[Listen Again] Vocabulary Instruction with Sean Morrisey

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.

Resources

• Academic Word Finder Achieve the Core
• Which Words Do I Teach and How? Article by David Liben
• Lifelong Literacy, Lyn Stone
• Explicit Instruction, Anita Archer 
• Bringing Words to Life, book 
• The Writing Revolution, book
• Text Project Vocabulary Instruction
• Word Generation Serp Institute 
• Word Sift 
• Coxhead Academic Word List 
• Podsie 

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

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

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

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Have you ever taught word lists or had students
memorize definitions, only tofind they still struggle to use
new words in meaningful ways?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Do you want to be intentional about the words you
teach, but with so many tochoose from, you're not sure how
to decide which ones reallymatter Today you'll hear from
5th grade teacher Sean Morrissey, as he shares all the details
of his vocabulary instruction.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
We'll explore tier two and tier three words, how to
choose the right words to teachand simple, research-backed
ways to weave vocabulary intoeveryday learning.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome teacher friend.
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.
We are two literacy educatorsin Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
We want the best for all kids and we know you do too
Our district recently adopted anew literacy curriculum, which
meant a lot of change foreveryone, lori and I can't wait
to keep learning about literacywith you today.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi everyone.
Welcome to Melissa and LoriLove Literacy.
Today we are talking with ateacher about one of our most
requested topics of all timevocabulary instruction.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, so exciting.
And we're here to talk withSean Morrissey, who is a fifth
grade teacher from Western NewYork not New York City, just
make sure and he caught our eyeon Twitter with a lot of
suggestions he was giving forvocabulary, so we cannot wait to
talk to him today.
So welcome, Sean.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Thanks, thanks for having me Very excited to be
here.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah Well, we're glad you're here and I know today
we're going to talk a lot abouttier two words, also known as
academic vocabulary, and alittle bit about tier three
words, or content specific words.
But, sean, since you're theteacher expert here today, I
would love for you to start usoff by sharing a bit more about

(01:55):
generally like tier one, two andthree words.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
All right.
So I think we're kind of goingto bringing words to life.
So tier one words are justbasic words that, like are high
frequency Kids know a lot.
They're using a lot in languageball horse, you know, run shoe,
so words that are used often.
So kids pick up on those wordspretty, pretty quickly.

(02:20):
Tier three words are contentwords.
So we're talking about, likescience, social studies, content
words.
Words like isotope tundra, um,like I teach photosynthesis in
fifth grade um alveoli, wherealveoli it's very specific to,
uh, to you guys.

(02:40):
So respiratory system, uh, sowhen you teach the respiratory
system you have to teach thealveoli.
You know it's where gas isexchanged, you know with your
circulatory system.
So those are very content,specific words.
Tier two words are words thatare really, really important.

(03:01):
They you know, fall in science,social studies, literature.
They're used in multipledomains.
They have, like I would say,high utility to like words like
feature, function, abundant,contradict.
So words that kind of go inmany, many different areas my

(03:23):
favorite.
I've, actually I have afavorite vocabulary word it's,
it's contract or we could saycontract.
So like you know it's, you knowit's used in fifth grade, it's
used in many different areas.
So like like with with withwith contract.
It falls under when, when Iteach about the eyes, like your

(03:43):
pupils are contracting, it fallsunder muscles, where you know
your muscles are contracting oryou're contracting an illness.
And like you start teachingabout the Constitution, like you
know, some people will say it'sa social contract.
So like that's my favorite word.
It comes up.
Kids probably read that word atleast 100 or more times

(04:04):
throughout the year.
So it's a good word to teach.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So neat.
Before we move on from this, Ijust want to.
You mentioned bringing words tolife.
Do you want to talk a little?
Just in case people don't knowthat book oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh, he has it.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
So anybody watching on YouTube can can get that
cover in their mind for theirpurchase.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Um, honestly, like for the people I mean a lot of
your listeners um, you know, thewriting revolution was like
like the book that came out forwriting that or the.
So you know that kind ofchanged people's practice like
bringing words to life.
I think the first edition cameout in 2002.
So, um, you know that kind ofchanged people's practice like
Bringing Words to Life.
I think the first edition cameout in 2002.

(04:50):
So you know Beck McCowanMargaret's great, I think she's
retired now.
She does a lot of podcasts nowthey are just, I think, more the
experts on how to teachvocabulary in the classroom.
So it's a book that I've read,reread.
It's actually when I, when Ichanged from being I was
formerly a school psychologistand I changed to the classroom,
I did I do an observation and Idid an observation using one of

(05:15):
their lesson plans.
So it got me the job.
So, yes, it's a good sign.
First grade, a pocket, pocketfor corduroy.
So I still remember the wordsDrowsy, reluctant those are the
words I taught for the lesson.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
All right.
So now we know the differenttypes of words that exist in the
world.
As a teacher, I think one ofthe biggest questions is okay, I
have a text in front of me, howdo 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, ifyou're okay with it, if you're
ready for it we asked if youmight be able to walk through an

(05:51):
example, even.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Sure, if you don't have that, that's okay.
No, no, I got, I have an.
I have an example for you.
So I think when you think aboutlike, what words to teach, like
it's hard, you're talking aboutlike if people are new to this,
new teachers and that, like youknow.
When you're like, oh, function,that's a tier two word.
I go back to some of themainstays out there.
So the academic word list isgreat.

(06:14):
So it was formalized like 20years ago.
It's called Coxseed's academicword list and these are like
over 500 words that come up alot in different domains of
science and social studies.
So I've actually, like yearsand years ago, I kind of studied
that list a little bit so Ikind of had those, those words
ingrained.

(06:35):
So that's, that's one of theone of the like lists that kind
of helped me.
They also have like a generalservice list which is like the
most frequent words that happenin the English language.
So one summer I went throughlike the top 3,000 most frequent
words and I'm like oh, whichone of these words would fifth
graders may not know?
So I kind of just I typed themup in a spreadsheet and there's

(06:58):
like 400, that more of thosewords came up.
You know, there's other websitesthat are great, where, like
they kind of structure, likewhat words are important Text
projects?
Great, I'm Alfredo Heibert'swork, so word generation through
the SERP Institute is also anamazing website.
So those are like the fourthings that kind of structured,

(07:23):
structured, you know, and kindof gave me like, oh, these are,
these are a lot, a lot of wordsto focus on.
So that's kind of where Istarted, like my journey, for
sure yeah, can I throw one morein, just because I like it?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
there's um on achieve the core or student achievement
partners.
On their website there's anacademic word finder and you can
take, like if you can cut andpaste the text which I and you
can take, like if you can cutand paste the text which I know
you can't always, but you cancut and paste the text, put it
right in there and it will justtell you which words are
academic words, for which grade.
Or you can put in a grade leveland it will tell you which ones
match for that grade level andlike one above and one below.

(07:58):
And it's a really nice startingpoint, not the end.
All be all you know.
You obviously you're theteacher, you can decide whether
those are the right words orthere are other words, but it's
a really nice starting point ifyou're kind of stuck for where
to go.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, there's.
There's one more Word.
Sift is another one.
So if you, you do the samething you can on a PDF you can
cut and paste the text and youcan click a button where it
tells you which words fall underthe academic word list.
So I've used that before aswell.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we'll link all these right Lori in our show
notes.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yes, I was thinking as the person who is doing the
linking.
Wow, you're making my jobreally difficult, and I'm glad
you're making it difficultbecause now we're sharing all of
these resources with ourfabulous teacher listener.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Every teacher is like what was that website?
I need, I want it.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
All in our show notes .
And the show notes will alsoblast on social, as we always do
for really cool tools.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I'm a rookie.
This is my first podcast.
I always wanted to say it'sgoing to be in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
So you want to say it Go ahead, sean.
It's going to be in the shownotes.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, thanks for sharing All right, sean, do you
want to walk us through anexample now?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Sure.
So I have a text from one ofthe curriculums I use, one of
the novel studies, so theReading Reconsidered curriculum,
where so the main novel isNumber of the Stars.
So this is just a shortnonfiction passage to accompany
Number of the Stars.
So it's called DanishResistance to Nazi Germany.
All right, you ready.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Ready, ready.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
All right.
So at the beginning of WorldWar II, the Scandinavian
countries of Denmark, sweden andNorway declared their
neutrality.
That means they would not takesides in the conflict.
With memories of the damage ofWorld War I still fresh in the
memories of many Danes, thegovernment thought that by
staying out of the war, theircitizens would be safe.

(09:52):
This, however, was not to bethe case.
The morning of April 9, 1940,german forces crossed the border
into Denmark.
German soldiers began goingashore at the docks of
Copenhagen.
Because of the speed of theGerman invasion, the Danish
government did not have enoughtime to officially declare war
on Germany.
After two hours, the Danishgovernment surrendered,

(10:14):
believing that fighting wasuseless and hoping to work out
an agreement with Germany.
Last little paragraph Duringthe occupation, however, many
Danish citizens attempted toresist German occupation,
typically in secret.
During the occupation, however,many Danish citizens attempted
to resist German occupation,typically in secret.
For the first years of theoccupation, active resistance
activities were few andconsisted mostly of the

(10:35):
production of undergroundnewspapers meant to spread news
the Germans would not havewanted 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 setfire to a stock of German

(10:56):
listening devices.
Others attacked factories thatmade German goods for the German
military or blew up railroads.
The the Germans needed to movetroops and supplies.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Thanks, were you writing words down, laurie, I
was.
I have a whole list.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Now I feel like I need to sift through and think
Are you going to quiz us, sean,about which words?

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, what words did you write down?
We'll see how we how we bothfare here.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
You want to start, you want me to start.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, well, I'm just trying to think about what.
Are we choosing?
A number, are we going tochoose a couple or just less?
Like I have a ton.
I also think there's so muchknowledge that we need, and also
I'm going to name that.
It's paired with a text, solike I was thinking on its own,
yeah.
Do you want to talk about theknowledge first and then we can
go into the vocabulary, becauseI think so many times these like

(11:50):
seep over into each other andit's really hard to parse out.
Is that OK?

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, for sure.
So I think, like with with thisnovel unit, everything's, just
everything slowly builds.
So this is not just a randompassage like picked out.
So like the kids, before evenreading this passage there they
already have a bunch ofbackground.
So you know they do a very nicejob with their curriculum
development where they slowlybuild things up.

(12:16):
So it's not just like I meanall, like just the content and
the knowledge for fifth grade.
That's pretty hard.
So if you kind of see it morein the big picture when you're
actually teaching it it, there'sa lot of scaffolds in place for
the kids for sure.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Okay, yeah, and we know that number the stars.
Do you want to just give aquick little snapshot for those
listening who maybe areunfamiliar with number the stars
?

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, so number the stars is just one of those texts
.
It was written many, many yearsago.
It's kind of an iconic textwhere it takes place during
World War II and the Nazis, theGermans, they occupied Denmark
and it was trying to lead, youknow, jewish people out of
Denmark.
So there's, you know, probablyabout 8,000 Jews that were

(13:03):
safely fled Denmark due to thehelp of the Dan, due to the Dan,
due to the Danish people.
So it's a great fifth gradestory.
That kind of it's a nice likeintroductory topic to World War
Two and the Holocaust for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Thank you for that.
Yeah, so there's knowledge thatthey have.
This text is not like a coldtext, so that's kind of helpful,
at least for me, thinking aboutit.
As you know, teacher hat onLike they're not going into this
text cold.
I know some of the things, likesome of the geography terms you
were talking about.
I was like, okay, they need,they should be able to visualize

(13:39):
right what's happening there.
But I don't know that that'snecessarily vocabulary per se.
I'd put that more in thebackground knowledge category or
like the building knowledgecategory.
Okay, so I'll throw out acouple of words, melissa, you
want to like, agree or disagree?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Sure, since you're making me go first, all right,
here we go.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
All right, surrendered, I had it on my list
, but I didn't put it in my topfive.
Oh, my top four.
Sorry, I did.
Oh gosh, okay, I occupation.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I had that one, especially cause I was.
I think of that as kind of likeyour contract word and contract
Sean like they might know it,but in a different way.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Correct, that's why it made my list as well.
How about underground?
I did not have that.
I had that because they thoughtthey might not understand the
secrecy of it, yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Right, or like think it's like literally underground,
underground.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
You want to share a couple that you have now and
I'll, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Okay, res, resist and resistance.
I heard a few times and asimilar, like you know they
might know it in one way, butmaybe not how it's used in this
text and declare I heard acouple times too, so I had that
one and neutrality.
I thought that was an importantword.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh, I didn't have neutrality.
I must have missed that alongthe way, but I did have declare
You're probably writing anotherword now.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, I was frantic in my list.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
She was writing declare All right Sean.
How did, how do we do Pass Fail?
What happened?

Speaker 3 (15:15):
I would say you pass for sure.
Occupation's a great word thatfalls on the academic word list.
So um, but like yes, it's amulti, it's a you know multiple
meaning word.
Most kids know occupation maybefirst, as like it's kind of
your job.
So um for sure.
Resistance is, I think, animportant word, because in the

(15:36):
context of world war two thatword is going to come up a lot.
So like you know like knowledgeand vocabulary reciprocal in
many ways, like that's like areciprocal relationship.
Like you know, resistanceyou're going to, you're going to
hear that word a lot you knowdeclares a good word, like it's.
Like it's like you're usuallydeclaring it to a lot of people,

(16:06):
you're announcing it to a lotof people.
Like formally, yeah, I would.
I would say sabotage wouldprobably be the word.
That one.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, just just because I wrote that down last.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yes, in the context.
But, as you can see, like youknow there, like that is packed
with vocabulary.
Now, like you know teachers outthere where you know they're
going to say like, oh, that'sgoing to be like, that might be
too difficult.
You know, personally I think ifwe'd ever expose the kids to

(16:38):
something like this, they'renever going to like really
improve like their, their, theirability to read nonfiction,
that.
So, um, I I like pushing theenvelope there.
I think you know it's scaffoldthat they get a lot from before.
But like the kids readoccupation, I think it came up
three times.
Resistance came up numeroustimes as well.
So yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
So I'm like counting the number of words I wrote down
.
I ended up with a total of 12.
And I'm thinking about I Iactually recently read number of
the stars.
I have a fifth grader who just Iguess an ink going to into
sixth grade and so when she wasin fifth grade we read number of
the stars together and so justkind of that book is fresh in my

(17:21):
mind, is my point, and I'mthinking about some of these
words on this list, and if Ihave students who I know have
that knowledge and have alreadyencountered some of this
vocabulary, I would say it doestake about half of these words
off this list, which then cutsdown significantly the you know
the vocabulary that they need tounderstand for this particular

(17:42):
piece.
Also, they have this otherbuilt knowledge because they've
read this other book and theyhave an understanding of what's
happening and I think thatthat's just like you said, it's
very reciprocal, feeds off eachother.
So if I'm I love the idea ofchallenging students here,
because this is a place wherethey could be pushed and
challenged because they do havethe knowledge in order to step

(18:03):
into it.
Am I hearing that right, sean?

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, like, even like I was just thinking, some of
these words like occupation andresistance these are words that
have come up before this passagenumerous times.
So, like you know, so you'renot going to spend this is more
like they're there, it's morelike retrieval practice.
They're reading the words incontext.

(18:26):
It's just another, you knowanother exposure to the word.
You're like those two.
You probably like I'm notteaching those two words at this
point because we've alreadydiscussed those words.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, and I was thinking Sean's words like that
too.
Maybe even if they hadn't heardthe word before, they probably
get the idea of it from thatother book, right?
So even if they hadn't heardthat this is a resistance, right
, they might know what it kindof, what it means.
So it might be a really quicklike oh, you know what this is
from?
Number of the Stars.
I'm just putting a word to itnow that you already understand

(18:58):
the concept of which makes it alot easier for them.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yeah, you can't like, well, as we talk, you can't
teach every word out there.
So there's like you're going toteach some words more in depth,
you're going to teach morewords just like as they sort of
come up quickly, because there'sjust, there's just we'll talk
about that, there's just notenough time.
That's the hardest part ofbeing a teacher.
You know, we there's time timelimits.
All the research will tell uswell, this works, but no one

(19:28):
talks about that Like there'stime restrictions.
So what's going to give us likeour best bets?
You know that are going to helpstudents.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
All right, so should we talk about that now?
So, like what, now that we knowthe words to teach, what are
research based methods forteaching these words?
And, sean, I think you namedsome great words that we pulled
out of this passage.
So if we were going to teachthese in our classroom, how
should we do it?
What are some efficient ways todo it?

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, so I think first I think we talked about
like explicit instruction first.
So words that you know I'mgoing to teach, you know kind of
introduce the words explicitly.
You know there are somedefinite best bets on when you
introduce words.
So like introducing the word,writing it down, saying the word
, so like, well, you can talkabout the word feature, so I'll

(20:19):
have feature on the whiteboard.
Okay, you know, this is theword that we're learning today,
it's feature.
What's the word class?
You know they would repeatfeature, just as like an
attention, kind of an AnitaArcher, explicit instruction,
that sort of of thing.
Um, you know.
So then they're thinking aboutfeature.
Then we like definitely puttingthe words in multiple contexts.

(20:40):
So like I'll give you anexample, I'll give you an
example, like with, with featurehere.
So explicit instruction here's.
Here's a first context.
Many animals, bird.
Many animals, birds and peopleare carnivorous, which means
they eat meat.
You might be surprised to learnthat some plants, like the
Venus flytrap and the pitcherplant, are also carnivorous.
These unusual plants havefascinating features to attract,

(21:02):
trap and kill their prey.
These features include specialleaves that snap shut when
trigger hairs are touched andsticky substances that trap
insects when they land on theplant's leaves.
So that actually comes fromMargaret McCowan's RAVE program.
You know to teach the wordfeature.
So that's their context.
So another thing is when youteach the context, it's just put

(21:28):
in a friendly definition.
So like Collins DictionaryOnline is a really good
dictionary Like I don't go toanything else I think that's the
best one out there it puts itin nice student friendly ways,
like features are interesting orimportant parts of something.
So you know giving it in context, explaining it in a friendly
definition, and you're kind ofmoving pretty quick, like this,

(21:50):
isn't?
You don't want to take, youknow, 30 minutes to teach one
word because you're kind ofmoving pretty quick, like this,
isn't?
You don't want to take you know30 minutes to to teach one word
because you're just not goingto 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'llhear throughout this we're in

(22:11):
Western New York, we're bigBills fans, and you'll hear
throughout this we're in WesternNew York, we're big Bills fans,
like we live in, like the Billsare like.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Is that why you delineated where you were from,
so that you could talk aboutthis right now?

Speaker 3 (22:26):
That is one reason.
Well, geography people like noteveryone knows like geographic.
You know geography super well,like it's a seven hour drive to
New York City, so we're prettyfar.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
I'm closer to New York City, I know me too yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
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 girlstoo.
But like I'll put a picture upon, like Josh Allen, because
he's our, he's our starquarterback, and like what are
the features that josh allen hasthat makes the bill successful?
And it's like something that'sa little different.

(23:02):
And then the kids on their miniwhite boards can, like you know
, write things down and we couldhave a really quick, like two
minute.
You know share about thefeatures of josh allen.
You know, because know shareabout the features of Josh Allen
.
You know, because we justtalked about the features of the
pitcher, you know, the pitcherplant, those are different, so
it's a different context.
Or you could tie like a video,like usually with that, with

(23:23):
with the Venus flytrap.
I'll put it like a littleYouTube video up for about two
minutes that kind of shows theVenus flytrap in action and the
kids while they're watching, Iwant them to write down what are
the different features so theycould actually see it.
So I think that's prettypowerful, you know.
I think then it gets into theirlong term memory a little bit
better.
Yeah, so those are like you knowto start.

(23:46):
You know like initialinstruction, those are some of
the main things.
You know student friendlydefinition in context, pictures,
even a short video if it'shandy.
You know like, I mean those,you know those work and it
carries over like when, when youtalk, like we do, geography of
the United States like featurescomes up a lot like oh, what are

(24:09):
the features of the midAtlantic region?
So it's a different contextthat the kids now it's like oh,
you are the features of themid-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 Lakesand that sort of thing.
So it just it's, you know itcomes all over the place there.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, can I also reinforce something?
We talked about this with NancyHennessy and when this podcast
comes out.
That podcast will not yet beout, but listeners, you can
listen for that coming soon.
Um, one thing that we talkedabout with Nancy is the idea of
teaching something all at onceversus teaching something over

(24:45):
time, and so I think this islike a really specific example
of that.
Like you're not teachingeverything that kids need to
know about this word featuresall at once, all at one time.
Like you're taking this, likeyou're not teaching everything
that kids need to know aboutthis word features all at once,
all at one time.
Like you're taking this wordand you're giving them what they
need to know in context or whatthey need to know for this text
, and then you might beexpanding it in a two minute
like really fun intro when theycome in in the morning, right,

(25:08):
like I'm picturing the JoshAllen thing, like a morning work
kind of thing.
Right, like that's like a superengaging, fun fifth grade way
to enter your your Friday aftera Thursday night football game
or something.
Um, and then you know, down theroad in social studies, you are
revisiting this word featuresagain in a different context and
kids are continually adding andlike Velcroing features,

(25:31):
features, features.
Oh, okay, now I have like abigger definition of it, and the
reason why I bring this up isbecause 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

(25:55):
whatever content, and then youteach everything at once, but
like it doesn't really give timeto digest and like, in fact,
what Nancy said is like that'skind of not how we learn right,
like when we think about how welearn in life.
So I'm wondering if, if eitherof you wanted to react to that
or or share your thoughts onthat.
It just is making me think like, oh gosh, like now this makes
me like rest assured that Idon't need to put everything in

(26:17):
line.
I can just teach as things comeup with some explicit
instruction and as they're incontext, and we're going to get
that knowledge, that Velcro forthose vocabulary and the
background knowledge that kidsneed over time.
So curious for you both toreact to that.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
So you want to go, I could go.
So I would say that has youmake a brilliant point.
Over the last I would sayprobably five, six years I've
changed dramatically where I'mspreading things out.
Just like you said, like Ithink if, with the word feature
here, I think about five, sixyears ago, I would have tried to

(26:55):
do like all these many thingsall at once and instead of
spreading it out over time, like, but then like the kids, you're
right, they digest it, Thenthey have to retrieve because

(27:17):
they might have forgot a littlebit.
You know forgetting isimportant, you know, in some
regards.
So I know we won't get into allthe science of learning things,
but, like you know, it's reallyimportant.
It's going to stick for thelong haul if you do break it up
over time.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, I was going to say it can almost feel
overwhelming.
I would imagine, as a studentwho's just learning a word I'm
going back to now to yourcontract and contract right Like
if you try and throw all thosedifferent ways to use that word
at me at one time, I could justimagine my brain being like I
can't take all that in.
But if you give me one at atime and I go okay, this makes
sense.

(27:52):
And then, like you know,however, long later you come up
and you're like actually, here'sanother way that that word can
be used, and you're like, oh, Ican add that to it, to the, you
know, like you said Laurie, tothe Velcro, right, like I can
add something to it, then itdoesn't feel as overwhelming for
me as a student.
You brought up Shantu the time,you know.
Then you're not spending 45minutes on one word in a class

(28:15):
either.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, because you just don't, you just don't have
the time to do that.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
I mean, it does feel messier.
I'll say that it feels messiernot to be like check.
We're done with function orwith feature, you know like, but
it's.
I think that that's justsomething that we have to deal
with as ELA teachers.
You know, it's messier, it'smessy.
Yeah, it's not like math.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
It's really hard, like you know.
It's hard, like when you're inthe trenches, like planning-wise
, like you know, to think aboutlike oh, I'm going to do this
the next day and to plan thatout.
That's definitely not easy andit takes time.
I'm going to do this the nextday and to plan that out.
That's not, that's definitelynot easy and it takes time.
You know, I'm not even close tobeing where I want with
vocabulary.
But you know, I would say overthe last five or six years,

(29:00):
every year I feel like I'mgetting slowly better at it and
things like that and the kidsare learning more.
But you know it's planning andit's time and how to, you know,
get people around the country onteams to kind of do that, work
together and that sort of thing.
Cause you know it's planning,planning's not easy.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Sean are there.
I know we kind of took a littleroundabout turn to go deeper
into one one thing that we'retalking about, but are there any
other research based methodsyou would like to share that
have been working for you?
I know in our pre-call youmentioned a couple of others and
we're happy to link those inour show notes too.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
I love using like continuums because there's, like
English language, there's justso many words, even compared to
other languages, like the amountof vocabulary that we have in
our language, you know, farexceeds many other languages,
and like the nuance between likewords that mean very similar
things, but there, but there's alittle bit of like slight

(29:55):
differences.
Like, um, this year was funny,like we, I, we talked about
smells this year and we wereteaching all at once.
We just kind of did a quicklesson on like things that don't
smell that great.
You know, we talked aboutunpleasant, offensive knock, you
know, noxious, putrid, pungent.
So in that lesson we kind ofdid that all together.
So it was more of not super indepth, but some of the kids

(30:21):
picked it up right away becauseafter we did that lesson, not
probably two hours later, one ofthe boys in the class farts.
Of course, fifth grade.
Of course I was going to sayfifth grade, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Fortunately I didn't have much of that this year, but
without like batting an eye, Iremember boys in the class,
farts of course, fifth course Iwas gonna say fifth grade go
ahead.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Unfortunately I didn't have much of that this
year, but without like battingan eye.
I remember one of the boyslooks behind and he goes well,
that's, that's right in betweenputrid and pungent.
So that's great, it's like allright.
He picked up on it.
One quick lesson lesson andhe's using it.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Someone got the Velcro.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Yeah, so you know.
So, like putting words oncontinuums, like you know with,
like you know, unpleasant, likeyou know that would be like at
one end where it smells slightlybad and putrid, like on the
other end.
So the kids can see, like onsort of like a, like a number
line.
The kids can see on a linewhere those words fall.

(31:16):
Um, you know some other thingslike notable, noteworthy,
momentous and remarkable, likehow to put those on a line as
well, and like going back sorry,I gotta go back to the buffalo
bills here.
So, so you know, if the BuffaloBills win the division, like you
know that's, you know notable,but you know if they win a

(31:39):
playoff game, well, that'snoteworthy, like, oh, you know,
you know, winning the AFCchampionship would be remarkable
.
And then, like you know,talking with kids, you know well
what would winning the SuperBowl feel like, and they'll be
like, oh, the kids would be like, oh, that would be momentous,
like everyone in our area wouldlike lose their minds.

(31:59):
So those little nuances I thinkare really, really helpful
because, you know, when you onlyhave so much time and you know
a lot of kids can pick up morethan just like, not just teach
notable, but they can pick upthose other words if you know
you're doing some of those atthe same time as well.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, so yeah, and I'll throw out Sean too.
I have a four, almost five yearold now, who we just?
We just did this last night,actually, with not anywhere near
what you're doing with fifthgraders.
But he heard the word terrified, and so we talked about how you
know if you're scared orterrified.
You know, like, why would yoube terrified over being scared?
What would make you more scaredthan just being scared?

(32:37):
So even with your, youryoungest students, you can.
You can do that kind ofcontinuum.
Oh, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I've seen teachers do this with um the paint, paint
swatches, like the uh colorswatches, where it's like, for
example, like you know,noteworthy might be a lighter
color, but like memorable orremarkable would be a darker
color, and you just kind of goup the continuum that way.
I always think that's cute.

(33:04):
If you're looking for a funidea, or I mean a line is also
fine, but the colors, I thinkare fine.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
I just saw a TikTok video where it was about an ELA
teacher who was walking into apaint chips to get paint chips
like that and it was like justtrying to pretend like I'm a
normal person getting paintsamples, taking 30 paint chips
from Home Depot.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
So, sean, anything else you want to add for
morphology or etymology oranything there, oh my God, I
guess?

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Oh sure, I mean let's .
Can I do one one thing beforewe go?

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Oh gosh, please, I'm sorry, I don't want to skip.
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Oh no, I like one of the things I like is I call it
odd one out where like so youwant kids to be thinking about
the words like, not just like adefinition or that, so I'm going
to get, get, like, I'll giveyou guys, we'll do a couple here
, if it's okay.
I'll give you guys four wordsand you tell me which one is
like the odd one out of thosefour.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Okay, okay all right, quiz time again all right um
glum blissful jubilant ecstatic.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
So that was glum blissful jubilant ecstatic, all
right, melissa, we're gonna sayit on three ready one, two,
three glum ah.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
So like you know I mean you you could do some of
these like I was a first gradeteacher before.
Like some of this you caneasily do in primary grades,
like if you, if you taught someof these, like I was a first
grade teacher before, like someof this you can easily do in
primary grades, like if youtaught some of those words.
So then the kids, like you, canask the, you know the students
like oh, like what is the over?
Like arching, like theme ormeaning here, and like that.
One's like happy or sad and thelum is like you're sad, I'll

(34:44):
give you one more.
I'll give you one more.
Disagree quarrel bicker concur.
Disagree quarrel bicker concur.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Any Concur.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Concur when you're talking about teaching words too
.
Every word does not.
You don't have to spend eveninitial instruction.
You don't have to spend 10minutes on every word.
The word concur.
I think my kids will know itwithout ever me teaching it,
because I just use it ineveryday language Instead of

(35:23):
just saying at the start do youagree with Joey, do you concur?
So trying to add in words toyour speech, I think, is really
really helpful because, like asteachers and I and my, my
vocabulary, my language is it'snot like I grew up with, like
this, very, very high language.
My language is probably averageat best, but I'm trying to do

(35:47):
that more in the classroom.
So the kids by the end of theyear they know concur because
I've used it as a scaffold, doyou agree?
Do you concur?
And I've never really spentmuch time teaching it.
But by the end of the year theyknow.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Concur means to agree with someone.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, and it's so powerful to do all of.
I know you're giving some.
You're actually doing a reallynice job, sean, I will say of
like giving examples that areconnected to text and then
giving examples that are likerelatable examples.
So I appreciate that and I justthink these are so like even
the ones you, you, you justlisted off right, the glum,
blissful, jubilant, ecstatic.

(36:24):
I'm thinking we could connectthose to text very easily, you
know, depending on the text andwhat's happening to text.
Very easily, you know,depending on the text and what's
happening.
So I also appreciate, like thefirst pass at being the real,
practical, day-to-day examples,so kids can like wrap their
heads around those and then, youknow, with that application to
text, especially for, like youhad said, the ones that are a

(36:46):
little bit more challenging,bringing those in that connected
space so that they can reallyunderstand and deeply understand
those words.
Like you know, I'm going backto number of the stars, or the
text that you gave, like youknow, is glum enough.
No, you know, I mean, how arewe then deepening that even more
so?
So I appreciate the examplesthat you're giving.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yeah, like the number of the stars.
Like a quick, another quickexample like the word procure
came up in one of the one of thearticles.
Like that's a hard word, butyou 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 wasused in like there was a scarce
there.
Some items were scarce, theywere hard to get in Denmark at

(37:33):
the time.
So like, but that word wasnever, it was never in my lesson
plan to teach.
Like at great length.
But you know, but the kids likethey love it.
Like one of the kids right awayis like that's a great word,
can we add it to our board?
And he's like I want my name onit.
So he has.
So that student Cam has hisname on the word procure forever

(37:56):
because he wanted that added tothe board.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
What board?
What do we have in ourclassroom here for a vocabulary
board?

Speaker 3 (38:04):
I do.
Well, this summer is going tobe a little work.
So the kids really like wordslike so I'm not a big, I'm a guy
elementary teacher.
I'm not big with putting thingsup.
Like I'm not.
I don't, like I don't, I don't.
I don't spend time puttingthings up, except I do like
putting vocabulary words up onmy one sidewall.
So, like a lot of the words Iknow that we're going to come up

(38:26):
, you know, this year, like thisyear, I'm going to put them up
all in alphabetical order.
At the start of the year thekids wanted to be in
alphabetical order.
It was helpful.
They said so I probably amgoing to have a little over a
thousand words up on thesidewall and you can't laminate
the words, so don't laminate, donot laminate them because the

(38:48):
sun reflects words, so don'tlaminate, do not laminate them
because the sun reflects.
Yeah, so then the kids can thekids have have, you know, they,
they can look the kids, the kids.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's helpful with that, yeah, for sure yeah, yeah,
I bet that's helpful too withlike digging into like the
morphology and etymology,because you can visually see
like the words that have similarparts ah geez, we haven't even.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
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 theindex card, I'll underline track
and small, right under it I'llwrite drag or pull.
So you know.
So, a lot of those words thathave like roots, prefixes or

(39:29):
suffixes, that like make sense,that aren't too abstract, I'll
write it on the cards as well.
So, like, getting back to theword, like contract, if you want
to move on to morphology, we'lltalk about the root tract and I
actually like to do it.
It's called morphology, it'smorphological matrices.

(39:49):
There's online, I think it'scalled morphology mate, it's a
more, it's morphologicalmatrices.
There's, there's online, Ithink it's neil ramsden, he has
a.
There's a link where you canmake them yourself.
So, um, and it takes about 20to 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.

(40:12):
So we have contract, butextract, oh, you know you're
pulling, you know you extract atooth, you're pulling a tooth
out or retract, you're pullingsomething back, even the word
subtract, well, you're pullingsomething down.
So those are like then we'lltake time, I'll definitely take
probably five, ten minutes, youknow, on that route, and like

(40:36):
showing, like the matrix, soI'll for like I can actually
show for this, like I have thisright here, so, and you know,
then the kids can like look andthey can build words themselves
before you talk about it.
So then the kids can like lookand they can build words
themselves before you talk aboutit.
So then the kids are likemotivated, oh, you know.
Like, oh, oh, I know that word.
Like you know you know.

(40:56):
Distract, you know like, oh,your attention is getting pulled
away.
So then the kids will make thewords and then you know, I'll
give them like two minutes, makeas many words as you can think
and let's talk about it.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, do you ever have them work together or or
just independently, or I'm sureyou mix it up.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Maybe I don't know, yeah, so like I'm not, like I
have to be honest, I'm not a biglike group group teacher where
you know kids are working infour to five groups.
I love partnerships, so I haveone for you where you know
everyone does think, pair, share.
I like this one where it's it'sit's think, write, pair,
rewrite, share.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Not as catchy.
But go ahead, Explain why it'snot catchy.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
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 kidsokay, think for for you know 30
seconds, then write, then pairdiscuss what you both wrote
about.
Then the kids have theopportunity to rewrite.

(42:04):
Because you know sometimes inthe pair, like one kid does all
the work and another studentmaybe doesn't know that, like
didn't know that much about thattopic or what, but that student
then has a chance to rewriteand then we can share.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
So I like that.
I like that.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yeah, mini whiteboards.
I'm a big mini whiteboard guy.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
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 (42:33):
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, likeyou 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 ofopportunities and the quiet kids
sort of didn't.
And with many whiteboards theratio is it's 100% participation

(42:57):
.
So I just I find that it justworks a lot In vocabulary.
It works great for sure.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, and that's nice too, because they can.
You know their answer doesn'thave to be final.
You know, when you, when kidswrite things on a paper, it
feels final to them, but youknow this gives them up to like
just replaying a little.
You know, like what do youthink this means?
And chat about it, change it.
You know it's it's.
It makes it a little more likecuriosity driven versus like you

(43:26):
have to get the right answerand write it, right or wrong?

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah.
Yeah that's a good point,Melissa.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, many whiteboards are great, just
like, even like we talked aboutlike little things to do, like,
say, you know your lesson ended, you have five minutes and
instead of, like you know, sortof wasting that time, I'll just
have the kids take out manywhiteboards.
Okay, like I did this, like Idid this probably about 30 to 40
times this year where, ok,someone pick a topic, it's

(43:52):
really quick and someone willsay, like plant, so it's a topic
that a lot of times we've beenworking on.
And, ok, write sentences asmany as you can in your wipe off
board like complex sentencesthat are using the vocabulary
words that we've learned so farthis year, that are using the
vocabulary words that we've likelearned so far this year.

(44:13):
So they're working on academicvocabulary, working on tier two
words within the context of likea you know a content area that
we were learning right now orwe've learned like maybe last
month.
So, like one day I actually hadthe kids that I typed some of
their answers down.
It was great.
Like we, we talk about plantsand you know one person wrote

(44:34):
well, plants not only arecrucial, vital, essential and
integral to life, they alsomanifest glucose for everything
on Earth to consume, like, stopit.
It's very cute, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
So we do like glucose .
Can we just pause right there?

Speaker 3 (44:49):
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 flytrap devoured or consume the
naive fly, that's, that's reallycool.
Like using the word naive inthere within science.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
So I was gonna say you probably didn't teach them
naive within the science.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
No, naive was within our literature units.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
That's a nice crossover.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
So it's just something that, like you know
it's five minutes, it's aretrieval activity, so it's
another opportunity for kids topractice 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 likethat because they try to beat
their score, like how many wordscan we get?
So then they try to like youknow, they try to like that's

(45:42):
doing it got crucial, vital,essential in one sense, because
like, oh, I can get more pointsfor that.
You, you know, like it's cute.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
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, butthere's like a certain number
of words that kids are supposedto learn every year which is
like beyond what any teachercould ever actually teach
explicitly.
If you know them, feel free toshare how many teach explicitly.

(46:09):
If you know them, feel free toshare how many.
If you don't know, that's okay.
But we're curious how do you goabout you know teaching, or not
even teaching, but getting kidsto learn these other words that
are beyond the ones that you'reteaching explicitly?

Speaker 3 (46:27):
I think this is hard, like as a classroom teacher,
this is how it's trying to embedas 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

(46:50):
could not teach the morphologylike I do now because I just
didn't know all the roots that Ishould have.
Like that as a teacher in fifthgrade I should know.
So at one point I had topractice like I practiced and I
just learned and I picked it up.
Now, when things come up, Ican't like it's a lot easier for
me to do a minute like oh, youknow this route, or that um

(47:15):
where it might not be right inthe lesson plan, um, it's and it
it's.
Just it's a lot of, it's a lotof talk throughout the day.
Like you know, using couldconcur for agree in those
instances.
Or um, like even when kids,like when kids you want kids to
do better, like, say, forwriting, like kids aren't

(47:36):
writing.
As sophisticated sentences youwant Like I remember joking
around with one student.
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 concisesentences, I want them to be
more sophisticated.
You know they're short, youknow they make sense, but I
don't want concise sentences, Iwant them to be more

(48:01):
sophisticated.
You know, I want you to expandon these, elaborate more.
Just joking around withvocabulary, it kind of changed
the tune and like later that dayand 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,

(48:24):
we don't want concise sentences,you know, with the whole class,
so that sort of thing.
But you have to like, look atwords at the start of the day
and I think it's like baby stepsOnce you start doing better, it
kind of snowballs and you getbetter at it and then a snowball
.
So you know it takes time.
Yeah for sure.
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
I'm wondering about the you mentioned.
Like the one student who pickedout a word and wanted his name
on it, do you have kids to kindof like look out for new words
as they're reading, or?

Speaker 3 (48:51):
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 homeand, you know, find the words
that they've like they've justlearned and they get points for
like bringing those words andI've never like done that
formally.
But what I like to do is so Ihave a like an improvers board

(49:16):
where they they move up levelsthroughout the year, throughout
like the year, and a fewstudents every year will get to
the highest level called livinglegend, and they get their
picture taken and their picturestays in the classroom until I
retire.
So there are some students whowork just really hard because,
like I want my picture on theboard and it's all based on

(49:38):
improvement and kind of effort.
So it's not that you knowyou're, you know the student
that does the best or you knowyou get the highest grades and
that sort of thing.
But like kids will pushthemselves like amongst each
other, to like use more words,especially in writing.
I push the writing, no matterwhat we're writing about.

(49:59):
There's always a reminder aboutvocabulary and I like to show
in a document reader, like youknow, really like good sentences
or good thoughts, but also whenkids use you know sophisticated
words in their writing on thedocument camera.
So it's kind of like showinggood models and kids really love
that.
Like the document reader isjust it's amazing to do kind of

(50:24):
show call with that.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Sean, I feel like we're all going to come to your
TED talk.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
I want to know more about this effort thing, but I
really I would love to likerecord a separate podcast about
that as a bonus at some point.
That's neat.
I like that.
I know vocabulary can be toughwhen you're talking about data.

(50:48):
You know it's not.
It's not easy to put a numberon someone's vocabulary.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
So curious how you go about using data and seeing
improvement for students.
So data wise, like likevocabulary, is hard because,
like you know, you have oralreading fluency.
That's easy to measure.
You could do that three times ayear.
You can see the progress forreading fluency.
That's easy to measure.
You could do that three times ayear.
You can see the progress forreading fluency.
For vocabulary it's a littletougher Now.

(51:24):
I've been using some academiclike multiple choice, just tests
that I found online.
So I kind of use it as apre-post-test measure.
Also, our district we useiReady and iReady has, I mean,
it's widely used.
It's basically test justgeneral reading skill but it has
a vocabulary subtest.
In the research it's usuallyreally hard on a test like that
to see huge improvements invocabulary because you know it

(51:47):
could be totally different wordsthat are tested than words that
you've taught.
But the data has shown, likethis year I think as a class
we've made about 250% growth invocabulary, which is 100% as
average.
So it's showing on standardizedtests, which I'm really, really
excited about and like even onstate tests.

(52:09):
I'm waiting for those scores tocome in.
I have, I have, a good hunchthat, especially this year, that
those scores compared to howthey did last year, the same
students are going to risedramatically.
So like I'm just I'm excitedabout the data, just to see,
like it is it seems to be.
it seems to be working, Just tosee like it seems to be working.

(52:30):
Yeah, we didn't talk about onething, about fluency, and I'm
trying to do.
We have a minute to do,absolutely.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Okay.
So because teachers, weEspecially if it's about fluency
Okay.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
So when I teach, when I think about teaching
opportunity costs, like you onlyhave so much time, so you,
every decision that you make,you're actively making a
decision what not to teach aswell.
So with with vocabulary, Ithink it's really good to embed
vocabulary into fluency so likeI'll use like passages from the

(53:06):
reading reconsidered or othercurriculums that we use in our
district.
Or what I did this year is Idid a lot of chat, gpt, where I
created my own fluency passagesbased on a topic that we were
learning and with that you canembed whatever vocabulary words
you want.
So then you're not waiting forlike the word concur to come up,

(53:30):
like when you don't know whenit's going to come up, you can
say, ooh, add concur to thispassage, so they have more.
So, yeah, so like fluency.
This year I, probably in fifthgrade, like at least every other
day, we've read fluencypassages as part.
I just do it simple as partner,as partnerships, rereading, but

(53:50):
next year it's definitely goingto be daily for sure, because I
saw huge fluency gains, almosttwo years of growth in one year
this year in fifth grade.
So embedding those vocabularywithin fluency passages, you
might as well do that.
You just save so much time.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
It's a twofer right.
Two for one.
Yeah Well, it's almost a three,Three for one.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
Almost three, because it could be in the science or
social content.
So in the science and socialcontent, embedding vocabulary
words and having the kids rereadthose passages, I think it's
very, very powerful.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
That's amazing and that's such an easy thing like
less than five minutes right Forclassroom time.
Per se, the fluency.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
Yeah.
So like I mean, even even likeplanning time's hard.
But like you know, I know chatGP kind of blew up a little bit
like there's a lot of like.
The one thing I found it reallyeasy to do is just really
quickly do that.
So I mean it took like planningtime was like three or four
minutes.
Fluency with the kids aretalking, you know five, six

(54:57):
minutes to reread a passagethree times, discuss, you know
vocab words and that sort ofthing.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Sean, do you want to close us out here by sharing
that correlational data in termsof academic vocabulary and
state assessment results?

Speaker 3 (55:12):
Yeah.
So it's kind of crazy where thevocabulary data, that on the
tests that that are just likemultiple choice, that are
testing academic vocabularywords, with state test data, the
correlation was like 0.84.
And once one so from last yearone student scores kind of

(55:37):
skewed a little bit.
If I took that student out itwould have been 0.91.
So like it's crazy, likeacademic vocabulary, like a
hundred question multiple choicetest, correlated basically
perfectly with the state test.
So I mean when they kind ofmoving away from like in some

(55:59):
balanced literacy things like ingrades three through five
there's tons of, like you know,talking about find the main idea
and that sort of thing liketalking about find the main idea
and that sort of thing.
Well, maybe instead of doingthat at great length we should
teach words at much more, and sofar I spent more time probably

(56:21):
than the average teacher withvocabulary.
But the results are sort ofbacking that up.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
So as my personal results yeah, like I just think
it seeps over into each other.
I mean, you're playing withwords, you're building knowledge
.
You were filling in huge gaps.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
You're doing it in the context of ELA social
studies science, like so manythings that you know we talked
about all the time on thispodcast.
Yeah, and you can, at the thestart of the year, within like
the second week of school, youdo an oral reading, fluency,
like I use a cadence and youknow you do some pre-test for

(56:58):
academic vocabulary.
You, I have, with quick testing, a pretty good snapshot of the
kids who are going to need extrainterventions and the kids who
are going to probably need morerepetitions to vocabulary words.
For sure, you know, you know so, and the kids who are are there
.
Their depth and breadth is isis not as much.
So I know right away.

(57:19):
You know which those, whichkids.
Those are right at the start ofthe year, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Well, Sean, we cannot thank you enough for sharing
all of these great tips with us.
Um, I know we saw thank youenough for sharing all these
great tips with us.
I know we saw you on Twittersharing a lot of tips.
Do you want to share yourTwitter handle so other people
can?

Speaker 3 (57:36):
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 onTwitter Sean Morrissey.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
So double check it.
Wait, Sean, where.
Where are we going to link it?
Oh, on the show notes.
There we go, sean Twitter inthe show notes there we go yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Follow him if you want more.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
Yeah, I think I'm trying to get it Like I don't
think I did it that much becauseI'm not, I don't, I don't, I'm
not sure, I'm not big ontweeting and that, but like
moving away from sort of the youknow arguments and that,
because I think we're kind ofpast that, like, people aren't
like if certain people they'renot going to like.
You know, when I startedposting some vocabulary things
just online and I don't have abig following, but like, oh, a

(58:22):
lot of people like started tofollow that and I see, oh, this
is what teachers want.
They want to know, like, how toapply in the classroom, like
they've, they've heard they like, they, they, they, they kind of
know the pedagogy now, like nowhow to get to the other part,
which is it's not easy?
It's definitely not easy.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
And that's what I.
I mean, that's what caught myeye with yours.
It was like you're, like, I didthis today.
I tried this with my classtoday.
It's just so nice to hear thatthis is what I did in my
classroom.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, you're putting yourself out there, so people
have been nice when you putyourself out there sometimes,
but people have been great aboutit.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
We love hearing it and we love thank you for
sharing with our audience aswell.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Thank you Pleasure to be here.
I had so much fun.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
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Speaker 2 (59:22):
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Speaker 1 (59:32):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or its employees, we appreciate you so much and
we're so glad you're here tolearn with us.