Category: Nonfiction Books

Teaching Vocabulary Words in Context Using Exemplary Nonfiction Texts

10/20/2020

BY ALLY HAUPTMAN

Why do we teach vocabulary? At its core increasing a student’s vocabulary gives that student power. The power to express ideas, opinions, and feelings. The power to find the right words to persuade, inform, or to bring joy to readers. The power to build knowledge and understand complex concepts across disciplines.

To effectively teach vocabulary and empower our students, teachers must provide rich and varied language experiences, learning experiences that connect words within a context, and opportunities to develop word consciousness (Allen, 2014). Students need opportunities to read, write, and talk in authentic ways. Teachers can model how to use words in context, and immerse students in the language of different disciplines. We need to show students how powerful words are in helping us communicate our ideas. We have to show them how to become “word collectors.” We need to teach vocabulary within context, and intentionally put students in situations where they make connections between words and concepts.

One of the most effective ways for students to make connections and construct meaning is to make sure new vocabulary is presented within a meaningful context. This is where excellent children’s literature comes into play. There are so many brilliantly written non-fiction picture books that can be used to teach vocabulary within a context. With students, I refer to these non-fiction books that are accessible to young readers and use text features in interesting ways, as jazzy non-fiction. Students are drawn to these texts because they make the subject fascinating for readers.

One author whose jazzy nonfiction I often use is Jess Keating. She is an author, artist, and zoologist who creates texts that spark curiosity about animals and women in science. In her World of Weird Animals series, she uses photographs, cartoons, and text features in unique and engaging ways. This is what makes her books so appealing to young readers, but as a teacher I am drawn to the complex vocabulary she uses in her writing. Jess Keating books can be used as mentor texts for writing, sparking a myriad of writing possibilities for students as they begin to see creative ways to write nonfiction. Jess Keating books are perfect for modeling a rich array of metacognitive comprehension strategies like determining importance. Jess Keating books are the best for teaching science concepts and related vocabulary within an authentic context.

Cute As an Axolotl: Discovering the World’s Most Adorable Animals

In this text, Jess Keating and David DeGrand present a combination of stunning animal photographs, cartoon animals, and text features that invite readers to learn about some seriously cute creatures. For each animal, Keating lists facts like species name, size, diet, habitat, predators and threats. She also tells the reader strange, interesting facts that leave you wanting to do more research on these adorable creatures.

Learning Experience Using Cute As an Axolotl
Sorting and Reading to Place Vocabulary Within a Context
(Johns & Bergland, 2002)

Book Cover: Cute as an Axolotl Discovering the World's Most Adorable Animals By Jess Keating

On the first two pages of the book, Keating uses the words axolotl, aquatic, regeneration, predator, gills, species name, habitat, traits, features. Print these words and ask students to cut out each, so they are able to manipulate the words in an open sort.
Students take a pencil and lightly mark how they would rank their knowledge of each word. Asking students to rank their knowledge of the word is an easy way to activate prior knowledge.
Ask students to complete an open sort. They can sort the word cards in any way that makes sense to them. I have seen students sort alphabetically and by number of syllables in a word during their first sort. Many students sort the words by words they know or have never heard. Other students begin sorting by their conception of how the words are related. There are no wrong answers!
Students turn and talk with a partner to explain their sorts. This is where the magic happens! Students are sharing ideas about each word and learning from each other. I often see students re-sorting words during their conversations with partners as they refine their thinking together. The more they interact with words and have to make decisions about them, the words become closer to being “owned” than “rented” (Gillis, 2014).
Ask students to justify their sort in writing in their notebook. This makes thinking visible and gives the teacher a quick check of their current knowledge of the vocabulary.
Place the vocabulary within the context of a Jess Keating book! Read the first page of Cute As an Axolotl. After reading, quickly discuss each word that was on their cards that appeared in the text.
Re-sort based on what students now know about the words after hearing them within the context of Cute As an Axolotl. Explain the sort to a partner and then write the justification for their resort in their notebooks.

More Jess Keating Books to Consider

Pink Is For Blobfish
Discovering the
Book Cover: World's Perfectly Pink Animals By Jess Keating

Book Cover:
Eat Your Rocks, Croc!: Dr. Glider's Advice for Troubled Animals
Written by Jess Keating

The World of Weird Animals Series (illustrated by David DeGrand)

Pink is for Blobfish: Discovering the World’s Perfectly Pink Animals
What Makes a Monster?: Discovering the World’s Scariest Creature
Gross as a Snot Otter: Discovering the World’s Most Disgusting Animals

Other Books

Eat Your Rocks, Croc!: Dr. Glider’s Advice for Troubled Animals, illustrated by Pete Oswald
Ocean Speaks: How Marie Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret, illustrated by Katie Hickey
Shark Lady: The True Story of how Eugenie Clark Become the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist, illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguėns

References

Allen, J. (2014). Tools for teaching academic vocabulary. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Berglund, R. & Johns, J. (2002). Strategies for content area learning: Vocabulary, comprehension, and
response. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.

Gillis, V. (2014). Talking the talk: Vocabulary instruction across the disciplines (or what to do instead).
Journal of Adolescent and Adult Learning, 58(4), 281-287.

Ally Hauptman is a CLA Board Member and is the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. She is an associate professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN.

The Lived Experience: Creating and Sequencing Text Sets to Build Background Knowledge

9/8/2020

BY LIZ THACKERAY NELSON & MARGARET OSGOOD OPATZ

Diagram illustrating how to scaffold texts starting with texts closest to students' lived experiences and moving farther out.

As former teachers, we are familiar with our students’ common refrain: “What does this book have to do with me?” Helping our students connect to what we teach in meaningful ways increases motivation, engagement, and overall learning (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). In this blog post we want to explore how creating and sequencing text sets to foster student background knowledge helps students make meaningful connections and increases reading engagement.

The importance of readers’ background knowledge has been acknowledged for decades (Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz, 1977; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Reynolds, Taylor, Steffensen, Shirley, & Anderson, 1982), yet in schools throughout our country readers are placed in texts that are decontextualized and reflect a lived experience very different from their own, making it challenging to construct meaning from the text and ultimately learn from it (Fleming, Catapano, Thompson, & Ruvalcaba Carrillo, 2015). This is particularly true when it comes to the informational content presented in science. To support readers in comprehending and learning from texts, teachers can reshape the curriculum by beginning with students’ lived experiences in mind. Reshaping the curriculum includes the use of high-quality literature sequenced in a way that begins with familiar content and contexts and then moves further from students’ lived experiences to the expected or mainstream curriculum.

Learning about Animal Adaptations in an Urban Setting

For example, when addressing science standards to teach about how animals adapt to their environment, many units of study focus on exotic animals such as those found in the Amazon Rainforest, the Serengeti, or Australian Outback--using texts such as I See a Kookaburra! (Jenkins & Page, 2005) , Biggest, Strongest, Fastest (Jenkins, 1997), or What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? (Jenkins & Page, 2008). While it certainly isn’t bad to teach about exotic animals and their unique ecosystems, to help students first understand how animals function in their unique habitat, it can be beneficial to begin with animals that are closer to students’ lived experiences. Therefore, before moving to texts that showcase exotic animals, we suggest using texts such as Please, Puppy, Please (Lee & Lee, 2005), Animal Babies in Towns and Cities (Kingfisher, 2005), City Critters: Wildlife in the Urban Jungle (Read, 2012), or Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City (Bash, 1992). These texts allow you to focus on animals that students who live in urban settings can observe in their own environment.

Imagine students reading Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City (Bash, 1992), a book which illustrates several urban locations where birds live and nest (e.g., in a storefront light, under the awning of a building, on a statue that stands on a street corner, in a stoplight). Then, as students walk outside of their school building (or their homes if they are learning online right now), they start to notice the birds that roost on the building’s exterior doorways, creating firsthand experiences of animals adapting to their environments, and opportunities to talk about scientific content beyond the school texts and science class. When meeting as a class again, students discuss how the birds have adapted to and thrive in the urban environment. By situating school texts in familiar contexts, students are able to build background knowledge before being expected to grasp concepts in faraway, unfamiliar places. Because we live in an urban area, we would sequence our animal adaptation text set like this:

Diagram listing a sequencing example for texts on animal adaptations

Based on the area where you live, you may want to change the order of the texts. For example, salamanders are very common in some parts of the United States, so teachers in that area may want to move Salamanders by Molly Kolpin closer to the beginning of the text set.

Explanation of Text Sequence

Creating & Sequencing Your Own Text Set

To create and sequence text sets that begin with students' lived experiences and progress outward, we propose 5 steps:

STEP 1:

Determine the standards, learning goals, and outcomes for an instructional unit.

STEP 2:

Begin with your curriculum to integrate content.

Select your topic of area of focus for the unit.

STEP 3:

Determine areas of the curriculum or unit that require additional resources for students to build conceptual knowledge.

STEP 4:

Gather texts based on the topic.

Use various resources to find high-quality literature:

STEP 5:

Use texts to build a bridge between students' lived experiences and the school curriculum.

With your students in mind, determine the books that are closest/furthest to your students' lived experiences.
Go through the process of sequencing texts from closest to furthest from your students' lived experiences.
Evaluate how each book fits into the development of knowledge throughout the unit.

References

Anderson, R. C., Reynolds, R. E., Schallert, D. L., & Goetz, E. T. (1977). Frameworks for comprehending discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 14(4), 367-381.

Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 22, 8-17.

Fleming, J., Catapano, S., Thompson, C. M., & Ruvalcaba Carrillo, S. (2015). More mirrors in the classroom: Using urban children’s literature to increase literacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Guthrie, J.T., & Wigfield, A. (2000). Engagement and motivation in reading. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research: Volume III (pp. 403-422). New York: Erlbaum.

Reynolds, R.E., Taylor, M.A., Steffensen, M.S., Shirey, L.L., & Anderson, R.C. (1982). Cultural schemata and reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 353-366.

Liz Thackeray Nelson is a doctoral student at the University of Utah in Educational Psychology. Her research interests include writing, multiliteracies, and children's literature. She is currently serving as the chair for the CLA Membership Committee.

Margaret Osgood Opatz is a doctoral student at the University of Utah in Educational Psychology. Her studies include reading, literacy, and linguistics. She is a past recipient of the CLA Bonnie Campbell Hill National Literacy Leader Award.

The CLA Blog

Teaching Vocabulary Words in Context Using Exemplary Nonfiction Texts

BY ALLY HAUPTMAN

Cute As an Axolotl: Discovering the World’s Most Adorable Animals

Learning Experience Using Cute As an Axolotl
Sorting and Reading to Place Vocabulary Within a Context
(Johns & Bergland, 2002)

More Jess Keating Books to Consider

The Lived Experience: Creating and Sequencing Text Sets to Build Background Knowledge

BY LIZ THACKERAY NELSON & MARGARET OSGOOD OPATZ

Explanation of Text Sequence

Creating & Sequencing Your Own Text Set

STEP 1:

STEP 2:

STEP 3:

STEP 4:

STEP 5:

References

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BY ALLY HAUPTMAN

Cute As an Axolotl: Discovering the World’s Most Adorable Animals

Learning Experience Using Cute As an AxolotlSorting and Reading to Place Vocabulary Within a Context (Johns & Bergland, 2002)

More Jess Keating Books to Consider

BY LIZ THACKERAY NELSON & MARGARET OSGOOD OPATZ

Explanation of Text Sequence

Creating & Sequencing Your Own Text Set

STEP 1:

STEP 2:

STEP 3:

STEP 4:

STEP 5:

References

Authors:CLA Members

Blog Editors

contribute to the blog

Archives

Categories

CLA

Resources

Learning Experience Using Cute As an Axolotl
Sorting and Reading to Place Vocabulary Within a Context
(Johns & Bergland, 2002)

Authors:
CLA Members