Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ™

Ep. 156: Science of Reading Beyond Phonics: Vocabulary Instruction with a Grade 5 Teacher

Share episode

Ever thought about the power of words? Join us as we discuss our most requested topic of all time: vocabulary. We have a special guest, fifth-grade teacher Sean Morrisey. We discuss Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary words and discuss how you can strategically select words to teach using research-based approaches. 

We also share the importance of continuously embedding words into language throughout the day and using data to measure improvement. Lastly, we bridge the connection between vocabulary and fluency, demonstrating how it impacts performance.  By the end of this episode, you'll feel inspired to transform your vocabulary instructional approach in your classroom, one word at a time.

Resources


We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

Grab free resources and episode alerts! Sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com.

Join our community on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

Lori:

You're listening to. Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Today we'll be talking to fifth-grade teacher Sean Morrissey all about how he uses vocabulary in his classroom and how it connects to what the research says about best practices in vocabulary instruction. Welcome, teacher friend. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two literacy educators in Baltimore.

Melissa:

We want the best for all kids and we know you do too, our district recently adopted a new literacy curriculum, which meant a lot of change for everyone, lori and I can't wait to keep learning about literacy with you today.

Lori:

Hi everyone. Welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Today we are talking with a teacher about one of our most requested topics of all time Vocabulary instruction.

Melissa:

Yeah, so exciting. And we're here to talk with Sean Morrissey, who is a fifth-grade teacher from Western New York not New York City, just make sure and he caught our eye on Twitter with a lot of suggestions he was giving for vocabulary, so we cannot wait to talk to him today. So welcome, sean.

Sean Morrisey :

Thanks, thanks for having me Very excited to be here.

Lori:

Yeah Well, we're glad you're here and I know today we're going to talk a lot about tier two words, also known as academic vocabulary, and a little bit about tier three words, or content specific words. But, sean, since you're the teacher expert here today, I would love for you to start us off by sharing a bit more about generally like tier one, two and three words.

Sean Morrisey :

All right. So I think we're kind of going to bringing words to life. So tier one words are just basic words that, like our high frequency kids know a lot. They're used in a lot in language ball horse, you know, run shoe, so words that are used often. So kids pick up on those words pretty quickly.

Sean Morrisey :

Tier three words are content words. So we're talking about, like science, social studies, content words. Words like isotope, tundra, like I teach photosynthesis in fifth grade, lvli, where LVLI it's very specific to us, you guys. So respiratory system. So when you teach the respiratory system you have to teach the LVLI. You know it's where gas is exchanged, you know with your circulatory system. So those are very content, specific words.

Sean Morrisey :

Tier two words are words that are really really important. They, you know, fall in science, social studies, literature. They're used in multiple domains. They have, like I would say, high utility too. Like words like feature, function, abundant, contradict. So words that kind of go in many, many different areas. My favorite, actually I have a favorite vocabulary word it's contract or we could say contract. So like you know it's, you know it's used in fifth grade, it's used in many different areas. So like with, with, with with contract, it falls under when I teach about the eyes, like your pupils are contracting. It falls under muscles, where you know your muscles are contracting or you're contracting an illness. And like you start teaching about the Constitution, like you know, some people will say it's a social contract. So, like that's my favorite word, it comes up. Kids probably read that word at least a hundred or more times throughout throughout the year, so it's a good word to teach.

Melissa:

So before we move on from this, I just wanted you mentioned bringing words to life. Do you want to talk a little, just in case people don't know that book?

Sean Morrisey :

Oh, my goodness.

Melissa:

Oh, he has it.

Sean Morrisey :

Hold it right there.

Lori:

Hold it up, so anybody watching on YouTube can can get that cover in their mind for their purchase Right there.

Sean Morrisey :

Honestly, like for the people I mean a lot of your listeners. You know the writing revolution was like like the book that came out for writing that was so, you know, that kind of changed people's practice, like bringing words to life. I think the first edition came out in 2002. So you know back McCow and Margaret's great I think she's retired now. She does a lot of podcasts now. They are just, I think, more than the experts on how to teach vocabulary in the classroom. So it's a book that I've read, reread. It's actually when I, when I changed from being I was formerly a school psychologist and I changed to the classroom, I did do an observation and I did an observation using one of their lesson plans. So it got me the job.

Lori:

Yes, that's a good sign.

Sean Morrisey :

First grade, a pocket for quarter rise. So I still remember the words drowsy, reluctant. Those are the words I taught for the last time.

Melissa:

That's great, all right, so now we know the different types of words that exist in the world. As a teacher, I think the one of the biggest questions is okay, I have a text in front of me, how do I pick which words to teach? So can you talk us through? Like, what should teachers be thinking about? And I think, if you're okay with it, if you're ready for it, we asked if you might be able to walk through an example, even Sure, if you don't have that, that's okay.

Sean Morrisey :

No, I have an example for you.

Melissa:

So I think, when you think about like what words to teach like.

Sean Morrisey :

It's hard because we're talking about like, if people are new to this, new teachers and that, like you know, when you're like, oh, function, that's a tier two word. I go back to some of the mainstays out there. So the academic word list is great. So it was formalized like 20 years ago. It's called Coxseed's academic word list and these are like over 500 words that come up a lot in different domains of science and social studies. So I've actually like years and years ago I kind of studied that list a little bit so I kind of had those, those words ingrained. So that's that's one of the one of the like lists that kind of helped me.

Sean Morrisey :

They also have like a general service list which is like the most frequent words that happen in the English language. So one summer I went through like the top 3000 most frequent words and I'm like, oh, which one of these words would fifth graders may not know? So I kind of just I typed them up in a spreadsheet and there's like 400. That more of those words came up. You know there's other websites that are great where, like they kind of structure like what words are important text projects, great, a mouth free to hybrids work. So word generation through the SERP Institute is also a amazing website. So those are like the fourth, like things that kind of structured, you know and kind of gave me like, oh, these are, these are a lot of words to focus on. So that's kind of where I started my journey, for sure.

Melissa:

Yeah, can I throw one more in, just because I like it? There's on Achieve the Core or Student Achievement Partners. On their website there's an academic word finder and you can take, like, if you can cut and paste the text, which I know you can't always, but you can cut and paste the text, put it right in there and it will just tell you which words are academic words, for which grade. Or you can put in a grade level and it will tell you which ones match for that grade level and like one above and one below. And it's a really nice starting point. Not the end, all be all. You know. You obviously hear the teacher. You can decide whether those are the right words or their other words, but it's a really nice starting point if you're kind of stuck for where to go.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, there's, there's one more I'll word. Sift is another one. So if you you do the same thing, you can on a PDF. You can cut and paste the text and you can click a button where it tells you which words fall under the academic word list.

Melissa:

So so I've used that before as well, yeah and we'll link all these right Lori and our show notes.

Lori:

Yes, I was thinking as the person who is doing the linking. Wow, you're making my job really difficult and I'm glad you're making it difficult because now we're sharing all of these resources with our fabulous teacher listener.

Melissa:

Every, every teacher is like what was that website? I mean, I want it All in our show notes.

Lori:

In the show notes will also blast on social, as we always do for really cool tools.

Sean Morrisey :

I'm a rookie. This is my first podcast, so I always wanted to say it's going to be in the show notes.

Lori:

So you want to say it? Go ahead, Sean. It's going to be in the show notes, yeah thanks for sharing Awesome.

Melissa:

All right, sean. Do you want to walk us through an example now?

Sean Morrisey :

Sure so. So I have a text from one of the curriculum as I use one of the novel studies. So the reading reconsidered curriculum. Where so the the main novel is number of the stars. So this is just a short nonfiction passage to accompany number of the stars. So it's called Danish resistance to Nazi Germany. All right, you ready, ready, ready, all right.

Sean Morrisey :

So, at the beginning of World War II, the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, sweden and Norway declared their neutrality. That means they would not take sides in the conflict. With memories of the damage of World War I still fresh in the memories of many Danes, the government thought that by staying out of the war, their citizens would be safe. This, however, was not to be the case. The morning of April 9th 1940, German forces crossed the border into Denmark. German soldiers began going ashore the docks of Copenhagen. Because of the speed of the German invasion, the Danish government did not have enough time to officially declare war on Germany. After two hours the Danish government surrendered, believing that fighting was useless and hoping to work out an agreement with Germany. Last little paragraph During the occupation, however, many Danish citizens attempted to resist German occupation, typically in secret.

Sean Morrisey :

For the first years of the occupation, active resistance activities were few and consisted mostly of the production of underground newspapers meant to spread news that Germans would not have wanted the population to know about. However, in 1942 to 43, resistance operations gradually shifted to more violent action, most notably acts of sabotage. Some resistance fighters defied a stock of German listening devices. Others attacked factories that made German goods for the German military or blew up railroads. The Germans needed to move troops and supplies.

Melissa:

Thanks, Were you writing words down, Laurie? I was. I have a whole list.

Lori:

Now I feel like I need to sift through and think are you going to quiz us, sean, about which words?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, what words did you write down? We'll see how we both fare here.

Melissa:

You want to start, laurie, you want me to start.

Lori:

Yeah Well, I'm just trying to think about what. Are we choosing? A number, are we going to choose a couple or just less? Like I have a ton. I also think there's so much knowledge that we need, and also I'm going to name that.

Melissa:

It's paired with a text, so like I was thinking it's not on its own, yeah.

Lori:

Do you want to talk about the knowledge first and then we can go into the vocabulary, because I think so many times these like seep over into each other and it's really hard to parse out. Is that okay?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, for sure. So I think, like with this novel unit, everything's just thought, everything slowly builds. So this is not just a random passage, like picked out. So like the kids, before even reading this passage they already have a bunch of background. So you know, they do a very nice job with their curriculum development where they slowly build things up. So it's not just like I mean all, like just the content and the knowledge for fifth grade. That's pretty hard. So if you kind of see it more in the big picture when you're actually teaching it, there's a lot of scaffolds in place for the kids for sure.

Lori:

Okay, yeah, and we know that number of the stars. Do you want to just give a quick little snapshot for those listening who maybe are unfamiliar with number of the stars?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, so number of the stars is just one of those texts. It was written many, many years ago. It's kind of an iconic text where it takes place during World War II and the Nazis at Germans. They occupied Denmark and it was trying to lead, you know, Jewish people out of Denmark. So there's, you know, probably about 8,000 Jews that were safely fled Denmark due to the help of the Danish people. So it's a great fifth grade story. That kind of. It's a nice like introductory topic to World War II and the Holocaust for sure.

Lori:

Thank you for that. Yeah, so there's knowledge that they have. This text is not like a cold text, so that's kind of helpful, at least for me, thinking about it. As you know, teacher hat on like they're not going to this text cold. I know some of the things, like some of the geography terms you were talking about. I was like, okay, they need, they should be able to visualize right what's happening there. But I don't know that that's necessarily vocabulary per se. I'd put that more in the background knowledge category or like the building knowledge category. Okay, so I'll throw out a couple of words. Melissa, you want to like agree or disagree? Sure, since you're making me go first, all right, here we go. All right, surrendered.

Melissa:

I had it on my list, but I didn't put it in my top five, my top four.

Lori:

Sorry, I did oh gosh, okay, I occupation yeah.

Melissa:

I had that one, especially because I think of that as kind of like your contract word and contract Sean, like they might know it, but in a different way.

Lori:

Correct. That's why it made my list as well. How about underground? I did not have that. I had that because they thought they might not understand the secrecy of it, yeah.

Melissa:

Right, or like think it's like literally underground, underground.

Lori:

You want to share a couple that you have now and I'll agree, yeah, yeah.

Melissa:

Okay, resist and resistance I heard a few times and a similar, like you know they might know it in one way, but maybe not how it's used in this text and declare I heard a couple of times too, so I had that one and neutrality I thought that was an important word.

Lori:

Oh, I didn't have neutrality. I must have missed that along the way, but I did have to clear.

Melissa:

You're probably writing another word down.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, that's a friend taking my list she's writing to Claire.

Lori:

All right, sean. How did? How do we do? Did we pass fail? What happened?

Sean Morrisey :

I would say you pass for sure. Occupation is a great word that falls on the academic word list, so, but like, yeah, so it's a multiple meaning word. Most kids know occupation maybe first as like it's kind of your job, so for sure, resistance is, I think, an important word because in the context of World War II that word's going to come up a lot. So, like you know, like knowledge and vocabulary, reciprocal in many ways, like that's like a reciprocal relationship. Like you know, resistance you're going to hear that word a lot you know declares a good word. Like it's, like it's more of a more sophisticated way to say announce. But like when you declare something, you're like it's you're announcing something, but like you're usually declaring it to a lot of people, you're announcing it to a lot of people. Like formally, yeah, I would say sabotage would probably be the word. That one. Yeah, just because I wrote that down last.

Lori:

Yes, in the context.

Sean Morrisey :

But, as you can see, like you know, there's like that is packed with vocabulary. Now, like you know teachers out there, you know they're going to say like, oh, that's going to be, like that might be too difficult. You know, personally I think if we'd ever expose the kids to something like this, they're never going to like really improve, like their, their, their ability to read nonfiction. That's so I like pushing that envelope there. I think you know it's scaffolded there. They get a lot from before. But like the kids read occupation, I think it came up three times. Resistance came up numerous times as well. So yeah, Well.

Lori:

So I'm like counting the number of words I wrote down, I ended up with a total of 12.

Lori:

And I'm thinking about I mean, I actually recently read number of the stars. I have a fifth grader who just I guess an ink, going into sixth grade and so when she was in fifth grade we read number of the stars together. So just kind of that book is fresh in my mind, is my point, and I'm thinking about some of these words on this list, and if I have students who I know have that knowledge and have already encountered some of this vocabulary, I would say it does take about half of these words off this list, which then cuts down significantly the vocabulary that they need to understand for this particular piece. Also, they have this other built knowledge because they've read this other book and they have an understanding of what's happening and I think that that's just like you said, it's very reciprocal, it feeds off each other. So if I'm, I love the idea of challenging students here, because this is a place where they could be pushed and challenged because they do have the knowledge in order to step into it. Am I hearing that right, sean?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, like, even like. I would just think in some of these words like occupation and resistance these are words that have come up before this passage numerous times. So, like you know, so you're not gonna spend a lot, this is more like it's more like retrieval practice. They're reading the words in context. It's just another, you know another, exposure to the word. You're like those two. You probably like I'm not teaching those two words at this point because we've already discussed those words.

Melissa:

Yeah, and I was thinking Sean's words like that too. Maybe even if they hadn't heard the word before, they probably get the idea of it from that other book, right. But even if they hadn't heard that this is a resistance, right, they might know what it kind of, what it means. So it might be a really quick like oh, you know what this is from Number of the Stars. I'm just putting a word to it now that you already understand the concept of yeah. Which makes it a lot easier for them.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, you can't like well as we talk. You can't teach every word out there, so there's like you're gonna teach some words more in depth. You're gonna teach more words just like as they sort of come up quickly because there's just, there's just we'll talk about that. There's not enough time. That's the hardest part of being a teacher.

Sean Morrisey :

You know, we, there's time limits. All the research will tell us well, this works, this works, this works, okay, but we do have time limits. That's the like. No one talks about that, like there's time restrictions. So what's gonna give us like our best bets? You know that are gonna help students.

Lori:

All right, so should we talk about that now? So, like what, now that we know the words to teach, what are research based methods for teaching these words? And, sean, I think you named some great words that we pulled out of this passage. So if we were gonna teach these in our classroom, how should we do it? What are some efficient ways to do it?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, so I think first I think we talked about like explicit instruction first. So words that you know I'm going to teach you know kind of introduce the words explicitly. You know there are some definite best bets on when you introduce words. So like introducing the word, writing it down, saying the words, so like, well, you can talk about the word feature, so I'll have feature on the whiteboard. Okay, you know, this is the word that we're learning today, it's feature. What's the word class? You know they would repeat feature, just as like an attention, kind of an Inanita archer, explicit instruction, that sort of thing you know. So then they're thinking about feature. Then we like definitely putting the words in multiple contexts, so like I'll give you an example, like with feature here. So explicit instruction.

Sean Morrisey :

Here's a first context. Many animals, birds and people are carnivorous, which means they eat meat. You might be surprised to learn that some plants, like the Venus flytrap and the pitcher plant, are also carnivorous. These unusual plants have fascinating features to attract, trap and kill their prey. These features include special leaves that snap shut when trigger hairs are touched in, sticky substances that trap insects when they land on the plants leaves. So that actually comes from Margaret McCollins' rave program.

Sean Morrisey :

You know to teach the word feature. So that's their context. So another thing is, when you teach the context, it's just put in a friendly definition, so like Collins dictionary online's a really good dictionary Like I don't go to anything else, I think that's the best one out there it puts it in nice student friendly ways. Like features are interesting or important parts of something. So you know giving it in context, explaining it in a friendly definition, and you're kind of moving pretty quick Like this isn't. You don't want to take, you know, 30 minutes to teach one word because you're just not going to have enough time to teach everything else during the day. So I'll do some of that. Like at the start I like to put pictures as well. So pictures you know you'll hear throughout this. We're in Western New York, we're big bills fans, like we live in, like the bills are, like Is that why you delineated where you were from?

Sean Morrisey :

So that you could talk about this right now. Like Western, New York. That is one reason. Well, geography, people like not everyone knows like geographic, you know what?

Melissa:

geography is super well.

Sean Morrisey :

It's a seven hour drive to New York City.

Melissa:

So we're pretty far. I'm closer to New York City than you are. I know me too, yeah.

Sean Morrisey :

So like it might be that day or the next day, like I could even put it, like you know, cause a lot of times the boys stick this up, the girls too but like I'll put a picture up on, like Josh Allen, cause he's our, he's our star quarterback, and like what are the features that Josh Allen has that makes the bills successful?

Sean Morrisey :

And it's like something that's a little different. And then the kids on their mini whiteboards can, like you know, write things down and we could have a really quick, like two minute, you know, share about the features of Josh Allen. You know, because we just talked about the features of the picture. You know, the picture plant, those are different, so it's a different context. Or you could tie like a video, like usually with that with a Venus flytrap, I'll put it like a little YouTube video up for about two minutes that kind of shows the Venus flytrap in action and the kids while they're watching, I want them to write down what are the different features so they could actually see it. So I think that's pretty powerful, you know. I think then it gets into their long-term memory a little bit better.

Melissa:

Yeah, so those are like you know to start.

Sean Morrisey :

You know, like initial instruction, those are some of the main things. You know, student friendly definition in context, pictures, even a short video if it's handy. You know, like I mean those, you know those work and it carries over like when you talk like we do geography of the United States, like features comes up a lot, like ooh, what are the features of the Mid-Atlantic region? So it's a different context that the kids now it's like oh, you know big cities, oh, there's part of the Great Lakes and that sort of thing. So it just it's, you know it comes all over the place there.

Lori:

Yeah, can I also reinforce something? We talked about this with Nancy Hennessy and when this podcast comes out. That podcast will not yet be out, but listeners, you can listen for that coming soon. One thing that we talked about with Nancy is the idea of teaching something all at once versus teaching something over time, and so I think this is like a really specific example of that. Like you're not teaching everything that kids need to know about this word features all at once, all at one time. Like you're taking this word and you're giving them what they need to know in context or what they need to know for this text, and then you might be expanding it in a two minute like really fun intro when they come in in the morning. Right, like I'm picturing the Josh Allen thing like a morning work kind of thing. Right, like that's like a super engaging, fun fifth grade way to enter your Friday after a Thursday night football game or something. And then you know, down the road in social studies you are revisiting this word features again in a different context and kids are continually adding and like velcroing features, features, features.

Lori:

Oh, okay, now I have like a bigger definition of it, and the reason why I bring this up is because we get this question so often from listeners and I think, like I think teachers like do this in a super well-meaning way, but it's like almost like makes more work for yourself, where you try to teach everything at once and then, like you align your social studies content to your, to your LA content, to your whatever content, and then you teach everything at once, but like it doesn't really give time to digest and like, in fact, what Nancy said is like that's kind of not how we learn, like right, like when we think about how we learn in life.

Lori:

So I'm wondering if either of you wanted to react to that or share your thoughts on that. It just is making me think like, oh gosh, like now this makes me like rest assured that I don't need to put everything in line. I can just teach as things come up with some explicit instruction and as they're in context, and we're going to get that, that knowledge, that Velcro for those vocabulary and the background knowledge that kids need over time. So curious for you both to react to that.

Sean Morrisey :

So you want to go, I could go. So I would say that has you make a brilliant point. Over the last I would say probably five, six years I've changed dramatically where I'm spreading things out, just like you said. Like I think, if, with the word feature here, I think about five, six years ago, I would have tried to do like all these many things all at once and instead of spreading it out over time, like the Josh Allen example or, you know, even like showing the video of the Venus flytrap, I generally now do it separate times because it's like it's quick, but then, like the kids, you're right, they digest it. Then they have to retrieve because they might have forgot a little bit. You know forgetting is important, you know, in some regards. So I know we're looking at all those science of learning things, but, like you know, it's really important. It's going to stick for the long haul if you do break it up over time.

Melissa:

Yeah, I was going to say it can almost feel overwhelming. I would imagine, as a student who's just learning a word I'm going back to now to your contract and contract right Like if you try and throw all those different ways to use that word at me at one time, I could just imagine my brain being like I can't take all that in. But if you give me one at a time and I go okay, this makes sense. And then, like you know, however, long later you come up and you're like actually, here's another way that that word can be used. And you're like, oh, I can add that to it. You know, like you said Lori to the Velcro, right, like I can add something to it and it doesn't feel as overwhelming for me as a student and also you brought up Sean to the time Then you're not spending 45 minutes on one word in a class either.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, because you just don't have the time to do that. Yeah.

Lori:

I mean it does feel messier. I'll say that it feels messier not to be like check we're done with function or teacher, but I think that that's just something that we have to deal with as a teacher. It's messier, it's messy. Yeah, it's not like math.

Sean Morrisey :

It's really hard, like you know. It's hard Like when you're in the trenches, like planning wise, like you know, to think about, like oh, I'm going to do this the next day and to plan that out. That's definitely not easy and it takes time. You know I'm not even close to being where I want with vocabulary, but you know I would say over the last five or six years, every year I feel like I'm getting, you know, slowly, better at it and things like that, and the kids are learning more.

Sean Morrisey :

But you know, it's planning at its time and how to you know, get people around the country on teams to kind of do that work together and that sort of thing, because you know it's planning is not easy.

Lori:

Sean, I know we kind of took a little roundabout turn to go deeper into one thing that we're talking about, but are there any other research-based methods you would like to share that have been working for you? I know in our pre-call you mentioned a couple others and we're happy to link those in our show notes too.

Sean Morrisey :

I love using like continuums because there's, like English language, there's just so many words, even compared to other languages, like the amount of vocabulary that we have in our language, you know, far exceeds many other languages, and like the nuance between like words that mean very similar things. But there's a little bit of like slight differences. Like this year was funny, like we talked about smells this year and we were teaching Like all at once we just kind of did a quick lesson on like things that don't smell that great. You know we talked about unpleasant, offensive, not, you know, noxious, putrid, pungent. So in that lesson we kind of did that all together. So it was more of not super in, super in depth. But you know, some of the kids picked it up right away Cause, like after we did that lesson, not probably two hours later, one of the boys in the class farce, of course.

Melissa:

I was going to say fifth grade go ahead.

Sean Morrisey :

You know, unfortunately I didn't have much of that this year, but without like batting an eye, remember, one of the boys looks behind and he goes. Well, that's right in between putrid and pungent. So that's great, it's like all right, he picked up on it. One quick lesson and he's using it.

Lori:

Someone got the velcro yeah.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah.

Sean Morrisey :

So you know, so like putting words on continuums, like you know, with, like, you know, unpleasant, like you know that would be like at one end where it smells slightly bad and putrid, like on the other end. So the kids can see, like, on sort of like a, like a number of line. The kids can see on a line where those words fall. You know some other things like notable, noteworthy, momentous and remarkable, like how to put those on a line as well. And like going back sorry, I got to go back to the Buffalo Bills here. So you know, if the Buffalo Bills win the division, like you know, that's, you know, notable. But you know, if they want to play off game, well, that's noteworthy. Like, ooh, you know, you know, winning the AFC championship would be remarkable. And then, like you know, talking with kids, you know well what would winning the Super Bowl be like, and they'll be like, oh, the kids would be like, oh, that would be momentous.

Sean Morrisey :

Like everyone in our area would like lose their minds. So those little nuances I think are really, really helpful because you know when you only have so much time and you know a lot of kids can pick up more than just like not just teach notable, but they can pick up those other words. If you know, you're doing some of those at the same time as well.

Melissa:

So yeah, and I'll throw out Sean too. I have a four, almost five year old now. We just did this last night, actually with not anywhere near what you're doing with fifth graders. But he heard the word terrified, and so we talked about how you know if you're scared or terrified. You know, like, why would you be terrified over being scared? What would make you more scared than just being scared? So even with your youngest students you can do that kind of continuum.

Lori:

Oh for sure, I've seen teachers do this with the paint swatches, like the color swatches, where it's like, for example, like you know, noteworthy might be a lighter color, but like memorable or remarkable would be a darker color, and you just kind of go up the continuum that way. I always think that's cute. If you're looking for a fun idea, or I mean a line, is also fine, but I said the colors I think are fun.

Melissa:

I just saw a TikTok video where it was about an ELA teacher who was walking into a paint chips to get paint chips, like that and it was like just trying to pretend like I'm a normal person getting paint samples.

Lori:

Taking 30 paint chips from Home Depot. That is funny, Sean. Anything else you want to add for morphology or etymology or anything there?

Sean Morrisey :

Oh my God, I guess Sure. I mean, can I do one thing before we go on to work? Oh gosh please.

Lori:

I'm sorry, I don't want to skip. Yeah, go ahead.

Sean Morrisey :

I don't know. One of the things I like is I call it odd one outward. So you want kids to be thinking about the words, not just a definition or that. So I'll give you guys we'll do a couple here, if it's OK. I'll give you guys four words and you tell me which one is the odd one out of those four. Ok, all right.

Melissa:

Quiz time again.

Sean Morrisey :

All right, glam. Blissful jubilant ecstatic. So that was glum. Blissful jubilant ecstatic.

Lori:

All right, Melissa, we're going to say it on three Ready One, two, three Glum.

Sean Morrisey :

Ah. So, like you know, I mean you could do some of these, like I was a first grade teacher before, like some of this you can easily do in primary grades, like if you taught some of those words. So then the kids, like you, can ask the students like what is the over? Like arching, like theme or meaning here, and like that one's like happy or sad and the lung is like you're, you're, you're sad. I'll give you one, one more. Disagree quarrel bicker, concur. Disagree quarrel bicker, concur.

Lori:

Ready.

Melissa:

Conquer, conquer.

Sean Morrisey :

So agree, disagree, right? So, like, when you're talking about teaching words, to like every word does not. You don't have to spend, like you know, even initial instruction. You don't have to spend 10 minutes on every word. Like the word concur, I think my kids will know it without ever me teaching it, because I just use it in everyday language, like, instead of just saying like at the start, like ooh, do you agree with, joey, do you concur? So trying to add in words to your speech, I think is really, really helpful because, like, as teachers and I and my, my vocabulary, my language is it's not like I grew up with, like, this very, very high language. My language is a private average at best, but I'm trying to do that more in the classroom. So the kids by the end of the year they know concur, because I've used it as a scaffold, do you agree, do you concur? And I've never really spent much time teaching it, but by the end of the year they know concur means to agree with someone yeah.

Lori:

Yeah, yeah, and it's so powerful to do all of. I know you're giving some. You're actually doing a really nice job, sean, I will say, of like giving examples that are connected to text and then giving examples that are like relatable examples. So I appreciate that and I just think these are so like even the ones you, you, you just listed off right, the glum, blissful, jubilant, static. I'm thinking we could connect those to text very easily, you know, depending on the text and what's happening.

Lori:

So I also appreciate, like the first pass at being the real, practical, day to day examples, so kids can like wrap their heads around those and then, you know, with that application to text, especially for, like you had said, the ones that are a little bit more challenging, bringing those in that connected space so that they can really understand and deeply understand those words. Like you know, I'm going back to number of the stars, or the text that you gave, like you know, is glum enough. No, you know, I mean there's. How are we then deepening that that even more so? So I appreciate the examples that you're giving, yeah.

Sean Morrisey :

Like the number of the stars. Like a quick, another quick example. Like the word procure came up in one of the one of the articles. Like that's a hard word, but you know, they've already know and they've already learned obtained and acquire. Well, procure, you're getting something too, but it's usually harder. So like that word was used in like there was a scarce, some items were scarce. They were hard to get in Denmark at the time.

Sean Morrisey :

So like but that word was never, it was never in my lesson plan to teach like at great length. But you know, but the kids like they love it. Like one of the kids will write away is like that's a great word, can we add it to our board? And he's like I want my name on it. So he has. So that student, uh came, has his name on the word procure forever because he wanted that added to the board.

Lori:

So what board? What? What do we have in our room? Classroom here for a vocation?

Sean Morrisey :

Well, this summer, is going to be a little work. So the kids really like words like. So I'm not a big, I'm a guy elementary teacher. I'm not big with putting things up Like I'm not, I don't, like, I don't, I don't. I don't spend time putting things up, except I do like putting vocabulary words up on my one sidewall. So, like a lot of the words I know that we're going to come up, you know, this year, like this year, I'm going to put them up on alphabetical order. At the start of the year the kids wanted to be in alphabetical order. It was helpful. They said so I probably am going to have a little over a thousand words up on the sidewall, just and you can't laminate the word. So don't laminate it. Do not laminate them because the sun reflects, so All right, pro tips here Pro tips.

Lori:

Thank you yeah.

Sean Morrisey :

So then the kids can the kids have have, you know, they, they, they can look the kids, the kids. It's helpful with that. Yeah, for sure, yeah.

Lori:

Yeah, for sure. I bet that's helpful too with like digging into like the morphology and etymology, because you can visually see like the words that have similar parts.

Sean Morrisey :

Ah geez, we haven't even, we haven't even, we didn't even plan this out, we didn't. So, on the words, what I'll do, like with the word contract, I'll underline on the on the index card I'll underline track and small right under it I'll I'll write drag or pull. So you know. So a lot of those words that have like roots, prefixes or suffixes, that like make sense, that aren't too abstract, I'll write it on the cards as well. So, like, getting back to the word, like contract, if you want to move on to morphology, we'll talk about the root tract and I actually like to do.

Sean Morrisey :

It's called morphology, it's a more, it's morphological matrixes. There's there's online I think it's Neil Ramstein, he has a, there's a link where you can make them yourself. So, and it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to kind of figure it out and then it's super easy. So, like the word track, like you know, you can talk about like, oh, extract, oh, like, so we have, we have, we have contract, but extract, oh, you know you're pulling, you know you extract a tooth, you're pulling a tooth out. Or retract, you're pulling something back. Even the word subtract, well, you're pulling something down. So those are like. Then we'll take time. I'll definitely take probably five, 10 minutes, you know, on that route and like showing, like the matrix so offer, like I can actually show for, like I have this right here, so, and you know, then the kids can like look and they can build words themselves before you talk about it.

Sean Morrisey :

So then the kids are like oh, you know like, oh, I know that word. Like you know you know distract, you know like, oh, your, your attention is getting pulled away. So then the kids will make the words and then you know, I'll give them like two minutes, make as many words as you can think, and let's talk about it.

Lori:

Yeah, do you ever have them work together or or just independently, or straight mix it up maybe, I don't know.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah. So like I'm not, like I have to be honest, I'm not a big like group group teacher where you know kids are working in four to five groups. I love partnerships. So I have one for you where you know everyone does think pair, share. I like this one where it's think write pair, rewrite share.

Lori:

Not as catchy. But go ahead, Explain why it's not catchy.

Sean Morrisey :

You've got to say it a couple of times, but so this is coming from so many whiteboards. Craig Barton in the UK is one of my favorite math people and you know getting the kids OK, think for you know 30 seconds, then write, then pair discuss what you both wrote about. Then the kids have the opportunity to rewrite. Because you know sometimes in the pair like one kid does all the work and another student maybe doesn't know that like didn't know that much about that topic or what.

Sean Morrisey :

But that student then has a chance to rewrite and then we can share.

Melissa:

So I like that. I like that.

Lori:

Yeah, many whiteboards. I'm a big many whiteboard guy, so oh my gosh, yeah, and so I think it helps, like plug another plug for many whiteboards. It helps make thinking visible, that is, that has been previously invisible. I always loved that.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, yeah, I like that. I just like many whiteboards because the ratio where you're, like you know, when I first started teaching, you know, like you call it, like I would call on the kids with their hands up, so you realize at the end of the year, well, the four or five kids, well they had a lot of opportunities and the quiet kids sort of didn't. And with many whiteboards the ratio is it's 100% participation. So I just I find that it just works a lot Like spite and vocabulary works great for sure.

Melissa:

Yeah, and that's nice too, because they can. You know their answer doesn't have to be final. You know, when you read some, when kids write things on a paper, it feels final to them. But you know this gives them up to like just replaying a little, you know, like what do you think this means? And chat about it, change it. You know it's, it's. It makes it a little more like a curiosity driven versus like you have to get the right answer and write it right, right or wrong?

Lori:

Yeah, that's a good point, melissa.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah yeah, many whiteboards are great, just like, even like we talked about like little things to do, like say, you know you're less than ended, you have five minutes and instead of, like you know, sort of wasting that time, I'll just have the kids take out many whiteboards.

Sean Morrisey :

Ok, like I did this, like I did this probably about 30 to 40 times this year, where, ok, someone pick a topic that's really quick and someone will say, like plant. So it's a topic that a lot of times we've been working on and OK, right sentences is my Asia Canada whitebuff board. Like complex sentences that are using the vocabulary words that we've like learned so far this year. So they're working on academic vocabulary, working on tier two words within the context of like a you know, a content area that we we're learning right now or we've learned like maybe last month. So like one day I actually had the kids that I typed some of their, their answers down. It was great. Like we, we talked about plants and you know one person wrote well, plants not only are crucial, vital, essential and integral to life, they also manifest glucose for everything on earth to consume, like stop it.

Lori:

It's very cute. Oh yeah, so what we do like a, can we just pause right there, yeah technically perfectly correct, but it's, you know it's good.

Sean Morrisey :

Like manifests is a great word, but you know I mean it's super cute. Like you know, the Venus flytrap devoured or consume the naive fly, that's, that's really cool. Like using the word naive in there within science.

Melissa:

So I was going to say probably didn't teach them naive within the science.

Sean Morrisey :

No, naive is within our literature units, so that's nice.

Sean Morrisey :

That's a nice crossover yeah so it's just something that, like you know it's five minutes, it's a retrieval activity, so it's another opportunity for kids to practice some of the words. You know it's not taking, you know it, just it's not taking all day. But like the kids really like that because they try to beat their score, Like how many words can we get? So then they try to like you know, they try to like that student it got crucial, vital, essential in one sense, Because like oh, I can get more points for that. You know, like it's cute.

Melissa:

I love it. Well, sean, you already brought this up, but I'm going to circle back to it, which was there are so, so many words I forget. You might know the numbers, but there's like a certain number of words that kids are supposed to learn every year which is like beyond what any teacher could ever actually teach explicitly. If you know them, feel free to share how many. If you don't know, that's OK. But we're curious how you? How do you go about? You know teaching, or not even teaching, but getting kids to learn these other words that are beyond the ones that you're teaching explicitly?

Sean Morrisey :

I think this is this is hard, like as a classroom teacher, this is hard, it's, it's it's trying to embed as many words in language throughout the day as possible. So if you don't think about it, it's, it's not, it's, it's not easy, like, even like like when we talk about morphology, when we're talking about words. I would say six, seven years ago I could not teach the morphology like I do now because I just didn't know all the roots that I should have. Like that as a teacher in fifth grade I should know. So at one point I had to practice like I practiced and I just learned and I picked it up. Now, when things come up, I can't like it's a lot easier for me to do a minute like you know this route or that where it might not be right in the lesson plan, it's in, it's just, it's a lot of it's a lot of talk throughout the day. Like you know, using could concur for a degree in those instances. Or like even even when kids, like when kids you want kids to do better, like safer writing, like kids aren't writing as sophisticated sentences you want Like I remember joking around with one student.

Sean Morrisey :

I'm like I these sentences are, you know, they're fine, they're concise. You know they're short, you know they make sense, but I don't want concise sentences, I want them to be more sophisticated. You know I want you to expand on these, elaborate more. So you know, I remember that day. It's a really good student but he just he wasn't big on writing that day but like just joking around with vocabulary, it kind of changed the tune and like later that day and the next day he made like these most elaborate, sophisticated sentences in his writing. Because I think we joke, because I was like oh, you know, we don't want concise sentences, you know, with the whole class, so that sort of thing. But you have to like look at words at the start of the day and I think it's like baby steps. Once you start doing better, it kind of snowballs and you get better at it and then a snowball. So you know it takes time. Yeah for sure. Yeah For sure.

Melissa:

I'm wondering about the you mentioned, like the one student who picked out a word and wanted his name on it. Do you have kids kind of like look out for new words as they're reading, or yeah?

Sean Morrisey :

So like I mean, I don't so in bringing words to life. They've used the word wizard, which I haven't like I haven't like used formally, where kids can go home and, you know, find the words that they've like they've just learned and they get points for like bringing those words, and I've never like done that formally. But what I like to do is so I have a like an improvers board where they move up levels throughout the year, throughout like the year, and a few students every year will get to the highest level, called living legend, and they get their picture taken and their picture stays in the classroom until I retire.

Sean Morrisey :

So there are some students who work just really hard because, like, I want my picture on the board and it's all based on improvement and kind of effort. So it's not that you know you're you know the student that does the best or you know you get the highest grades and that sort of thing. But like kids will push themselves, like amongst each other, to like use more words, especially in writing. I push the writing, no matter what we're writing about, there's always a reminder above vocabulary and I like to show in the document reader, like you know, really like good sentences or good thoughts, but also when kids use, you know, sophisticated words in their writing on the document camera, so it's kind of like showing good models and kids really love that. Like the document reader is just it's amazing to do kind of show call with that. Yeah, yeah, sean, I feel like we're all going to come to your TED talk.

Lori:

I want to know more about this effort thing, but I really I would love to like record a separate podcast about that as a bonus at some point. That's neat. I like that. Well. One last thing we wanted to chat with you about was your data.

Melissa:

You mentioned it earlier about that your data improving and I know vocabulary is tough when you're talking about data. You know it's not. It's not easy to like put a number on someone's vocabulary, so curious how you go about using data and seeing improvement for students.

Sean Morrisey :

So data wise like, like vocabulary is hard because like you know, you have oral reading fluency. That's easy to measure. You could do that three times a year. You can see the progress for reading fluency. For vocabulary it's a little tougher Now. I've been using some academic like multiple choice just tested I found online. So I kind of use it as a pre-post test measure. Also, our district we use I Ready and I Ready has, I mean, it's widely used. It's basically tests just general reading skill, but it has a vocabulary subtest. In the research it's usually really hard on a test like that to see huge improvements in vocabulary because it could be totally different words that are tested than words that you've taught. But the data has shown like this year I think as a class we've made about 250% growth in vocabulary, which is 100% as average. So it's showing on standardized tests which I'm really, really excited about.

Sean Morrisey :

And like even on state tests. I'm waiting for those scores to come in. I have a good hunch that, especially this year that those scores, compared to how they did last year, the same students are going to rise dramatically. So, like I'm just excited about the data just to see like it seems to be working. Yeah, we didn't talk about one thing about fluency, and I'm trying to do. We have a minute to do, absolutely.

Sean Morrisey :

Okay so because teachers we are we are especially about fluency, Okay so when I teach, when I think about teaching opportunity costs, like you only have so much time. So every decision that you make, you're actively making a decision what not to teach as well. So with vocabulary, I think it's really good to embed vocabulary into fluency so like I'll use like passages from the reading reconsidered or other curriculums that we use in our district. Or what I did this year is I did a lot of chat GPT, where I created my own fluency passages based on the topic that we were learning and with that you can embed whatever vocabulary words you want. So then you're not waiting for like the word concur to come up, like when you don't know when it's going to come up, you can say, oh, add concur to this passage, so they have more. So yeah, so like fluency.

Sean Morrisey :

This year I, probably in fifth grade, like at least every other day we've read fluency passages as part. I just do it simple as partner, as partnerships, rereading, but next year it's definitely going to be daily for sure, because I saw huge fluency gains almost two years of growth in one year this year in fifth grade. So embedding those vocabulary within fluency passages you might as well do that. You just save so much time.

Lori:

It's a two for right, two for one, yeah, yeah With the three, three for three because you then it could be in like the science or social content.

Sean Morrisey :

So in the science and social content, embedding vocabulary words and having the kids reread those passages. I think it's very, very powerful.

Lori:

That's amazing and that's such an easy thing like less than five minutes right For classroom time. Per se, the fluency.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah. So like I mean even like planning times hard. But like you know, I know CHAP GP kind of blew up a little bit Like there's a lot of like. The one thing I found it really easy to do is just really quickly do that. So I mean it took like planning time was like three or four minutes. Fluency with the kids are talking, you know five, six minutes to reread a passage three times, discuss. You know vocab words and that sort of thing.

Lori:

Sean, do you want to close us out here by sharing that correlational data in terms of academic vocabulary and state assessment results?

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah. So it's kind of crazies where the vocabulary data that on the on tests, that that are just like multiple choice, that are testing academic vocabulary words with state test data. The correlation was like point eight, four and once one. So from last year one student scores kind of skewed a little bit. If I took that student out it would have been point nine one. So like it's crazy like academic vocabulary, like a hundred question multiple choice test correlated basically perfectly with the state test. So I mean when they kind of moving away from like in some balanced literacy things, like in grades three through five it was tons of, like you know, talking about find the main idea and that sort of thing. Well, maybe instead of doing that like at great length, we should teach words at much more and that and that's in so far. I spent more time probably than the average teacher with vocabulary, but the results are sort of backing that up. So, as you know, my, my, my personal results.

Lori:

Yeah, like I just think it seeps over into each other. I mean, you're playing with words, you're building knowledge. You were filling in huge gaps. You're doing it in the context of ELA, social studies, science, like so many things that you know we talk about all the time on this podcast.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, and you can at the start of the year, within like the second week of school, you do an oral reading fluency like I use a cadence and you know you do some pre test for academic vocabulary. You, I have, with quick testing, a pretty good snapshot of the kids who are going to need extra interventions and the kids who are going to probably need more repetitions to vocabulary words. For sure, you know, you know so. And the kids who are their depth and breath is is is not as much. So I know right away, you know which, those, which kids those are right at the start of the year, yeah, Well, Sean, we cannot thank you enough for sharing all these great tips with us.

Melissa:

I know we saw you on Twitter sharing a lot of tips. Do you want to share your Twitter handle so other people can?

Sean Morrisey :

Sure. Follow you for great. I'm not on Facebook or anything, so I think it's. I think it's at S Morrissey on Twitter. Sean Morrissey.

Lori:

So we'll double check it. Wait, where are we going to link it?

Sean Morrisey :

Oh, I'm a show now, there we go Sean Twitter in the show notes.

Melissa:

There we go yeah. Yeah, I think, if you want more.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, I think I'm trying to get a like I don't think I did it that much because I'm not I don't, I'm not sure I'm not big on tweeting in that, but like moving away from sort of the you know arguments in that, because I think we're kind of past that like people aren't like if certain people they're not going to like. You know, when I started posting some vocabulary things just online and I don't have a big following but like oh, a lot of people like started to follow that and I see, oh, this is what teachers want. They want to know, like, how to apply in the classroom, like they've heard. They like they kind of know the pedagogy now, like now how to get to the other part, which is it's not easy, it's definitely not easy.

Melissa:

And that's what I mean, that's what caught my eye with yours was like you're like, I did this today. I tried this with my class today. You know, it's just so nice to hear that, like you know, this is what I did in my classroom.

Sean Morrisey :

Yeah, you're putting yourself out there, so people have been nice, like you know, when you put yourself out there sometimes, but people have been great about it, so we love hearing it and we love thank you for sharing with our audience as well. Thank, you Pleasure to be here. I had so much fun.

Lori:

Thanks for listening. Literacy Lovers, to stay connected with us, sign up for our email list at literacypodcastcom.

Melissa:

And to keep learning together. Join the Melissa and Laurie Love Literacy Podcast Facebook group and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Lori:

If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share with a teacher friend or leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts.

Melissa:

Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Laurie Love Literacy Podcast are not necessarily the opinions of Great Minds PBC or its employees.

Lori:

We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to learn with us.