Word Learning with Emergent Learners

Jennifer Snell

Word Learning with Emergent Learners

Understanding the expanse and volume of words that children are expected to read and recall meanings of can be overwhelming. Research by Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000) explains that by the end of eighth grade, if children successfully “negotiate all the texts normally encountered” they will confront “over 80,000 different words” (p. 461). Therefore, giving children opportunities to build a strong foundation of word learning (using oral contexts to deduce word meaning) and word knowledge (ability to correctly apply words), guide students to continue developing word awareness on their own (Silverman & Hartranft, 2015).

Building of word knowledge begins with a child’s first encounter with oral language and continues as he/she learns to read and write. Many children’s first encounter with learning words is with parents and siblings through natural participation in meaningful dialogue, through shared reading experiences, and simply by talking with other children in group play settings. Home literacy activities such as reading with children, taking trips to the library, parental modeling of literacy engagement through reading, and time spent talking having conversations with young children lay the foreground for further development of literacy education in preschool (Dickinson and McCabe, 2001).

Through these everyday experiences, children continue to develop word consciousness and word awareness expertise in four oral language modes: 1) phonology (producing and manipulating sounds to create words), 2) syntax (using words in sentences to help create meaning), 3) semantics (understanding word meanings), and 4) pragmatics (using the words in conversation). Children who are four and five years of age have the ability to acquire knowledge of word meanings and add “approximately 2,000 words to their vocabularies each year” (Tompkins, 2015, p. 41). Having a strong foundation of word knowledge lays the pathway for future success in reading and writing. Research completed by Tracey and Morrow (2017) tells us that children who enter school with proficient levels of word awareness and knowledge tend to excel in emergent and beginning reading and writing tasks. On the other hand, children who do not enter school with this same background of word knowledge can suffer in emergent and beginning literacy development.

Theoretical Perspectives for Word Development and Learning

One theoretical perspective that supports the importance of early word learning is the Literacy Processing Theory (Clay, 2001). Marie M. Clay is well known for her work in literacy development. As a clinical child psychologist, she has studied literacy development in children and has developed literacy theories such as Emergent Literacy Theory (1966 as cited in Doyle, 2013) and Literacy Processing Theory (2001). Tracey and Morrow (2017) explain that Emergent Literacy Theory deals with early word awareness and word learning within literacy development and provides instructional guidance to promote early literacy growth. Emergent Literacy Theory explains that literacy development is ongoing and unlike other theories, word learning begins with early experiences of both being talked to and read to (Tracey & Morrow, 2017).

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Clay’s Literacy Processing Theory was developed as a result of her questioning the correlations found between children’s literacy performance in the first year of school and following their rankings among peers in later years (Doyle, 2013). Clay (2001) has developed her theories on the premise of gaining insight as to how literacy develops in young children. She conducted longitudinal studies which highlight behavioral performances of preschool aged children in learning to read and write. Clay also discovered, through observation, that young children have prereading behaviors which illustrate their knowledge of many aspects of literacy such as matching by pointing and repeating words during 50% of shared reading opportunities and locating one or more words on the page upon request (Clay, 2001). She discovered that children as young as five years of age construct their own understandings of words from their unique stores of knowledge that they bring with them when entering school. She has found that these experiences, blended with formal literacy instruction, initiates the construction of complex literacy processing systems (Doyle, 2013). This theoretical knowledge has helped guide teachers in understanding the way young children’s cognitive development can be built upon in order to create successful readers and writers.

Development of Word Learning

Blewitt, Rump, Shealy, and Cook (2009) have concluded that “the size of a young child’s vocabulary appears to contribute substantially to success in school” (p. 294). Their further research has reported that the implementation of shared book reading supports word learning in young children as it influences vocabulary acquisition (Blewitt, et. al). It is also evident that for shared reading to be effective in the area of word learning, adult readers must be willing and able to explicitly define and discuss both common and unknown words with the child. Another facet of word learning comes from tapping pre-existing knowledge the child has about words, concepts and topics. Tapping into this pre-existing knowledge allows children to more readily associate new words with existing knowledge of topics, thus building a larger word bank of knowledge (Kaefer, 2017). And, of course, vocabulary growth stems from the development of word knowledge.

Children must make connections between phonological (using sounds that make up a word) and orthographic information (physical spelling of the word) for success in building sight word vocabulary (Ricketts, Bishop & Nation, 2008). Teachers guide the development of word learning by beginning teaching of phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness which leads the child to begin assigning letters to sounds moving to orthographic awareness (physical word spelling). To better understand this process, researchers have examined the layers of alphabet (representation of the relationship of letters and sounds), pattern (the repetition of groupings of letters in different words), and meaning (associating the groups of letters to have meaning) in which each build upon one another and then, as readers mature, these layers interact developing a fluent reader (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008).

Teachers can recognize reading growth when a child first recognizes the word on the page (graphophonemically, through decoding the sounds of the letters) and then can take that word and understand its meanings (semantically, through applying meaning to the decoded word). Having word knowledge is imperative for a child to move into gaining strong comprehension skills. Torgesen (2000) states, “To comprehend written material, children need to be able to identify the words used to convey meaning, and they must be able to construct meaning once they have identified the individual words in print” (p. 56). Without the ability of decoding and semantic knowledge, comprehension, the ultimate goal of reading, could suffer.

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Research Based Teaching Practices of Word Learning

Shared Reading

There is an abundance of research that supports the idea that shared book reading increases children’s word knowledge. Shared book reading, which consists of an adult interactively reading aloud with a child and allowing the child time to ask questions and study pictures, has proven to be a reliable way to increase awareness and knowledge of words through the process of reading (Blewitt, Rump, Shealy, & Cook, 2009; Brown, Byrnes, Watson, & Raban, 2013; Kaefer, 2018). Blewitt, et. al (2009) conducted a research study that sought to understand conditions needed during shared book reading in order to influence vocabulary acquisition in children. They focused upon questioning exactly how the types, placements and sequencing of extratextual elements affect preschoolers’ word learning during the use of shared book reading. Using the dialogic style theoretical framework by Whitehurst and Lonigan, encourages children “become the storyteller”. This is done by an adult asking questions about the story and pictures and by expanding on the given responses of the children. The results support two conclusions. First, the initial process of word learning, involving the consolidation of a word-referent association is benefitted by both low and high demand questioning. Second, deeper understanding of word knowledge and individual word meaning is better supported when adults begin with low demand questioning and then later add high demand questioning as the children become more familiar with the new words (Blewitt, et. Al, 2009).

Also utilizing the shared reading regime, Kaefer (2018) looked to discover what affects children’s background knowledge and visual attention to story book illustrations had on children’s vocabulary and word learning abilities. During shared reading time, a book was read aloud interactively with the child giving special attention to watch his/her reactions and interactions with illustrations. The results indicated that there is an interrelationship among a child’s related background knowledge, visual attention, and implicit word learning from shared reading of storybooks.

Read Aloud

Read aloud is a technique used by many early childhood and elementary teachers. The technique of reading aloud is another way of introducing new words to emergent learners. Silverman and Hartranft (2015) explain that read aloud can provide emergent readers an introduction to new words through the chosen literatures’ rich contexts. During read aloud, teachers take the time to explain words that might be unfamiliar to the learners. This helps to deepen learner word knowledge as the children hear the word repeatedly during the reading and are offered time to discuss the word and its meaning with both the teachers and peers. By attending to certain words and phrases during read aloud activities, students are gaining in vocabulary development and comprehension skills as well as building their word knowledge bank (Hayes and Flanigan, 2014; Silverman and Hartranft, 2015).

Tracking Text

Hayes and Flanigan (2014) discuss the importance of teaching children to focus special attention to individual words as they are written in texts. For effective practice, the writers suggest first choosing predictable texts such as nursery rhymes, poetry or jingles. However, they suggest having caution when selecting songs and jingles because the students must be able to concentrate and “track” words with their finger. Therefore, it is not a good idea to use a song or

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jingle the students are used to dancing along with. Also, the writers suggest choosing a text that is not too long for ease of memorization. After repeated practice of the text, students should have the text memorized. At this point, the teacher reads the text aloud with clarity while pointing to each individual word. During this phase, the teacher reads with a slow and deliberate pace modeling directionality procedures (reading from left to right) for reading. Following this procedure, the teacher will then ask the students to chorally read/recite the entire text while pointing to each word.

Repetition of Reading Practice

Korat, Kozlov-Peretz, and Drori (2017) found improvement in word learning after conducting a study of kindergarten children listening to repetition of reading from electronic devices such as e-books. The study included seventy-eight kindergarteners from low socioeconomic backgrounds whom were frequently read aloud to as well as frequently participated in phonemic awareness games aimed at word segmenting, counting syllables and creating rhyming patterns with words. During this study, the children were given a pretest to determine their receptive word learning, explanation of words and production of words. Following the pretest, students participated in two reading sessions in which the child listened independently to an e-book reading that automatically provided meanings of difficult words. After the presentation of the difficult word, the child was requested to “press on the dictionary word” where, once again, the child heard the meaning of the word (p. 62). This process was repeated twice so that in each reading session, the child heard the meaning of the word three times. Then the children were given the posttest to see if word learning occurred.

The results indicate significant differences in receptive word learning, explanation of word, and production of words. This indicates that these children did, in fact, learn more words, along with their meanings, from the repeated e-book reading. The results of this experiment were compared with another kindergarten group who received regular read aloud instruction from their teachers. The students receiving the repeated reading had more word knowledge growth than those instructed using regular read aloud.

However, there was no significant progress in word production. These findings show that the repetitive use of words during reading does enhance a child’s ability to strengthen word knowledge. This group of kindergarten children was independently read aloud to from an e- book that automatically offered meanings of difficult words in the story.

Creating Word Walls

Word walls can be utilized in a number of ways in the classroom. Words used to build the walls can come from high frequency word lists, words dealing with a particular theme in reading, common sight words and words used frequently during instruction. According to Hayes and Flanigan (2014), while it is important to include high-frequency words and sight words on the word wall, it is also important to include decodable words used during instruction. These researchers also suggest including “words of interest to further engage and motivate students” (p. 155). Inclusion of these words on the word wall provides opportunity for repeated exposure and practice to words which will aid students in adding the words to their stored knowledge.

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Creating a Language-Rich Classroom

Children learn new words and styles of language by not only listening to conversations, repeated readings, and interactive read aloud, but they also learn new words by being involved in conversation. Silverman and Hartanft (2015) teach that “classrooms that are language rich create a culture of conversation in which children are invited to be active participants in ongoing dialogue in the classroom” (p. 73). Classrooms that offer language-rich experiences have opportunities in which children interact and respond with one another by exchange of ideas and conversations in a positive and productive way. During this time, the teacher should model rich language using sophisticated words and complex language to help children develop their own skills. With this in mind, teachers who promote language-rich classrooms support student language skills by encouraging student expression by asking questions and helping students develop language by offering them ample time to think and collect their thoughts in order to respond and communicate effectively (Silverman and Hartranft, 2015).

Teaching Tips for Encouraging Word Learning in the Classroom

There are several instructional strategies and activities that teachers can use as a part of both regular classroom instruction as well as ideas for centers and peer group work to build on students’ building of word knowledge. The following are some suggestions to accomplish these strategies.

Concepts of Print: During the emergent phase of reading, students begin to notice and make connections with the idea that the letters they are learning have sounds. They begin to make identifications with a few words such as their names, names of family, and names of familiar objects especially those identified in environmental print which is print that appears in signs, labels, and logos (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008). To continue to build upon this awareness, teachers, by pointing to each word read, can use interactive read aloud with students stopping to discuss frequently appearing words and letters. Teacher can also encourage this by having centers that give students opportunities to replicate writing they see in the environment such as stop signs, restaurant names and familiar names of foods. Teachers need also to make print readily available in the classroom by labeling objects and centers in the classroom and pointing out these labels during instructional time (Kame’enui, E., Adams, M. J., & Lyon, G. R., 1996).

Initial Sound Sorts: Teachers can give students pictures aligned in various categories (such as ending rhyming sounds like cat, hat, bat in the /at/ family and /op/ cop, hop, pop) and ask the students to begin separating the pictures by their ending sounds. This can be built upon as the student gains knowledge of sounds by categorizing pictures into families of short medial vowel sounds (/ŏ/) and blends (/ch/). Teachers should give students at least 3 pictures in each column. Then, teacher should ask the student to name the picture aloud and have them repeat the sound being worked with (example: with blends, say /chain/, repeat /ch/). After students have created their sound sort, ask the student to read each word in each category and then explain their thinking about why these words are grouped together (Hayes and Flanigan, 2014).

Rhyming Work: Teachers can create rhyming games to promote phonological awareness. Follow up with rhyming games and activities after read aloud of rhyming stories, helps students to identify rhyming sounds when heard. Rhyming games should be repetitive and fun for

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students. One way to implement this strategy is through a game called “See You Later, Alligator!” (Hayes and Flanigan, 2014). This game requires that the teacher collect various words represented through pictures that rhyme (example: pictures of hat, cat, bat, mop). The teacher lays the pictures in line upon the table and asks the student to say aloud the name of each picture. The teacher is to encourage the student to think about the rhyming sounds they hear as they say the name of each picture. Then, the teacher encourages the student to remove the picture whose sound does not rhyme with the others. When the student identifies the outlier, he/she is to say “See you Later, Alligator!” and then explain their thinking process as to why this picture does not belong with the others (pp. 93-94).

Syllable Work: Another popular teaching strategy for word learning is syllable work. A fun way to teach emergent readers the concept of syllables in new words is to introduce the function of syllables by using student names. Cox (2018) introduces the idea of taking pictures of each student in the classroom and placing their pictures in a pocket chart. When emergent readers are first learning the concept of syllables, the student pictures should be separated by how many syllables are in each name. Then, the teacher points to a child’s picture and the class says the name. The teacher is to enunciate the syllables and teach the student to clap out each syllable heard. For example, when the teacher says the name “Pat-rick” the students would clap twice. By repeating this activity daily, the students begin to understand syllable division and then this knowledge can be applied to words met during read aloud, center work with words, and words introduced during instructional time (Cox, 2018).

Sentence Building: Providing sentence frames for emergent readers helps students to use new word knowledge while building their knowledge of how words structure sentences. With this activity, Silverman and Hartranft (2015), recommend providing students with sentence frames in which students can use their word knowledge to complete the sentence. For example, the student receives the sentence frame, “I have a pet ______________________.” The student can use their word knowledge of pet types to fill in the blank. To help with this, teachers can supply a small word bank containing words and pictures to guide students in the writing of the word. After the word is added, the teacher is to re-read the sentence aloud and then ask the student to repetitively read the sentence as well. By asking students to restate the sentence frame and use target words, this helps students learn the structure of sentences and word use (pp. 52-53).

Conclusion

Word knowledge is fundamental in teaching the emergent reader. The primary years of education are the time when children begin to acquire word knowledge through the fundamentals of listening to the language that surrounds them on a daily basis, both at home and in their school learning environment. As educators, we must promote rich literacy and language environments by not only encouraging beginning reading skills, but by also encouraging conversation among peers as well as engaging in conversations between teacher and student. Advocating for families to provide conversations and reading time for young children at home is also important. Introducing ideas of sharing reading and writing activities at home to parents will help the students become stronger in their word knowledge and language development. Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnston, (2008) explain, “Through listening to and talking about life experiences and stories, children develop a rich speaking vocabulary. As they have opportunities to talk about and to categorize their everyday life experiences, children begin to make sense of

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their world and to use language to negotiate and describe it” (p. 1). Teachers must continuously work with parents of the children they teach, and continually research in order to help these students build a strong foundational literacy background, especially in word awareness and word learning.

Jennifer Snell is an education instructor at East Central University and a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum. She may be reached at jenlsne@ecok.edu or jennifer.l.snell-1@ou.edu

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References

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