Vocabulary
Mona
Bazzi
EDU645: Learning & Assessment for the 21st Century
Instructor: Alicia Holland-Johnson
August
14, 2012
Rationale
In order to assess students’ vocabulary ability, I used
the Critchlow Verbal Language. The
Critchlow Verbal Language Scale requires that students have to identify
opposites of given words. I was curious
to establish ways students relate terms based on their existing knowledge of
words. These words are not presented in
sentences; therefore, students would need to know the meaning of the word in
order to provide an antonym of the word.
I would discontinue the testing when students made five consecutive
errors.
To further assess students’ vocabulary ability; I picked
six words a passage from the book Hurry Up, Spider-Man! by Kate Egan. As
Kubisyzyn & Borich mentioned,” you may have partially made your decision of
what particular test format when you developed your objectives (Kubisyzyn &
Borich). This assessment will provide me with information regarding students’
ability to use context clues to define unknown vocabulary words. Students chose this book from the school
library; this book is appropriate for ages 3-7 (students are 7). I chose the passage on page 6 and selected 6
vocabulary words. The words I chose were
actress, dream, disappoint, promised, show, show-up. I encouraged students to read the sentence
around to the word to define the given word.
Gunning (2010) states that students must have contextual knowledge and
knowing definitions alone is not enough for students to understand the passages
at hand. I wanted to learn if students
can define unknown words using his contextual knowledge.
Results
Using the Critchlow
Verbal Language Scale, stduents correctly identified 32 opposites of given
words. There are a total of 75 words,
but we stopped at 43 words since they could not identify five consecutive
opposite words. their score of 32 places
them in the sixth grade range. Out of
the 32 words they identified, 30 of those words were the exact opposites listed
in the assessment. The words where they
did not provide the exact opposites were: for sick they said healthy, and for absent they said everybody’s here. Some incorrect responses were: for love they
said go away, for laugh they said not funny, for heavy they said not heavy, for smooth they said skinny and for friend he said neighbor. He could not identify opposites for evening,
raw, multiply, difficult, narrow and wild.
I discontinued the test after he got five consecutive errors.
I chose the
words actress, dream, disappoint, promised, show and show-up from the book Hurry
Up, Spider-Man by Kate Egan. Prior
to reading the passage, they did not know what actress, disappoint, and show up
meant. They knew that a dream was what
happened when you were sleeping, a promise was something someone said, and a
show was something you watch on television.
I had them read the passage first, then I asked them to define what each
word meant based on the context around the word. After reading the passage, they were able to
identify what each word meant based on the context around the word. They did not give me one word answers; rather
they provided details about what each word meant. For example, they defined the word actress by
stating, “Actor in a show. She has lines to say-she goes on stage in a
theater.” Mary Jane has dreams of
becoming an actress; they defined dream by saying, “She imagines it in her
brain-it’s something she really wants to do.”
This explanation fits within the context of the story and therefore
yielding a correct response. When
defining disappoint, students said, “Don’t let me be mad at you. It’s another way of saying being mad.” This response is correct since he could
identify when someone is disappointed, s/he is upset at the actions. They said that promised means, “Like telling
the truth and don’t break a promise-like really doing it.” They defined show as someone, “goes to the
theater and he (Peter Parker) sees her (Mary Jane) on stage.” Finally, for showed-up he stated, “When she
sees him in his seat.”
Interpretations
of Results
Based on
Language Results, I conclude that students understand and can identify
opposites. Although students are in 2nd
grade, their listening vocabulary capacity is 6th grade. The students provided opposites quickly
meaning that they understand opposites.
For two of the incorrect responses, students added the word “not” in
front of the word. I did not mark these
as right answers because I wanted them to use a different word to describe the
given word. However, the fact that they
used the word not is an indication that they know that “not” is used when
describing opposites. They did not know the opposites for evening or raw; this
is an indication that they have not used these words before or that they do not
know what they mean. The fact that they
said friend for neighbor is an
indication that they know that a neighbor is someone you are familiar with, but
they could not identify the opposite (enemy).
Students can associate words with their definitions pretty well since they
were able to provide opposites up to sixth grade words. This stage is defined by Gunning (2010) as associative-definitional knowledge; when students
are given a word, they quickly define it in their head and are able to provide
an antonym.
Initially, I asked students if they knew what actress,
dream, disappoint, promised, show and show-up means. After they read the passage, they were able
to change what they thought some of the words meant. Dream, for example, could have two
meanings. They told me the first meaning
prior to reading the passage. After
reading the passage, they changed their mind providing the correct meaning of
the word based on the context clues.
This is an indication that students have contextual-conceptual knowledge.
This means that students use the context around the word to come up with the
correct definition.
Recommendations
Although students were able to identify opposites and use context
clues to indentify meaning, I’m not sure if they can use words appropriately in
speaking and writing (generative knowledge).
Another way to build vocabulary is by reading different
kinds of texts. Students would benefit
from different reading opportunities. Students
do not really read unless they are required to, so I would suggest that teachers
provide students with different reading opportunities such as reading from a
magazine, a newspaper, or bibliographies (grade level appropriate, of
course). By providing these reading
opportunities, students will learn that reading can be fun and educational at
the same time. In providing the
magazines and/or newspapers, students will learn about what is going on in the
world as well as build his vocabulary. Students
would also benefit from teacher read aloud.
The teacher could pick books that introduce new vocabulary words.
References:
Kibuiszyn, T. & Borich, G. (2012). Educational testing &
measurement: Classroom application and practice (9th ed.). John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
Gunning, T.G. (2010). Assessing and correcting reading and writing
difficulties (4th ed.).
Boston:
Allyn
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