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Ten Vocabulary Moves Backed by Research with Blythe Anderson

• Episode 219

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In Episode 219, Blythe Anderson discusses the importance of vocabulary instruction, specifically through the use of vocabulary talk moves. 

These "talk moves" are designed to promote word learning and help teachers effectively teach new vocabulary. Blythe covers various types of vocabulary moves, their research backing, and practical examples of how teachers can implement them in the classroom - emphasizing the complexity of vocabulary learning as well as the need for repeated exposure and active engagement to foster curiosity and understanding. 

Blythe explains effective teaching moves for vocabulary instruction, including the importance of context, repetition, and meaningful engagement with words. She outlines ten key strategies that educators can implement to enhance students' understanding and retention of vocabulary. The discussion also touches on the significance of selecting appropriate words for instruction and the role of affective and metacognitive factors in vocabulary learning. Blythe encourages educators to reflect on their current practices and gradually incorporate new strategies into their teaching.

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Lori:

Hi teacher friends. We all know that vocabulary is super important for students reading comprehension and writing skills, but knowing which words to teach and how to teach them effectively can feel complicated.

Melissa:

That's why today we're talking to Blythe Anderson, assistant professor of literacy education at the University at Buffalo. You'll hear all about vocabulary talk moves, which are simple, research-based strategies that help students learn, use and engage with new words in authentic ways.

Lori:

Best part, we'll break down 10 powerful talk moves that elementary teachers are already using successfully and show you how to apply them across the school day, from science instruction to read-alouds.

Melissa:

So if you've been wondering which words to teach and how to make vocabulary instruction more effective. This episode is for you.

Lori:

Hi teacher friends. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa:

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori:

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa:

Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori:

Hi, blythe, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, we cannot wait to have this awesome conversation about vocabulary today.

Blythe Anderson:

I'm always happy to talk about vocabulary.

Melissa:

Yay, and we found your article called Vocabulary Talk Moves Using Language to Promote Word Learning, and Lori and I both were like we have to talk to her about this. It's so good and in it you mentioned that a few things that teachers find challenging. One is, of course, making time for vocabulary instruction, which we know. Time is always something that is an issue for teachers, and one of the main questions that they ask is what strategies can we teach or use to teach new words effectively? So you talk about this in the article, so can you explain for our listeners what are vocabulary talk moves and how can they help teachers with these challenges?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, so I refer to vocabulary talk moves. I consider those to be ways that teachers use language to promote vocabulary development, and so the particular moves are based on the research of you know how children learn words, and so you know a move can be something as simple as like explaining a word to a child, so just something that a teacher is doing just verbally, through their own talk, to support children's vocabulary development.

Lori:

Awesome, and I know you said there were 10, and they're backed by research. Do you want to share a little bit more about the research aligned moves that you observed most frequently?

Blythe Anderson:

Yes, yes, so the moves that are in this article are. There's really, I call them three different types of moves, and so there are knowledge and understanding moves that are really focused on, you know, learning the meanings of new words. Right at the heart of vocabulary development is that you are learning the meanings of either new words or learning additional meanings for words that you might already know. Right, so some words, the most frequently used words, have often have more than one meaning. So any moves, like I said, like, for example, explaining the meaning of a word to a child, those are the kind of knowledge and understanding modes. And then a second type of move is what I call affective factors, and so the task of word learning is really really complex. So, right, I talked already about like there's multiple meanings for words. We learn the meanings over time. You know, our understanding of some words actually helps us understand other words better. So there's like kind of this interrelatedness that happens. There's just a lot that goes into vocabulary learning that makes it really complex, and so vocabulary researchers have theorized that in order for kids to you know, when they come across a word that they don't know, like they're reading on their own or somebody's talking to them and, like you know, a lot of kids are just going to skip that and go on right, like skip over it and see if we can make meaning and keep going. But we want kids to be able to recognize oh wait, I don't really know what that means and we want them to be curious enough about what it means and feel like learning words is worthwhile and to put that effort in to figure out those new words. So the affective factors are kind of the moves that get kids to be curious and interested and kind of have that feeling about vocabulary that this is an important thing that we want to do. So an example of a move like that is, you know, if a child asks you what something means, like taking that opportunity maybe it wasn't the word you were planning on focusing on, but like taking that opportunity to like capitalize on that curiosity. So that's just one example. And then the third type of move are what I call metacognitive and metalinguistic moves, and these are really important because we can't possibly teach all the words that there are for kids to learn. And so if we think about, you know, constrained skills versus unconstrained skills I know you've had people on who have talked about that, paris's constrained skills theory. Right, if you're learning the letters of the alphabet, you're learning the sounds, all those. Those are what we call constrained skills. You can learn them to mastery, you know, with effective instruction, in a relatively short amount of time. You know, not across your entire lifetime, but but unconstrained skills, like vocabulary, like we're learning them forever, right. And so we really want kids to become independent word learners, to like, take on this task of learning all these words that we need to teach out there. You know we can't, because we can't teach them all, and so having kids have an awareness of how language works, you know this metalinguistic awareness is really useful, and so part of you know these types of moves are about, you know, having kids recognize oh, I've heard that word before. Or, like you know, considering have I heard that word, where have I heard that word, those kinds of things. So, yes, so there are.

Blythe Anderson:

Within this article, there are 10 moves. This is from a broader study. I found 32 different vocabulary talk moves that teachers used, and this study took place within science instruction. It was actually part of a broader study, an NSF-funded study that I worked on with my advisor, dr Tanya Wright, and also with Dr Amelia Gottwald. It was the SOLIDSTART project, which stands for Science, oral Language and Literacy Development from the Start of School, and so my research was within that broader study.

Blythe Anderson:

I was looking to see, within these science lessons that early elementary teachers were teaching, I wanted to see what kinds of vocabulary talk moves were they using. You know, science is this really rich context, and we know how important meaningful context is to vocabulary learning, and so, theoretically right, there should be many opportunities to support vocabulary learning within that context. And so, looking at eight different teachers, three different lessons per teacher across a semester, they were able to use whatever curricular materials they wanted, and so we had, you know they wanted, and so we had, you know, collected their 24 video recordings total and took those 895 minutes of instruction, and I was able to go through all of them right and code for these particular vocabulary talk moves. So there's 32 altogether, but I found that 10 of the moves made up almost 90% of what the teachers were doing with their talk, and so those are the moves that are focused on in the article.

Melissa:

Blythe, can I just ask a quick question? So your study was kind of seeing what the teachers were doing most often, but these moves are based in other research. Is that?

Blythe Anderson:

correct, exactly, yes, so this was an observational study and all of the codes for you know that I discovered that they were using these types of moves are all based in the research.

Blythe Anderson:

So from other research we know that these kinds of things support vocabulary development, and I wanted to see our teachers doing this in practice. Right, this was an observational study. The teachers didn't know I was interested in vocabulary talk moves. They were just teaching science lessons, just kind of. We wanted to see, like, just, you know, what's from typical instruction? Uh, if you're not purposely trying to support vocabulary any more than you would any other day, right, like what, what's just kind of typical? Um, yeah, exactly, and so, um, a next step that I'm really interested in is, um, again, this was part of a larger study and so there were some constraints in terms of, like, the data that was collected, and so I would love to do a replication study where we have some student out, you know, learner outcomes around vocabulary, and be able to try to correlate like which moves maybe supported vocabulary learning the most. So that's a next step. But at this point, these are all what we would consider research-based moves. They're based in research that says that these practices support vocabulary development.

Lori:

Okay, and what I heard you just explain were like these big overarching categories where the moves kind of fit into, and I heard you give an example of each move that fits into that category. Would you mind breaking down those top 10 that make up 90%, Like maybe just I mean and I'm happy to do it too right Like run through the 10 of them and then kind of hand it over to you to explain a little bit more? And you know, I know that we're going to talk about them in these broad categories, but I think just hearing all 10 would be really helpful for our listeners. What do you think, Blythe, you want to go through, you want me to go through would be really helpful for our listeners.

Blythe Anderson:

What do you think, blythe, you want me to go through?

Blythe Anderson:

It's your study? Yeah, I'm happy to. Yeah, okay, so the first two moves they kind of cluster together because they're often used together. That's what we found. Some moves can be used on their own, but often we found the moves were used in conjunction with each other.

Blythe Anderson:

So the first move is just using target words. So a word became a target word when the teacher drew attention to it and its meaning. So I wasn't like looking to see what did the curriculum say? The words they should have been teaching, right? I was just looking to see within the actual lesson what words were they bringing attention to and supporting kids and understanding the meanings of those words. And so we know that repetition is really important, for you know you don't just hear a word once and it's meaning and you've got it right. So repetition we learn these words incrementally over time and so I wanted to track you know how often kids were getting to hear these kinds of words once they've been introduced. And so the most frequently used vocabulary talk move was just using the word, and that was often used with.

Blythe Anderson:

The second move is using it with emphasis. So, like I said, you know drawing kids' attention. We know teachers do a lot of talking in classrooms and so to help them kind of like tune into what's really important here, the teachers often said these words with emphasis. So, for example, one of the teachers said yes, the wind in our classroom is calm. And so in that example, both wind and calm were examples of target words that the teacher had previously targeted by telling the meaning of them. Example for emphasizing it. The teacher said so, is it a mammal? And she particularly emphasized mammal as she said it right. So there she's, using it and emphasizing it.

Melissa:

So it's literally just the tone of the voice of the teacher. Like that, it's so, it's so easy.

Lori:

It would be in italics in a text right, like if I were reading a book and it were being emphasized. It would be like, so is it a mammal Right? So just using and emphasizing. Oh my gosh, how easy are those first two talk moves Like check. I feel like I do that every day in real life and teacher life.

Blythe Anderson:

Absolutely. And that's the thing about these moves is they're not like oh, I need to like scrap everything I know and like implement these 10 brand new things. Right, a lot of these things. I think teachers are going to say, like I already do this. I maybe didn't realize I was doing it, or maybe, now that I'm aware that it's really important, I could like be mindful and do it a little more.

Melissa:

Make sure I'm doing it.

Blythe Anderson:

Exactly. But you know, on their own, like understanding that repetition is important and those multiple exposures in different contexts is important. I think, like, consider what are the words that we're really working on right now and how can I make sure to bring those up and how can I bring their attention to them? Obviously, if you're emphasizing the word every single time you say it, it's probably not going to have that same effect of really bringing their attention to it. But just you know, as you're introducing it and really drawing their attention to it in that way, that can be helpful.

Lori:

That's awesome. All right, so we've got the first two. They're really simple. I feel like a rock star already.

Melissa:

I'm feeling like I can handle those. I can do that.

Lori:

And I can emphasize words.

Blythe Anderson:

So love this for us. You want to go through moves three again. This is like not rocket science. So so much of explaining or having kids learn new words is right, explaining the meanings to them. So this move is explaining or defining the word.

Blythe Anderson:

I really prefer the term an explanation over a definition. Right, a definition is like a set. It has its own genre. It's how you, you know how you say it. It's supposed to have very few words because it needs to fit in the dictionary, right, and so we often don't say things the most clear. And a true definition but I think you know, any kind of explanation that maybe uses a lot more words but makes it very clear for students is what's important. Right, and using child-friendly language. So, in order for something to be child-friendly, like the words that we use to explain can't be more challenging than the word that we're explaining in the first place, right? I work with a lot of students who are getting their initial certification, so they're going to become teachers and so, right, when they're practicing writing definitions for my class, sometimes the words that they use to explain are actually well, that would be a whole new target word too, like you'd have to teach both Um, so that's just something to really be mindful Like. What is it that children probably already understand and can use that then to understand this new word, um, and also like the concepts that right, like you need to use familiar words and familiar, familiar concepts if the word itself is right brand new, um, yes, okay, so that was the first one.

Blythe Anderson:

So examples from the classes that the classrooms that I saw, right. One of the teachers said so, bipeds are animals that use two legs for walking. So right, she's very clearly. Bipeds was the target word, I believe. She said it with emphasis. So we're stacking. She used it, she said it with emphasis and she also gave that really clear explanation. Right, children understand animals, two legs, walking. Like that's all very accessible for them. Another teacher said so the needs are things that we have to have in order to survive, right, so that was a whole lesson on wants and needs, and so it made it clear needs are things that we have to have. Really accessible language there.

Blythe Anderson:

The next move, I think I think a lot of educators do this just naturally, maybe don't even realize that they're doing this, but helping students make personal connections. I think we're always trying to help situate in a way that you know, in your context of your life, how is this going to make sense? And so the context of this particular example is this study took place in a large Midwestern state during the winter and they had just had, like this polar vortex, like they missed like a solid week of school. The kids had all been home, it had been very cold, almost too cold to play outside during that time, and so this is like their first day back after that extended break. And so the lesson happened to be on severe weather conditions. And so the teacher said in the past three or four days we've had some severe weather conditions. So she's, this is a kindergarten classroom. The kids all know they were stuck inside, right. So she's helping them make that connection to their own life.

Blythe Anderson:

And another example that teacher, that same teacher who was talking about needs, said so, for example, in our house, do we need to have a way to get water? Right. So she's not just like needs are things that you need, but giving them a specific example of you know, in your home do you have access to water? You know that's something that we need to survive. And then the fifth, rounding out this set of moves.

Blythe Anderson:

The fifth move again is things that I think educators naturally do already, providing an example or a non-example, and sometimes that can be even more clear, I think, at times than an explanation or a non-example, and sometimes that can be even more clear, I think, at times than an explanation or a definition, depending on the word right. Sometimes I think the example can be more illuminating. So there was a lesson on habitats and the target word was shelter, and so the teacher explained that grass can also be shelter for animals. So she's giving that example of grass right as being that shelter. And then back to the lesson on needs.

Blythe Anderson:

Here's an example of a non-example where the teacher said but if we have a house, which is our shelter, do we have to? So there's an example like the house is the shelter she had that part in there and then she says do we have to have a bed? And they say no. So a bed is a want. So that's an example. They're specifically focusing on need. And then the non-example is bed, which the children actually in this example thought that they really did need the bed. And so that was a whole other conversation about how people sleep in many different ways. But you could survive without a bed if needed, so that yeah, that rounds out that second set of moves.

Lori:

Yeah, I'm curious, did you see? I know these are talk moves and so we're talking about like the language here, but did any of the teachers use visuals to help bring these to life, or is there any like research that supports that visuals, in terms of like showing, is helpful?

Blythe Anderson:

Yes, yes, so um one of them, just double checking here um some visuals in different ways.

Lori:

So if we move on to some of the last moves, I know I was like I kind of I realized after I said it that I might be pushing ahead. I apologize.

Blythe Anderson:

That's okay, but, yes, there were visuals in different ways, so we'll get to the acting out and demonstrating in that way. But also, just one of the moves that didn't make the top 10, but was also one of the moves that I found was showing like a picture or pointing, pointing to the object itself, those kinds of moves where you're actually, you know, saying the word. It was a talk move, because they were saying it was done in conjunction with talking about that, the word, right, but they were pointing to it. Um, the other, one of the other moves that's coming up, um, in the final set, is visually displaying the word itself, so the printed word, um, you know, showing the letters, and so that is another way of drawing their attention to it. So, showing the actual object but also the word.

Lori:

Okay, thank you. I didn't want to get us too off course, so we made it through the first five, nice and clean.

Melissa:

I have a quick follow up on those on this set, if you don't mind Not to get too nitpicky, but I'm wondering like is there sometimes overlap between them? Because I was thinking about, like that water example you said it was a personal connection but also feels like could be an example. Is that I'm assuming that some some of these things could be both at the same time? Is that correct?

Blythe Anderson:

Absolutely yes. So if you see my coded transcripts, it's often, you know, sometimes it's just one move, but often it's like three or four moves happening together. So if they said it, and they said it with emphasis, and they provided an example, and it was an example that was relevant to their life, right there there's four. If they had pointed to it too, you know, if they had shown the word, so often these things are all happening together.

Melissa:

Okay, I didn't want to get teachers like to get too in their heads of thinking like am I doing a personal connection or am I doing an example? Which one is it?

Blythe Anderson:

It's both You're good to go and the important thing is that you're doing them. So you know, as a researcher, I have to get very specific about like what makes this this versus that, but as a practitioner, very specific about like what makes this this versus that. Um, but as a practitioner, it's just do do all of it, right, um?

Lori:

so, yeah, okay, should we? Should we push on to six through 10? I feel like I'll just do a quick recap, if that's okay, of one through five, so all right. So, uh, first is using the, the target word. The second is emphasizing the target word. The third is explaining or perhaps defining the target word. The fourth is making a connection to the word. And five, providing an example or a non-example.

Melissa:

All right, so I'm going to pass you the baton.

Lori:

I think six and seven are grouped together over here.

Blythe Anderson:

The move six is prompting students to use a target word or to use its meaning, so either way. And so remember that that repeated exposure is really important and building this over time in different contexts, and so that review part is really important for these words. We need many encounters with words to really kind of own it and have that understanding. Encounters with words to really kind of own it and have that understanding. And so, for one of the examples, there was a discussion about prehistoric creatures and the teacher prompted students to use the word herbivore, and so she said so if it ate plants, what was it called? So she's trying to remind them you learned a real big fancy word, I think was her word for it right about this? What was that? And another teacher prompted students to use the term wind flag. So they had been working on the weather unit and different tools that they had, and so she said do you remember what the new tool was that we made from the previous lesson? So this was at the start of a lesson and she's reviewing and prompting kids to supply that. Both of these examples, she was asking them to say the word itself, but she also could have said the word and said you know, do you remember what that means?

Blythe Anderson:

Move seven, then, is eliciting students' ideas for a review word. So anytime we can get students involved, that active engagement, we want to have them really sharing their ideas around this. And so if we're just saying here's a word and here's its meaning and we're just trying to get that to stick right, that's not as effective as if we're getting kids actively involved, having that deeper processing, thinking about it and using it, using their own words and language to talk about it. So this is an example of getting kids involved. And so one of the teachers asked again weather conditions. The teacher said what do we know about stratus clouds? And so then that whole discussion ensued about the different cloud types that they knew and stratus clouds in particular. And then back to that wind flag conversation. The teacher asked the students what the wind flag was used for. So the students, I think, when they, when she asked what tool, the student specifically said flag. And so she's like that's a great starting place, but like, okay, what is a wind flag used for? So, trying to get back at the importance of the wind, part of that for the tool.

Blythe Anderson:

And then the move eight is using target words with a hint. And so for this move, the teacher uses a word in context but provides some kind of hint or clue about it. So a teacher was they were talking about a crossing. And so the teacher said so you will have to design some sort of crossing for your animal to get across the road or under the road. So here there's it's.

Blythe Anderson:

Again, as a researcher, I have to be specific about what makes that different from an explanation. Right, as a practitioner you're just going to give that. Whether it's a hint or an explanation doesn't matter as much. But the specific difference here is that it's implicit. So the teacher isn't saying a crossing is something that you use to get from one place to another. Right, but you can tell from how she's explaining it that you're supposed to get from one place to another.

Blythe Anderson:

And so in another example the teacher was hinting at the meaning of the word angle. So she's like they were not straight up and down, they were at an angle right, and so she's got that straight up and down as an example. I think often this move can be used when you want to make sure students are understanding what you're talking about but also want to introduce this more technical word or this word that might be new for them, right, and so you can explain it. You know it's not straight up and down, and then you can give them language for what it is it's at an angle, or it's diagonal, or whatever the case may be. So I think if you think about this move as it's really just that scaffold, so that they can get this new word and understand its meaning together, it's kind of like context clues when you're reading.

Melissa:

Absolutely.

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, it's like you're providing context clues. That's a really great way to think about it, Like intentionally providing context clues. Yes, you were on the right track. So for move nine, this is visually displaying target words. So this is where you have the word either already printed or you write it in front of them, or, if you're reading a book, you're like a big book or a projected book right, when you can point to the word and they can see it, and this is really important for providing that orthographic information, right.

Blythe Anderson:

So when we think about learning words and reading words, we're putting together that orthography, the spelling, the way the word looks printed with how it sounds. So one of the moves that didn't make the top 10, but was an important move is just asking children to like repeat the word and say it out loud. So here's a bonus move for you out. So here's a bonus move for you. So in that case they're hearing it and hearing themselves say it, and then, of course, the meaning. So we're always thinking about putting those three things together the sounds, the phonemes, the orthography and the meaning semantic part, and so by visually displaying or showing kids the words, that helps with showing them that orthography and helping them build that representation in their mind for the word. And so examples of that the teacher wrote the word severe on a whiteboard as she was describing it for them, and so she was saying it and writing it and showing them and then later pulled that whiteboard back out and part of the conversation says, well, what do we call this kind of weather? And she had it right there on the board, Right, so she was able to draw their attention to that. And another example I think it was the same teacher, same lesson, just wrote like extreme weather as she was saying it. And so again, coming back to that, having that visual that kids can picture that word and think of that word actually does then support them in learning that word and connecting it with that meaning. And then the final move was the other way of showing kids right, and so this move is acting out or demonstrating the meanings of the words.

Blythe Anderson:

And so I think early elementary teachers in particular, I think, do this really naturally often of showing and trying to explain things, embodying them as they're explaining them. And so some examples the teacher was, they were talking again lots of talk about severe weather, they were talking about tornadoes, and so the teacher was trying to explain the same conversation about wind and all those kinds of things. So she's like using her fingers and like making circles with her fingers showing like the movement of the wind. Like making circles with her fingers showing like the movement of the wind, and as she's doing that, she's saying, instead of the wind moving, every which way it spins in a circle. So she's demonstrating for them the meaning of that.

Blythe Anderson:

And back to the teacher who was giving the context clue for angle. She first held her hand straight up and down and said right, it's not straight up and down, it's at an angle. And she showed with her, you know, moved her arm to make it to be at an angle. So there again she's demonstrating what that word means. So yeah, those were the top 10 most frequently used moves. The article does share all 32 with examples, so if people are curious about other ones, like I said, having kids repeat and say the word out loud there are some others that way, but these are the ones I saw most frequently across those 24 lessons.

Melissa:

That's great and we will include this article in our show notes so for people who are out there looking for all 32, they can go to our show notes to find that. I wanted to ask some of those that you just mentioned were you know about this, like reviewing and not letting the words just? I always said when I learned, I like took a test on the words and then I never heard those words again, which was terrible. But is there like? Is there research behind that idea of like continuing the review of words over time?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, absolutely. There is an official number. I think it's somewhere between seven and 12. I can't remember the exact number of how many encounters with the word it takes to really like own that word. But also you have to consider, okay, that might be like one sense of that word, but it may have other meanings, right? And so I just think you know the distributed review is always going to be an important part, but also just that that allows for more repetition, that allows for more encounters in different contexts, and so anytime that we can draw back to words that we've already worked on as they make sense in context, like you know, as a teacher, you know which words you've already been focused on throughout the year. So, like, look for any opportunity to bring those words back up. Maybe it's been a few months since you were talking about herbivores or whatever but if you know that comes up naturally like make.

Blythe Anderson:

That's a really great opportunity to use that word and remind kids that they have heard it and make sure that they're still remembering what that means.

Melissa:

I'm wondering. So this is not what your study is about at all, but I'm going to pick your brain while you're here, which is the question always comes up and I think you mentioned it in your article too which is well, which words should I teach, and you listed a bunch of great examples of words that teachers were teaching, but do you have any recommendations for how teachers should choose which words to do these moves with and which ones are not necessarily worth their time to do all this with?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, yeah. Well, a couple of things. I'll start with how I kind of think about this, but I can also share a few resources that might be helpful, that maybe I can send you to link and show notes as well, that I think are helpful ways to think about this. So I think it's really important to remember we want to always be sharing words. Ways to think about this. So I think it's really important to remember we want to always be sharing words in meaningful context, right?

Blythe Anderson:

So I think you mentioned, melissa, having the experience of, like there's a list of words I learned, I heard it once. I like never came back to it, right? So we know that that's not effective. There's a great book no More look up the list of vocabulary instruction. It's part of the series that Nell Duke and Alan Keane, I think, did, and so, like, if you, if you want to hear more about why that doesn't work, that's a that's a good resource, but we always so keeping in mind that that meaningful context is so important, and so that may be a text that you're reading, whether it's a read aloud or it's the text that the students are reading themselves, right, thinking about what are the words that are important to understand this particular text.

Blythe Anderson:

So we know that when we take the time to teach the challenging words within a particular text, that helps kids learn those particular words and it helps them understand that text. So that is something that we would want to do understand that text. So that is something that we would want to do. Consider, you know, which words are really important for making sense in the text and also which words might be words that they will encounter again in other contexts. That can be a helpful way to kind of narrow down which words with limited time. Also, you know, think about what are the words that students aren't already likely to know. I think I know that sounds kind of obvious, but you kind of have to know your students, and so there's where you might be working with some curricular materials that have suggested some words and you're pretty confident they already know those words. Like, don't take the time on those. Like look and find some others that you think might be more words that your students would have challenges with and focus your time there instead. I think.

Blythe Anderson:

So that's, you know, if the meaningful context that you're talking about is a text, and text could be right, like I said, a read aloud. It could be books that kids are reading. It could be a video or something that you're sharing that has some vocabulary in it that you want to draw attention to. The other really meaningful context which I alluded to, you know, by looking at science, instruction with this study is anytime you're working on content knowledge, you're building knowledge of the world right, and so, for example, science or social study lessons are really great places to be thinking about what are the words that are going to be really important for this content area and thinking about introducing those words in. You know semantically related. You know networks of words or clusters of words. They've been talked about in different ways, but I talked earlier about part of the complexity of word learning.

Blythe Anderson:

Is that interrelatedness, but that also is a benefit is that we can introduce kids to words that are related and help them see those connections, and so that may be a way to think about when you're selecting words. You know informational text.

Blythe Anderson:

Often the words that are going to be challenging for them are maybe those domain specific words and they often appear in these clusters that are connected Right If you're learning about I don't know photosynthesis, all the other kinds of challenging words, are all going to be connected to that meaning, and so by introducing them together, that can help build the meanings of all of those words and help students right as you're building their knowledge is really what we're getting at. And then also, ultimately you know, any word that a student doesn't know is a good word to teach. So I think back to my days as I was a literacy coordinator and part of my role was to do professional learning experiences across the district, and so in one I was working with a school and we were doing a book club and one of the teachers shared this really great example. She was working with a multilingual learner and she had previewed the text that they were going to read and she was pretty sure that the word nip was going to be challenging.

Blythe Anderson:

There was a dog in the story that nipped a boy's ankle, and so she was all prepared to teach the word nip. And it turns out that there was enough context clues. The child understood dogs and how they work, and, like that wasn't the word that the child wasn't sure of, it was actually the word ankle, and it's not that this child doesn't know what an ankle is, but they didn't know the word in English and so take advantage of those moments of that's the word that that child needed to understand that text instead. And so just knowing your students and being aware and I think if you're building that culture of like words are interesting and worthwhile learning and we want to be curious about words like that will help you also then determine like what's worthwhile to spend my time on.

Lori:

I love that story. That's so fun. Thank you for illuminating that point. Like sometimes we go in and we're like definitely, you know, these are the words I need to teach, and then, oh, the script just flips on us once the kids come into play. Right, absolutely yes, yeah, all right. So I'm just thinking right now I have my teacher hat on I'm thinking with 10 talk moves right, I know you said there's 32.

Melissa:

32, yeah.

Lori:

But we just focused on these top 10 today. So if we're thinking about these 10 moves, it might feel overwhelming for our listeners to incorporate them all into their daily routines. Now, I know a lot of them are moves they're already doing. But if they're not doing them, or if a teacher like here's a couple moves that they're like, oh, I'm interested in that, how do you recommend teachers get started using these moves?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, I think, taking a look at either the list of 10 or 32 and just kind of taking a moment to reflect on, like, which of these do I already really do and I think a lot of educators are going to say I'm really doing quite a few of these already and so I think, just kind of a quick self-assessment of where you are in terms of which ones are already checked off we don't need to worry about, just continue them. Then there may be a set of moves that you know you do from time to time but you could do more of those, right. So just kind of thinking about I'm going to be more intentional about doing these, but I know it's something I do and then think about which of the moves might be more challenging to implement. Most of them, you know, can be done on the fly across the day. You know we still want to have very planful instruction where you've got those child-friendly explanations ready to go for a lot of instruction. But as you're walking down the hall, if a child's asking what something means, right, you may be just giving that explanation on the go.

Blythe Anderson:

And so, for a lot of these moves, thinking about which ones might be more challenging for you to either implement or to remember to implement. You know, maybe having a sticky note up in your teaching area and just reminding you for like several weeks until it maybe becomes more of a habit, like, oh yeah, I wanted to try to ask kids to repeat the word more often, or something like that Right, um. And then you know, once you've kind of got that, okay, these are the ones I already do, these are the ones that I just need to boost a little bit more, and then these are the ones that really might be more challenging with that, the more challenging words, I would just pick one or two and say for the next, you know, depending on the, how much of a lift do you think it's going to be like for the next week, or two or three weeks? Like I'm just going to try to like really be mindful about using that. I might like write it in my lesson plan, a couple.

Blythe Anderson:

You know, whatever it's going to take to remind you to like try that out. I think that's a start, like I wouldn't start with all 32 at once, but also thinking about how you can add a few at a time, but also remembering that often these are stackable, and so maybe you already you know, use the word and emphasize it and give a child-friendly explanation. But you could add asking kids to repeat it and maybe you could write it for them or you could remember. You know, I'm going to use Google Images or something I don't know right to pull up that word as we're talking about it, if it's a word that can be learned easily like that. So I think that's a good starting place.

Lori:

Thank you, those are super practical. Yeah, and I feel like too. Even as a parent, I'm always emphasizing words, so maybe now I'll just be more strategic. I'm trying to vary my word choice.

Blythe Anderson:

Build in some of those context. I think as a parent, that's one that I really love to do is like I just use all the words as if they're going to understand them, but then I have that scaffold in there for them too.

Lori:

Yeah, that's a great one. What a fun way too to think about, like you know, getting the parents involved who are always asking, like what can I do at home?

Blythe Anderson:

This, asking like what can I do at home? This is like super simple but seems like a big bang for your buck. You know, absolutely, yeah, and I actually I want to circle back, because I mentioned a resource for and thinking about, right, which words to teach and how to teach them, another one that I think is really helpful. I think it's an ILA brief, but I actually think it's from before the name change, so it might be under IRA brief, but it's called flood, fast and focused, and so that's just in terms of thinking about like which maybe it's fast but focused. It's those three in some combination, right, but some words you can just give that quick explanation and keep going.

Blythe Anderson:

A lot of it's just about language. You know, language exposure, that oral language input, and so having the rich language environment, having both through talk and through the text that you're reading, right, they're encountering all kinds of words. But then the focused part then is like which other words we really want to spend time on, and so I think that can be as you're thinking about, like I said, either the meaningful context of the book or the meaningful context of the science experiment, for example, like how, how do we want to focus our attention there. So I think it's sort of kind of we can sort words to like. Which ones and to what degree do they need instruction?

Melissa:

Plath, I'm kind of curious. I wanted to bring this back to the three big categories that you mentioned at the beginning. I think it was really easy for me to see how all these talk moves were about knowledge and understanding new words. Do you say that some of these talk moves also are part of those affective factors and the metacognitive factors as well?

Blythe Anderson:

Yes, most of these moves that made the top 10, I'm just doing a quick skim yes, most of the moves in the top 10 are about building that knowledge and understanding. So, and that's like, like you said, that's what teachers were doing primarily, for sure, that are more about getting kids interested in words. And you know, just like helping kids, helping kids make personal connections that's actually one of the affective ones, right, like, if you're appreciating word choice, so, like you're, you're reading a book and you come across an interesting word, you know just saying, ooh, that's an interesting word. I don't hear that very often. I, you know, you know those kinds of those kinds of moves that just um, shows that like we can love words, like some words are really fun and and I, oh I really like the way they said that you know those kinds of things um, that build that like feeling of, like words are cool and words are fun and, um, you know we can play with words and you know all those kinds of things. And then for the metalinguistic and metacognitive, I think it's helpful to you know.

Blythe Anderson:

An example of one of those moves was, I think, I think, actually, with the severe weather they were talking about, has anybody heard anybody? The teacher said you know, has anybody heard your parents, maybe, or on the news, talk about severe weather, right? So that was like think about have you heard this word before and give them the opportunity to consider like, do I know it? How much do I know it? It's not really the case with kids that we like know it or we don't know it, right. So there's a great analogy, and I don't remember who to attribute this to. But with vocabulary we don't want to think about it as like a light switch that's like on or off, I know it or I don't know it.

Blythe Anderson:

Right, but like that kind of more of like a dimmer switch, where you know, the more encounters and the more understandings, right, and so helping kids kind of evaluate for themselves, like I think I've heard that before, you know I've never heard it, or I think I've heard it but I can't really explain it. Or actually, like I play soccer and I know that a goalie does this, this, this right, like that's different levels of understanding, um, and having kids just be aware of that as part of that, building that metalinguistic, metacognitive awareness as well.

Melissa:

I actually just heard something similar at a conference about that um, like what have you heard instead of what do you know? Which is like they're talking about the kwl chart and they're like change that k from from what do you know? Which is like they're talking about the KWL chart and they're like change that K from from what do you know about this to what have you heard about this, and they're like one takes a little pressure off. But, like you said, it's not like a yes or no, it's like you know there's. There's many things. I may have heard it over here, I might know a little bit, I might know something about it or an example, but I don't know it fully. So I like that example of like changing that wording to what have you heard about this word instead of what do you know. Like do you know this word?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, yeah, and I think you know. Often, if we ask kids like do you know this word? Like most kids are, a lot of kids are going to say yeah, like well, or you know, like, if you're trying to help them think about, like, what words should we focus on? Yeah, like they know them all right, like I've sat next to fourth graders who are like I know all these words. So if you phrase it, though, can you explain this word right, that changes that too. So it's just a similar example of changing the phrasing a little bit. But like, you may know it in the sense of you've heard it in these ways or you've heard it in certain contexts, but like do you know it well enough to explain it? And that you know slight difference, but often you get a different response from kids.

Lori:

Then that's what I was thinking about when you were talking is how, even how many times as an adult, have, like, I've gone to explain a word to my child and I have trouble finding the words to explain this meaning and sometimes I end up giving an example or a non-example or right like a synonym and I'm like, well, it's kind of like this, and then I'm like I just there's so much complexity in vocabulary that even to like, say some word, say some definitions, in a way that a kid would understand is really tricky because you have to kind of like, think about it and then scaffold it down. So sometimes, giving that example or not, so I love that idea of like, can you explain it, because it really does open the door more broadly to understanding, which is the ultimate goal, right? Absolutely yes.

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, I think that's a little tweak. We're so used to talking about definitions and so I think, like that explanation really gets us closer to what we want is that kids can connect to the meaning.

Melissa:

Well, yeah, these talk moves are priceless and so helpful for teachers, and I would walk away from today feeling like I can do this, so I think that that is the best part of everything you've shared today. Is there anything else that you just want to share with our listeners, anything that they should know?

Blythe Anderson:

Yeah, well, I know that many of your listeners are very interested in the research and that's why they're, you know, seeking out your podcast, and so for anybody who's kind of been thinking like I am considering a PhD, I think, I think doing this kind of research might be interesting, I just want to shout out I'm at the University at Buffalo, and so we have a literacy and English education PhD, and so if this sounds like fun and you would like to read a lot of research and do research as well, like you know, check out our program, connect with me and I would love to talk to anybody who's thinking along those lines.

Melissa:

We'll have you on the podcast one day.

Lori:

Yeah, we love hearing good places to go for great learning and for our teachers. So thank you, yeah, thank you, yeah, and thank you for being here and talking about these talk moves. We heard you on another podcast and then totally scooped you up for ours and we're just so grateful that you gave us some time and shared with our listeners all of these awesome talk moves and just took so much time to explain them. So we appreciate you.

Blythe Anderson:

All right, well, thank you so much. It was so fun. Like I said, I'm always happy to talk about vocabulary learning.

Melissa:

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Lori:

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Melissa:

Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori 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. Thank you.