another mnemonic device for creating keywords for new vocabulary is LINCS (Ellis, 1992). During a unit on medieval history, students must learn a new vocabulary word, “catapult.” The teacher gives the following instructions:

L ist the parts. Write the word on a study card, and list the most important parts of the definition on the back. On the frontside of the card write the word “catapult” as the term to be defined, and on the backside of the card, write “to throw or launch as if by an ancient device for hurling missiles.”

I magine the picture. Create a mental picture and describe it. For example, something being launched over or through a barrier.

N ote a reminding word. Think of a familiar word that sounds like the vocabulary word. For example, a “cat” and a “pole” sounds similar to “pult”; write this on the bottom half of the card.

C onstruct a LINCing story. Make up a short story about the meaning of the word that includes the word to be remembered—for example, a cat pole-vaulting over a castle wall.

S elf-test. Test your memory forward to back; for example, look at the word “catapult” and “cat pole” on the front of the card, and say aloud the definition on the back of the card, as well as the image of a cat pole-vaulting over a castle wall. Reverse this process by looking at the back of the card to self-test the vocabulary word and keyword.

Rhyming

Rhyming is anther popular mnemonic strategy. Rhyming is something that comes natural to most children and it can be a fun and motivating activity to help students learn, practice, and remember new vocabulary words. There are various examples of rhymes that are used in language activities—for example, rhymes that help students remember spelling rules and letter sounds, such as “I before e, except after c” or “sounded as a, as in neighbor and weigh.” Rhymes, of course, are synonymous with many children’s books and fairy tales—Cat in the Hat, Jack and Jill, and Humpty Dumpty, to name a few.

There are various rhyming activities that can be used as a vocabulary strategy. One is known as “Hink Pinks.” A hink pink is a riddle that rhymes. For example: What is an obese feline? Answer: a fat cat.

Directions: Below are clues for some “Hink Pinks.” Read the clues and see if you can answer the questions. When you are finished, create at least three of your own.

1.  What do you call a colorful mattress?

2.  What do you call a tidy road?

3.  What do you call a meat burglar?

4.  What do you call a spicy place?

5.  What do you call a tiny sphere?

6.  What do you call a plastic pond?

7.  What do you call a rodent’s cap?

8.  What do you call a cooked reptile?

9.  ______

10.  ______

Context Clues

Context clues are hints the author gives to help define a difficult or unusual word. The clue may appear within the same sentence as the word to which it refers, or it may be in a preceding or subsequent sentence.

Read the description of each context clue in the chart below and review the examples that are provided.

Synonym A synonym, or word with the same meaning, is used in the sentence.
Ex: My opponent’s argument is fallacious, misleading–plain wrong.

Antonym A word or group of words that has the opposite meaning reveals the meaning of an unknown term.
Ex: Although some men are loquacious, others hardly talk at all.

Explanation The unknown word is explained within the sentence or in a sentence immediately preceding.
Ex: The patient is so somnolent that she requires medication to help her stay awake for more than a short time.

Example Specific examples are used to define the term.
Ex: Celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars, are governed by predictable laws.

As a team, read the following sentences and define each bolded word based on the context clues. Then identify which of the four types of clues is used in each sentence.

1.  The girl who used to be very vociferous doesn’t talk much anymore.

2.  Pedagogical institutions, including high schools, kindergartens, and colleges, require community support to function efficiently.

3.  He was so parsimonious that he refused to give his own sons the few pennies they needed to buy pencils for school. It truly hurt him to part with his money.

4.  His pertinacity, or stubbornness, is the cause of most of his trouble.

5.  Rather than be involved in clandestine meetings, they did everything quite openly.

6.  Ecclesiastics, such as priests, ministers, and pastors, should set models of behavior for their congregants.

7.  The girl was churlish–rude, sullen, and absolutely ill-mannered.

8.  Because the conflagration was aided by wind, it was so destructive that every building in the area was completely burned to the ground.

Semantic Clues

Semantics means the study of meaning in words. Semantic clues are words in the text that can help students associate an unfamiliar word with familiar related words. For example, when reading a story about cats, good readers develop the expectation that it will contain words associated with cats, such as purr and whiskers.

Word Bank:

Indulging concepts decontextualized origins extensively stock

Accordingly repertoire derived potent curriculum lay

1. ______word lists are often used ______to teach vocabulary.
2. The nature and ______of words have long held a fascination for interested scholars and ______public, not only to satisfy intellectual, but also because word knowledge has particular importance in literate societies.
3. The vocabulary, or lexicon, of language encompasses the ______of words of that language which is at the disposal of a speaker or writer.
4. Words are no more than labels for ______about the world around us, and as new concepts emerge or old ones change, the lexical stock changes ______.
5. Vocabulary development is a lifetime undertaking in which schools play a critical role in enriching and extending the young child’s basic lexical ______, particularly through the medium of written language.
6. The linguist W. N. Francis once commented that “many people...go through life with a vocabulary adequate only to their daily needs...but never ______in curiosity and speculation about words.
7. Vocabulary instruction properly belongs in all subjects of the ______in which students meet both new ideas and the words by which they are represented in the language.
8. Teachers who are “wordlovers” themselves provide students both with a ______example of the value and pleasure that can be ______from exploring the richness and diversity of English lexicon, and with classroom contexts for such exploration by drawing on students’ shared experiences.

What Is the CLOZE Procedure?

CLOZE is a technique in which words are deleted from a passage according to a word-count formula or various other criteria. The passage is presented to students, who insert words as they read to complete and construct meaning from the text. This procedure can be used as a diagnostic reading assessment technique.

What is its purpose?

·  To identify students’ knowledge and understanding of the reading process

·  To determine which cueing systems readers effectively use to construct meaning from print

·  To assess the extent of students’ vocabularies and knowledge of a subject

·  To encourage students to monitor for meaning while reading

·  To encourage students to think critically and analytically about text and content

Directions: As a group use this CLOZE activity to fill in the blanks in the story with the missing words from the word bank.

The Black Cat—Edgar Allen Poe (1841)

Establish Eager Attributed Accuracy Expressions

Imperfect Succeeding Dense Resisted Graven

I am above the weakness of seeking to ______a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link ______. On the day ______the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, ______the action of the fire - a fact which I ______to its having been recently spread. About this wall a ______crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and ______attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar ______excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if ______in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an ______truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck.

ROOT WORDS

A root word is a word that has nothing added at the beginning or the end. It stands on its own as a word, it has a meaning. New words can be made from root words by adding beginnings (prefixes) and endings (suffixes). Root words can help students learn new words, because recognizing the root of a word when reading can students to work out what the word is and what it means.

Activity Directions:

From the root words in the left column, see how many new words you can grow from the same root. Do this individually, and see how many words each of you can make in 15 minutes. Spend the rest of the exercise time, discussing any suggestions you have for additional activities that can be used with root words.

Root Word / New Words /
act
add
apply
beauty
care
complete
confuse
cook
correct
dark
decide
diet

Suffixes

A suffix is a group of letters which is added to the end of a word that changes how a word is used as a part of speech.

Directions:

Work as a group to unscramble the following words. Identify the suffix in each word.

1.  ulufiteba

2.  ufawl

3.  lclrfoou

4.  etraettmn

5.  essskicn

6.  eelnsds

7.  uplafni

8.  ulefraf

9.  lsnseli

10. secalres

Prefix Map

Directions for Group Leader: As a group, see how many words you can think of that begin with the prefix “pre.” Write the words in the radiating circles. If you run out of circles, write the additional words on the back of this page.

Semantic Webbing

Semantic Webbing builds a side-by-side graphical representation of students’ knowledge and perspectives about the key themes of a reading selection before and after the reading experience.

From: Just Read Now, n.d.

READING SELECTION

Children’s concepts about literacy are formed from the earliest years by observing and interacting with readers and writers as well as through their own attempts to read, and write. In each situation they encounter, their understanding is both increased and constrained by these existing models of written language. In other words, while these existing models mediate and enable understanding, the knowledge and beliefs of which these models are composed are modified with use as the child explores language, text, and meaning. Beyond incremental learning, certain changes in perspective and reorganizations of concept are also necessary. In this way, the breath, depth, and nature of children’s engagement with text determines a great deal of literacy learning.