Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ™

[Listen Again] Vocabulary Instruction with Sean Morrisey

• Episode 156

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Episode 156 

Fifth-grade teacher Sean Morrisey joins us to discuss all things vocabulary! We discuss Tier 2 and 3 words and discuss how you can strategically select words to teach using research-based approaches.

We also share the importance of continuously using words in daily language  and ways to use data to measure improvement. Finally, 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.

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Speaker 1:

Have you ever taught word lists or had students memorize definitions, only to find they still struggle to use new words in meaningful ways?

Speaker 2:

Do you want to be intentional about the words you teach, but with so many to choose from, you're not sure how to decide which ones really matter Today you'll hear from 5th grade teacher Sean Morrissey, as he shares all the details of his vocabulary instruction.

Speaker 1:

We'll explore tier two and tier three words, how to choose the right words to teach and simple, research-backed ways to weave vocabulary into everyday learning.

Speaker 2:

Welcome teacher friend. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two literacy educators in Baltimore.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 3:

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

Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 3:

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 are high frequency Kids know a lot. They're using a lot in language ball horse, you know, run shoe, so words that are used often. So kids pick up on those words pretty, pretty quickly. Tier three words are content words. So we're talking about, like science, social studies, content words. Words like isotope tundra, um, like I teach photosynthesis in fifth grade um alveoli, where alveoli it's very specific to, uh, to you guys. So respiratory system, uh, so when you teach the respiratory system you have to teach the alveoli. You know it's where gas is exchanged, you know with your circulatory system. So those are very content, specific words. Tier two words are words that are really, really important.

Speaker 3:

They you know, fall in science, social studies, literature. They're used in multiple domains. They have, like I would say, high utility to like words like feature, function, abundant, contradict. So words that kind of go in many, many different areas my favorite. I've, actually I have a favorite vocabulary word it's, 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 like with with with with contract. It falls under when, 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 100 or more times throughout the year. So it's a good word to teach.

Speaker 1:

So neat. Before we move on from this, I just want to. You mentioned bringing words to life. Do you want to talk a little? Just in case people don't know that book oh my goodness.

Speaker 3:

Oh, he has it.

Speaker 2:

So anybody watching on YouTube can can get that cover in their mind for their purchase.

Speaker 3:

Um, honestly, like for the people I mean a lot of your listeners um, you know, the writing revolution was like like the book that came out for writing that or the. 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, um, 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 Beck McCowan Margaret's great, I think she's retired now. She does a lot of podcasts now they are just, I think, more 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 I do an observation and I did an observation using one of their lesson plans. So it got me the job. So, yes, it's a good sign. First grade, a pocket, pocket for corduroy. So I still remember the words Drowsy, reluctant those are the words I taught for the lesson.

Speaker 1:

All right. So now we know the different types of words that exist in the world. As a teacher, I think 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, 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.

Speaker 3:

Sure, if you don't have that, that's okay.

Speaker 3:

No, no, I got, I have an. I have an example for you. So I think when you think about like, what words to teach, like it's hard, you'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.

Speaker 3:

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. 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 3,000 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.

Speaker 3:

You know, there's other websites that are great, where, like they kind of structure, like what words are important Text projects? Great, I'm Alfredo Heibert's work, so word generation through the SERP Institute is also an amazing website. So those are like the four things that kind of structured, structured, you know, and kind of gave me like, oh, these are, these are a lot, a lot of words to focus on. So that's kind of where I started, like my journey, for sure yeah, can I throw one more in, just because I like it?

Speaker 1:

there's um 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 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 you're the teacher, you can decide whether those are the right words or there are other words, but it's a really nice starting point if you're kind of stuck for where to go.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's. There's one more 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. So I've used that before as well.

Speaker 1:

And we'll link all these right Lori in our show notes.

Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 1:

Every teacher is like what was that website? I need, I want it.

Speaker 2:

All in our show notes. And the show notes will also blast on social, as we always do for really cool tools.

Speaker 3:

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

Speaker 2:

So you want to say it Go ahead, sean. It's going to be in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks for sharing All right, sean, do you want to walk us through an example now?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So I have a text from one of the curriculums I use, one of the novel studies, so the Reading Reconsidered curriculum, where so 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.

Speaker 2:

Ready, ready.

Speaker 3:

All right. 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 9, 1940, german forces crossed the border into Denmark. German soldiers began going ashore at 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.

Speaker 3:

During the occupation, however, many Danish citizens attempted to resist German occupation, typically in secret. 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 the 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 set fire to a stock of German listening devices. Others attacked factories that made German goods for the German military or blew up railroads. The the Germans needed to move troops and supplies.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, were you writing words down, laurie, I was. I have a whole list.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

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

Speaker 1:

You want to start, you want me to start.

Speaker 2:

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. It's paired with a text, so like I was thinking on its own, yeah. 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 OK?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, for sure. So I think, like with with this novel unit, everything's, just everything slowly builds. So this is not just a random passage like picked out. So like the kids, before even reading this passage there they already have a bunch of background.

Speaker 3:

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 it, there's a lot of scaffolds in place for the kids for sure.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so number 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, the 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 Dan, due to the Dan, due to the Danish people. So it's a great fifth grade story. That kind of it's a nice like introductory topic to World War Two and the Holocaust for sure.

Speaker 2:

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 into 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?

Speaker 1:

Sure, since you're making me go first, all right, here we go.

Speaker 2:

All right, surrendered, I had it on my list, but I didn't put it in my top five. Oh, my top four. Sorry, I did. Oh gosh, okay, I occupation.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 1:

Okay, res, 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 times too, so I had that one and neutrality. I thought that was an important word.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I didn't have neutrality. I must have missed that along the way, but I did have declare You're probably writing another word now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was frantic in my list.

Speaker 2:

She was writing declare All right Sean. How did, how do we do Pass Fail? What happened?

Speaker 3:

I would say you pass for sure. Occupation's a great word that falls on the academic word list. So um, but like yes, it's a multi, it's a you know multiple meaning word. Most kids know occupation maybe first, as like it's kind of your job. So um for sure. Resistance is, I think, an important word, because in the context of world war two that word is going to come up a lot.

Speaker 3:

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, you're going to hear that word a lot you know declares a good word, like it's. Like it's 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. I would say sabotage would probably be the word. That one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just just because I wrote that down last.

Speaker 3:

Yes, in the context. But, as you can see, like you know there, like that is packed with vocabulary. Now, like you know teachers out there where 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. So, um, I I like pushing the envelope there. I think you know it's scaffold that 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.

Speaker 2:

So I'm like counting the number of words I wrote down.

Speaker 2:

I ended up with a total of 12.

Speaker 2:

And I'm thinking about I I actually recently read number of the stars.

Speaker 2:

I have a fifth grader who just I guess an ink going to into sixth grade and so when she was in fifth grade we read number of the stars together and 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 you know 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, 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?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like, even like I was just thinking, 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 going to spend this is more like they're there, 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.

Speaker 1:

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? So 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 which makes it a lot easier for them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you can't like, well, as we talk, you can't teach every word out there. So there's like you're going to teach some words more in depth, you're going to 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 just not enough time. That's the hardest part of being a teacher. You know, we there's time time limits. All the research will tell us well, this works, but no one talks about that Like there's time restrictions. So what's going to give us like our best bets? You know that are going to help students.

Speaker 2:

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 going to teach these in our classroom, how should we do it? What are some efficient ways to do it?

Speaker 3:

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 word, 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 Anita Archer, explicit instruction, that sort of of thing. Um, 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, I'll give you an example, like with, with feature here. So explicit instruction here's. Here's a first context.

Speaker 3:

Many animals, bird. 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 and sticky substances that trap insects when they land on the plant's leaves. So that actually comes from Margaret McCowan's RAVE program.

Speaker 3:

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 is 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.

Speaker 3:

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 kind of moving pretty quick, like this, isn't? You don't want to take you know 30 minutes to 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 and, 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, and 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.

Speaker 2:

Is that why you delineated where you were from, so that you could talk about this right now?

Speaker 3:

That is one reason. Well, geography people like not everyone knows like geographic. You know geography super well, like it's a seven hour drive to New York City, so we're pretty far.

Speaker 1:

I'm closer to New York City, I know me too yeah.

Speaker 3:

So like it might be that day or the next day, like I'll put. I could even put it like um, you know, because a lot of times the boys dig this up, the girls too. But like I'll put a picture up on, like Josh Allen, because he's our, he's our star quarterback, and like what are the features that josh allen has that makes the bill successful? And it's like something that's a little different. And then the kids on their mini white boards 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 know share about the features of Josh Allen. You know, because we just talked about the features of the pitcher, you know, the pitcher plant, those are different, so it's a different context. Or you could tie like a video, like usually with that, with with the 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.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so those are like you know to start. 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, when you talk, like we do, geography of the United States like features comes up a lot like oh, what are the features of the mid Atlantic region? So it's a different context that the kids now it's like oh, you 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.

Speaker 2:

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. Um, 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, 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 your Friday after a Thursday night football game or something.

Speaker 2:

Um, 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.

Speaker 2:

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, like you align right your social studies content to your, to your ELA 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 right, like when we think about how we learn in life.

Speaker 2:

So I'm wondering if, if either of you wanted to react to that or 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 knowledge, that Velcro for those vocabulary and the background knowledge that kids need over time. So curious for you both to react to that.

Speaker 3:

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, 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 won't get into all the 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.

Speaker 1:

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, to the, you know, like you said Laurie, to the Velcro, right, like I can add something to it, then it doesn't feel as overwhelming for me as a student. You brought up Shantu the time, you know. Then you're not spending 45 minutes on one word in a class either.

Speaker 3:

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

Speaker 2:

I mean, it does feel messier. I'll say that it feels messier not to be like check. We're done with function or with feature, you know like, but it's. I think that that's just something that we have to deal with as ELA teachers. You know, it's messier, it's messy. Yeah, it's not like math.

Speaker 3:

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. I'm going to do this the next day and to plan that out. That's not, 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 slowly better at it and things like that and the kids are learning more. But you know it's planning and it's 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. Cause you know it's planning, planning's not easy.

Speaker 2:

Sean are there. I know we kind of took a little roundabout turn to go deeper into one 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 of others and we're happy to link those in our show notes too.

Speaker 3:

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, but there's a little bit of like slight differences. Like, um, this year was funny, like we, I, we talked about smells this year and we were teaching 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 knock, you know, noxious, putrid, pungent. So in that lesson we kind of did that all together. So it was more of not super in depth, but some of the kids picked it up right away because after we did that lesson, not probably two hours later, one of the boys in the class farts. Of course, fifth grade. Of course I was going to say fifth grade, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Fortunately I didn't have much of that this year, but without like batting an eye, I remember boys in the class, farts of course, fifth course I was gonna say fifth grade go ahead.

Speaker 3:

Unfortunately I didn't have much of that this year, but without like batting an eye. I remember one of the boys looks behind and he goes well, that's, 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 lesson and he's using it.

Speaker 2:

Someone got the Velcro.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, 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 line. The kids can see on a line where those words fall. Um, 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 gotta go back to the buffalo bills here.

Speaker 3:

So, so you know, if the Buffalo Bills win the division, like you know that's, you know notable, but you know if they win a playoff game, well, that's noteworthy, like, oh, 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 feel like, and they'll be like, oh, the kids would be like, oh, that would be momentous, 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.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so yeah, and I'll throw out Sean too. I have a four, almost five year old now, who we just? 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, your youngest students, you can. You can do that kind of continuum. Oh, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2:

I've seen teachers do this with um the paint, paint swatches, like the uh 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 the colors, I think are fine.

Speaker 1:

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, taking 30 paint chips from Home Depot.

Speaker 2:

So, sean, anything else you want to add for morphology or etymology or anything there, oh my God, I guess?

Speaker 3:

Oh sure, I mean let's. Can I do one one thing before we go?

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

Oh no, I like one of the things I like is I call it odd one out where like so you want kids to be thinking about the words like, not just like a definition or that, so I'm going to get, get, like, I'll give you guys, we'll do a couple here, if it's okay. I'll give you guys four words and you tell me which one is like the odd one out of those four.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay all right, quiz time again all right um glum blissful jubilant ecstatic.

Speaker 2:

So that was glum blissful jubilant ecstatic, all right, melissa, we're gonna say it on three ready one, two, three glum ah.

Speaker 3:

So like you know I mean you 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, if you taught 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, you know the students like oh, like what is the over? Like arching, like theme or meaning here, and like that. One's like happy or sad and the lum is like you're sad, I'll give you one more. I'll give you one more. Disagree quarrel bicker concur. Disagree quarrel bicker concur.

Speaker 2:

Any Concur.

Speaker 3:

Concur when you're talking about teaching words too. Every word does not. You don't have to spend even initial instruction. You don't have to spend 10 minutes on every word. The word concur. I think my kids will know it without ever me teaching it, because I just use it in everyday language Instead of just saying at the start 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 probably average at best, but I'm trying to do that more in the classroom.

Speaker 3:

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.

Speaker 1:

Concur means to agree with someone.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

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, ecstatic.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking we could connect those to text very easily, you know, depending on the text and what's happening to text. Very easily, you know, depending on the text and what's happening. 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, how are we then deepening that even more so? So I appreciate the examples that you're giving.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, 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. Obtain and acquire will procure. You're getting something too, but it's usually harder. So, like you, that word was used in like there was a scarce there. Some items were scarce, they were hard to get in Denmark at the time. 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 right 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 Cam has his name on the word procure forever because he wanted that added to the board.

Speaker 2:

What board? What do we have in our classroom here for a vocabulary board?

Speaker 3:

I do. 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 all in 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 and you can't laminate the words, so don't laminate, do not laminate them because the sun reflects words, so don't laminate, do not laminate them because the sun reflects. Yeah, so then the kids can the kids have have, you know, they, they can look the kids, the kids.

Speaker 2:

It's helpful with that, yeah, for sure yeah, yeah, 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 ah geez, we haven't even.

Speaker 3:

We haven't, even, we didn't 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 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 it.

Speaker 3:

It's called morphology, it's morphological matrices. There's online, I think it's called morphology mate, it's a more, it's morphological matrices. There's, there's online, I think it's neil ramsden, he has a. There's a link where you can make them yourself. So, um, and it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to kind of figure it out and then it's super easy. Um, so, like the word track, like you know, um, you, you can talk about like, oh, extract, oh, like. So 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.

Speaker 3:

So those are like then we'll take time, I'll definitely take probably five, ten minutes, you know, on that route, and like showing, like the matrix, so I'll for like I can actually show for this, 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. So then the kids can like look and they can build words themselves before you talk about it. So then the kids are like motivated, oh, you know. Like, oh, oh, I know that word. Like you know you know. Distract, you know like, oh, 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.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you ever have them work together or or just independently, or I'm sure you mix it up.

Speaker 3:

Maybe I don't know, 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 it's it's think, write, pair, rewrite, share.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

You got to say it a couple of times, but so this is coming from so many whiteboards. Craig Barton in the uk is, uh, one of my favorite math people and you know getting the kids okay, think for 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, but that student then has a chance to rewrite and then we can share.

Speaker 1:

So I like that. I like that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, mini whiteboards. I'm a big mini whiteboard guy.

Speaker 2:

So I think it helps, like plug another plug for mini whiteboards. It helps make thinking visible, that is, that has been previously invisible. I I always loved that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I liked, I just liked 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, 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 In vocabulary. It works great for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's nice too, because they can. You know their answer doesn't have to be final. You know, when you, 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 curiosity driven versus like you have to get the right answer and write it, right or wrong?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah that's a good point, Melissa.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, many whiteboards are great, just like, even like we talked about like little things to do, like, say, you know your lesson 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. Okay, like I did this, like I did this probably about 30 to 40 times this year where, ok, someone pick a topic, it'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, write sentences as many as you can in your wipe off board like complex sentences that are using the vocabulary words that we've learned so far this year, 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 were learning right now or we've learned like maybe last month.

Speaker 3:

So, like one day I actually had the kids that I typed some of their answers down. It was great. Like we, we talk 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. It's very cute, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we do like glucose. Can we just pause right there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah which is technically perfectly correct, but it's, you know it's good. Like manifest is a great word, but you know, I mean it's super cute. Like you know, the Venus fly trap devoured or consume the naive fly, that's, that's really cool. Like using the word naive in there within science.

Speaker 1:

So I was gonna say you probably didn't teach them naive within the science.

Speaker 3:

No, naive was within our literature units.

Speaker 1:

That's a nice crossover.

Speaker 3:

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. Um, 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's doing it got crucial, vital, essential in one sense, because like, oh, I can get more points for that. You, you know, like it's cute.

Speaker 1:

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 teach explicitly. If you know them, feel free to share how many. If you don't know, that's okay. But we're curious 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?

Speaker 3:

I think this is hard, like as a classroom teacher, this is how 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 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 oh, you know this route, or that um where it might not be right in the lesson plan, um, it's and it it's. Just it's a lot of, it's a lot of talk throughout the day. Like you know, using could concur for agree in those instances. Or um, like even when kids, like when kids you want kids to do better, like, say, for writing, like kids aren't writing. As sophisticated sentences you want Like I remember joking around with one student.

Speaker 3:

I'm like 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 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. 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'm 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.

Speaker 1:

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 to kind of like look out for new words as they're reading, or?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so like I mean I don't so in in bringing words to life. They've used the word wizard, which 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 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. 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.

Speaker 3:

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 about vocabulary and I like to show in a 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.

Speaker 2:

Sean, I feel like we're all going to come to your TED talk.

Speaker 1:

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. I know vocabulary can be tough when you're talking about data. You know it's not. It's not easy to put a number on someone's vocabulary.

Speaker 3:

So curious how you go about using data and seeing improvement for students. 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. 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.

Speaker 3:

I've been using some academic like multiple choice, just tests that I found online. So I kind of use it as a pre-post-test measure. Also, our district we use iReady and iReady has, I mean, it's widely used. It's basically test 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 you know 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 and like even on state tests. I'm waiting for those scores to come in. I have, 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 I'm excited about the data, just to see, like it is it seems to be.

Speaker 3:

it seems to be working, 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.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So because teachers, we Especially if it's about fluency Okay.

Speaker 3:

So when I teach, when I think about teaching opportunity costs, like you only have so much time, so you, every decision that you make, you're actively making a decision what not to teach as well. So with 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 a 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, ooh, add concur to this passage, so they have more. So, yeah, so like fluency.

Speaker 3:

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.

Speaker 2:

It's a twofer right. Two for one. Yeah Well, it's almost a three, Three for one.

Speaker 3:

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

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So like I mean, even even like planning time's hard. But like you know, I know chat 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.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So it's kind of crazy where the vocabulary data, that on the tests that that are just like multiple choice, that are testing academic vocabulary words, with state test data, the correlation was like 0.84. 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 0.91. 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 there's tons of, like you know, talking about find the main idea and that sort of thing like talking about find the main idea and that sort of thing. Well, maybe instead of doing that at great length we should teach words at much more, and so far I spent more time probably than the average teacher with vocabulary. But the results are sort of backing that up.

Speaker 2:

So as my personal results 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.

Speaker 3:

You're doing it in the context of ELA social studies science, like so many things that you know we talked about all the time on this podcast. Yeah, and you can, at the 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 are there. Their depth and breadth 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.

Speaker 1:

Well, Sean, we cannot thank you enough for sharing all of these great tips with us. Um, I know we saw thank you enough for sharing all these great tips with us. I know we saw you on Twitter sharing a lot of tips. Do you want to share your Twitter handle so other people can?

Speaker 3:

Sure yeah, that's the only. I'm not on Facebook or anything, so I think it's. I think it's at S Morrissey on Twitter Sean Morrissey.

Speaker 2:

So double check it. Wait, Sean, where. Where are we going to link it? Oh, on the show notes. There we go, sean Twitter in the show notes there we go yeah.

Speaker 1:

Follow him if you want more.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think I'm trying to get it Like I don't think I did it that much because I'm not, I don't, I don't, I'm not sure, I'm not big on tweeting and that, but like moving away from sort of the you know arguments and 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, they've heard they like, they, they, they, they kind of know the pedagogy now, like now how to get to the other part, which is it's not easy?

Speaker 3:

It's definitely not easy.

Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you're putting yourself out there, so people have been nice when you put yourself out there sometimes, but people have been great about it.

Speaker 1:

We love hearing it and we love thank you for sharing with our audience as well.

Speaker 3:

Thank you Pleasure to be here. I had so much fun.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

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