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January 3, 2024 40 mins

As a writer of several books for teachers and parents, former kindergarten teacher, and current associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, Tanya S. Wright, Ph.D., has maintained focus on a singular question: How can we most effectively work with students in the early education setting? In answering that question, Wright has researched and written on two interesting areas: vocabulary development, and best practices for literacy development in young children. Listeners will come away from this conversation with some great tips and strategies for developing vocabulary, working effectively with younger students, and integrating writing and vocabulary.

Show notes:

Quotes:

"We need kids to be able to sound out the words, but we also need them to know what they mean. Otherwise, the text won't make sense. So we really need to be working on both of these at the same time." —Tanya S. Wright

"Really value what kids bring to the classroom, even if it's not perfect yet, or if it's not exactly what adults would say." —Tanya S. Wright

"It's really important that we're thinking about purposeful, planned, and intentional vocabulary supports to make sure that everybody is included in the learning and can participate in the classroom." —Tanya S. Wright

"Realistically, kids love to learn big words. They make use of them. They don't really differentiate it. So that's an adult imposition, right? Which ones are the big ones or which ones are the hard ones? If we use them with kids, they will use them too. And enjoy it." —Tanya S. Wright

Episode content timestamps*:
2:00:
Introduction: Who is Tanya Wright?
4:00: Journey to studying vocabulary: What is the importance?
6:00: What does it mean to know a word?
11:00: How do knowledge and vocabulary connect and why can't they be divorced?
17:00: Tips for being planned and purposeful with vocabulary instruction
22:00: Integrating vocabulary across content areas
27:00: What would you say to someone who says a word is "too hard" for a kid?
33:00: How has your thinking changed about the approach to vocabulary from when you started your research?
37:00: Final advice for educators

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to the nearest minute. 


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tanya S. Wright (00:00):
I think I used to really think a lot about
kids learning individual wordsand which are the right words.
And now I think much more aboutkids learning.

Susan Lambert (00:16):
This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science

of Reading (00:19):
The Podcast from Amplify, where the Science of
Reading lives. It's now 2024and we're kicking off the new
year by continuing ourseason-long exploration of the
critical role of knowledge andknowledge building. And on this
episode, we'll delve deeperinto vocabulary, including how
it can be developedpurposefully, how to build

(00:41):
vocabulary alongside decodingskills, and integrating writing
and vocabulary. We'll also bespending some time on working
effectively with youngerstudents. Our guest is Dr.
Tanya S. Wright, associateprofessor of language and
literacy in the Department ofTeacher Education at Michigan
State University. Go Green!Wright is a former kindergarten

(01:06):
teacher and the author ofseveral books, including "A
Teacher's Guide to VocabularyDevelopment across the Day,"
and "Literacy Learning forInfants, Toddlers, and
Preschoolers." Please enjoy ourfirst episode of 2024 with Dr.
Tanya Wright. Dr. Tanya Wright,thank you so much for joining

(01:27):
us on today's episode.

Tanya S. Wright (01:28):
Thanks for having me.

Susan Lambert (01:30):
I would love it, before we get into the meat of
what we're going to talk about,if you could introduce yourself
to our listeners and just tellus a little bit about who you
are.

Tanya S. Wright (01:39):
So I am an associate professor of literacy
at Michigan State and I've beenat Michigan State for about 14
years now.

Susan Lambert (01:48):
Wow.

Tanya S. Wright (01:49):
I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my lovely
husband, who is an elementaryschool principal, and my two
teenage daughters.

Susan Lambert (01:57):
Wow, so you sort of have education in your
household there with anelementary school principal and
you.

Tanya S. Wright (02:03):
Definitely, keeps me grounded, have someone
to tell me if my ideas are toopie-in-the-sky and not gonna
work in the real life of school. So that's always very
helpful.

Susan Lambert (02:14):
That's awesome.
Well, I do have to ask, becauseI am a Michigan State Sparty
fan. Are you Michigan StateSparty fans or are you
University of Michigan fans?

Tanya S. Wright (02:24):
Okay, well this is, this is very confusing
because I went to U of M forgrad school and then got the
job at Michigan State. So thestudents at Michigan State say
maize and blue makes green, butI do live in Ann Arbor, so on a
Saturday what's going on aroundme is a whole bunch of U of M
fun. So it's a little bitdifficult. I like to root for

(02:46):
both.

Susan Lambert (02:46):
There you go.

Tanya S. Wright (02:47):
If that's at all possible!

(02:50):
It gives me visions of those t-shirts and sweatshirts that
are half and half, thehouse-divided ones.

Tanya S. Wright (02:55):
And every time they play each other I just
say, well, we are playing useither way, we or us are gonna
win. So it's okay.

Susan Lambert (03:03):
It's a win-win.
Oh, that's great. Um, were youa former teacher yourself or
did I get that wrong?

Tanya S. Wright (03:09):
Yes, I taught kindergarten before I went back
to get my Ph.D.

Susan Lambert (03:13):
That makes a lot of sense. So we're gonna be
talking about a lot of thatearly literacy world. And so
our topic really is aboutvocabulary and we'll talk a
little bit more about otherthings too. But how is it that
vocabulary became sointeresting to you?

Tanya S. Wright (03:28):
You know, the more I learned about literacy
development, the more I came tounderstand how important word
meanings are for reading,writing, speaking, listening,
and learning. Really there's noplace or no discipline where
vocabulary, and I mean knowingthe meanings of words, isn't

(03:49):
really important for kidslearning. And so the more I
learn , the more I realize thisis an area that is so
important. But also some of myearly studies showed that it's
really not often addressed wellin the early years of
schooling. Sometimes folksthink our first job is to teach
kids to decode words and thenwe'll teach them the meaning of

(04:11):
words later. And it turns outthat that's not ideal, right?
Because we need kids to be ableto sound out the words, but we
also need them to know whatthey mean, otherwise the text
won't make sense. So we reallyneed to be working on both of
these at the same time.

Susan Lambert (04:26):
Hmm , that's interesting. 'Cause when we
think about the world of earlyliteracy too, kids come with
vocabulary, some vocabularyalready intact in terms of
their oral language. So thatmust have an impact too, right?

Tanya S. Wright (04:40):
Of course, right? All children come with
wonderful oral language and andlots of words to school. But
then as we learn school things,right, new ideas maybe in
science and social studies andmathematics or as we read
texts, those all havespecialized vocabulary that we
need kids to learn to help tocomprehend in those sort of

(05:03):
school-based domains.

Susan Lambert (05:06):
Hmm . We are gonna get a little bit to some
vocabulary instruction in a fewminutes, but you talked about
vocabulary being , um, knowingthe meanings of words. So if I
was gonna ask you what does itreally mean to know a word,
what would you say?

Tanya S. Wright (05:22):
I would say that we need a lot of
information about that word andthat a dictionary definition is
really not enough, especiallyfor little children where a
dictionary definition is justgonna have a lot of other words
that they don't know what itmeans in it. But often we think
about an informal meaning ofthe word. If I ask you what a
word means, you probablywouldn't give me the dictionary

(05:44):
definition. We think aboutknowing synonyms or antonyms
for a word. So, sleepy,fatigued, weary, they all mean
tired, right? We think aboutcategorical information,
peaches and apples andstrawberries are all fruit. We
think about multiple meaningsof a word. And especially
multiple meanings in differentcontexts and different

(06:06):
disciplines. So if I know whatan egg is in my refrigerator,
that doesn't mean that Iunderstand the role of an egg
in reproduction. And it doesn'tmean that I know what it means
when someone says, "I'm gonnaegg you on." Right? So we also
need to know how it's spelled,how it's pronounced. Maybe word
parts might help us, right? Sothere's just so much

(06:27):
information to learn about aword meaning, and we tend to
learn that over time through arange of different information
sources.

Susan Lambert (06:37):
And you don't just know a word and not know a
word, right? So you learn wordsdeeper and in more context and
over time. Can you talk alittle bit about that?

Tanya S. Wright (06:48):
Yeah, absolutely. So typically we
think about needing lots ofexposures to meaningful
information about a word. Sojust like anything else, right?
We learn it bit by bit overtime. So there's no expectation
that the first time we explaina word to a child or we point
to something and say that word,that they're going to just know

(07:11):
it forever and know itperfectly, right? They're gonna
build information over time.
And that's really importantbecause the more information we
have about a word, the betterwe're gonna be when we
encounter that word, forexample, in a text or in a
situation where we're doingsome learning in one of the
subject areas in school.

Susan Lambert (07:31):
I often think about words that, I think
everybody has an example of aword that you really wanna try
it out and you think you knowwhat it means and you use it
and it ends up you don't knowwhat it means. And my example
is salient. I was convinced Iknew what that meant. And so I
tried to use it and it wascompletely wrong.

Tanya S. Wright (07:53):
So, you know, how wonderful that you tried to
use it. And I think inclassroom spaces, we want to
create opportunities for kidsto try out new words, new
things, even if they're notperfect the first time, we
really wanna encourage it. Somaybe you don't use it, you
know, as the correct part ofspeech, or maybe you have a
slightly different meaning inyour head. But that's a

(08:17):
wonderful opportunity tocalibrate, you know, in a
welcoming learning environment.
Particularly with kids writing,this shows up, right? Where
they only want to write wordsthat they're sure, sure, sure
they know what they mean, buthow wonderful to say "Let's try
some of those new vocabularywords that we've been
learning!" You know, writethose big words and if it's not

(08:38):
perfect, we'll work on ittogether. And that's okay.

Susan Lambert (08:41):
I love that you mentioned writing, because
typically when we talk aboutvocabulary, you know, we're,
we're always talking aboutreading vocabulary or
vocabulary related to readingcomprehension, but how
important is it to what youjust said, help kids understand
how to try to use those inwriting? And I'm gonna make a
guess here that we knowreceptive language always comes

(09:02):
before expressive language. Soif, if a child can use that
vocabulary word in writing, dowe have a pretty good sense
that they have a solid andsecure understanding of that
word?

Tanya S. Wright (09:14):
So yes, right?
We're typically able to knowmore about a word as a listener
or as a reader than use it as awriter or a speaker. So we are
super excited when kids use newwords as writers and speakers
and we want to encourage themto do that, even if they don't
know it perfectly yet, becausethat means they really know it
and they really hold it andthey're ready to try to use it.

(09:36):
So that's a really wonderfulthing.

Susan Lambert (09:38):
How about any tips you have for sort of
helping create this, thisatmosphere of playing with
words and trying them out, evenif it's wrong, anything that
you can suggest to teachers tocreate that environment?

Tanya S. Wright (09:52):
I think it's really a broader classroom
environment beyond justvocabulary, right? I think
we're really now talking aboutspaces that see kids as knowing
things and as being able to trythings and as brilliant, right?
So I think we wanna createthose spaces, not just for
vocabulary, but acrossdisciplines. And also really

(10:15):
just valuing what kids bring tothe classroom. Even if it's not
perfect yet or if it's notexactly what adults would say,
but really creating spaceswhere when kids try things and
maybe it's not perfect orcorrect, we say "thank you for
trying," right? That'swonderful. We always want to
try new things and to be, to belearners, to be a community of
learners.

Susan Lambert (10:36):
I love that. So this season is all about
knowledge building, really, andwe know the connection between
knowledge and vocabulary. Canyou talk a little bit about how
those two things intersect?

Tanya S. Wright (10:50):
So we always learn new words when we learn
new things, even as adults,think about maybe a hobby
you've taken up, right? If youtake up running, you know what
a split is? If you take upgardening, you have to figure
out what an annual is, and thatmight have a slightly different
meaning than everyday use ofthat word. So no matter what is
new that we take up, there areassociated words, and that is

(11:14):
true in classrooms as well. Soas kids learn about new topics
or new information, there'sgonna be associated vocabulary
that they need to even discussthat information in a
classroom. And our job asteachers is to really make sure
that we are including allchildren in the conversation
and learning of the classroom.

(11:35):
And that means being purposefulin ensuring that children have
the vocabulary to participatein the learning of the
classroom.

Susan Lambert (11:46):
Hmm . And I often talk to educators about
knowledge building, theimportance of knowledge
building, but also that if youhave knowledge of something,
just like you said, you havethe vocabulary associated with
it, and we can't divorce thosetwo things, either try to teach
content in isolation or try toteach vocabulary in isolation,
they're really reciprocal andrelated to each other.

Tanya S. Wright (12:09):
They are deeply integrated. And
realistically, when we try tolearn something new, we have to
learn the ideas and then alsothe associated language to
comprehend those ideas. Youknow, I had a personal
experience of that, this, justrecently, I had to have an MRI
of my knee. And of course, youknow, the reading of it, what

(12:32):
the doctors say pops up in yourportal before you actually have
your doctor's appointment. Andso you try to read it and I
could pronounce all the words,but I had absolutely no idea
what they meant. And even afterlooking those words up in the
dictionary, I still had no ideawhat the doctor was gonna tell
me actually had to happen aboutmy knee, right? And I think,

(12:54):
you know, that's the case withall topics or information,
right? People who know themwell know the information and
what it means, but also thewords associated with that
information. You'll be happy tohear, my knee is fine, it looks
like a normal knee for a personof my age. But you know, I had
no idea that that's what theywere going to tell me until I
actually got into the doctor'sappointment. And someone who

(13:17):
understood the vocabulary andinformation could sort of
translate that for me toeveryday language.

Susan Lambert (13:23):
Well, I'm so glad to hear about your knee,
but that is a great, that's agreat example! I think we've
all encountered thosesituations where we're way out
of our realm of knowledge, ifyou will, or understanding. And
so it all feels a littlecomplicated and I love that you
bring that up because if youthen apply that to, let's say a

(13:43):
kindergartner in the classroom,you know, you must have some
examples of that as it relatesto the classroom situation of
kids that just really can'tcomprehend because they don't
know the associated content.

Tanya S. Wright (13:58):
Yeah, I think that that's true. And when I
talk kindergarten, here's agreat example that I always
think about. Um, I don't knowif you've ever seen those
hundreds math charts. You know,it's 10 numbers and then the
next 10 numbers. And I wastalking to kids about, which
was a lower number, 10 or 20?
And every child in thatclassroom claimed that 20 was a

(14:21):
lower number. And it took me awhile to figure out that 20 was
lower down on the hundredschart, right? It was below 10,
right? So it was lower, justlike my cubby is lower than
your cubby because it'sunderneath, right? They thought
I meant underneath. And that isa lovely reminder about how

(14:43):
when we get in a disciplinelike math, lower has a very
specific meaning. And the sameis true for for reading texts,
right? There are words in thosetexts that have very specific
meanings. And when kids have adifferent idea of what it means
or don't know what it means, wereally need to help them. I
like to say open the vocabularygate to comprehension, right?

(15:04):
Because it's gonna be verychallenging for them to
comprehend that text if theydon't know or are not told or
helped to figure out what thatword means.

Susan Lambert (15:12):
That's a great example. And, and not just
comprehending the text, butcomprehending a task at hand
for them academically.

Tanya S. Wright (15:21):
Yes. That's why I always say, you know,
vocabulary is important forreading, writing, speaking,
listening, and learning.
Because everything that'shappening in a classroom where
kids are trying to learnvocabulary matters for all of
it. And it matters because weare ensuring that when we help
kids with vocabulary, they areincluded in the learning of the

(15:41):
classroom. What we don't wantis kids, you know, some may
know the meaning that isintended in that learning, some
may not. And those who do not,feel like they can't
participate or are excluded orare not understanding. So it's
really important that we'rethinking about purposeful,
planned, intentional vocabularysupports to make sure that
everybody is included in thelearning and can participate in

(16:04):
the classroom.

Susan Lambert (16:06):
So what would you say to a teacher when they
say, "Oh my goodness, butthere's so many words that I
could include. What wordsshould I include?" You talked a
little bit about purposeful andand planned. How do you suggest
they think about those wordsthat they should include ?

Tanya S. Wright (16:24):
The first thing I like to say is, don't
not do it because there's somany words and it's
overwhelming, because sometimesit feels so overwhelming that
teachers are like, it doesn'tmatter, it's not worth it. Too
many words to learn, right? So,so first of all, something is
gonna be better than nothing insupporting and scaffolding kids
to comprehend. What I like tosay is think about the learning
in the classroom and what ismost important for that

(16:48):
learning to include children.
So if you're reading a fictiontext, maybe there's some ideas
about the plot of the text thatcould be very confusing if kids
didn't know the meaning of theword. Pick those ones , right?
There's gonna be a lot of wordskids may not know in that book.
Make sure they know the onesthat help them to follow the
text. In an informational text,there might be some important

(17:08):
or main ideas that if you don'tknow what the word means,
you're not gonna understand it.
Preview those words, right?
That's gonna help kids. Samething if we're in disciplinary
learning. If there are ideasthat kids are figuring out or
they're trying to make sense ofsomething, once they start to
figure it out and they noticethere's something they need to
name or there's something theyneed to say, that's a great

(17:30):
time to help to teach thosewords so that they can fully
articulate their ideas. So Ireally like to think about this
as driven by kids' ideas andkids' learning and making sure
that everyone gets toparticipate. And if we're doing
that all the time across theday, every book, every subject,
that's gonna be a lot of words. So we don't have to worry

(17:50):
about how much of it we'redoing if we're doing it all the
time. Um, and so my book, Iactually called "Vocabulary
Across the Day" for thatreason.

Susan Lambert (18:00):
Let's segue to your book because it's
brilliant. I love the, not onlydo I love the content of that
book, but I love the formatthat it's in. It's so
digestible and so,congratulations on that. First,
before we jump into maybe thecontent of it, what was the
motivation for you to actuallyauthor that text?

Tanya S. Wright (18:19):
Well, first let me say that how it looks,
there's wonderful team ofgraphic designers that did
that. They're amazing. I didn'tdo that. So thank you for the
graphic designers that made itlook so beautiful. Um, what
drove me to do this, I wasreally thinking about being a
teacher myself or teachers thatI work with, or literacy
coaches that I work with in K–2who are looking for what to do,

(18:43):
you know, on Monday morning tosupport kids' vocabulary
development. Maybe they knowit's important, but they're not
totally sure how to get up tosupporting kids. And I would
say the other thing that Ireally thought about with this
book was especially ouryoungest learners in K–2,

(19:04):
because sometimes we find that,you know, vocabulary is
neglected as kids are learningto decode. We get very focused
on decoding, which we should.
Very important, of course kidsneed to learn to decode, but
maybe at the expense ofbuilding knowledge and
vocabulary. And we really needboth to be happening in those
early grades of school.

Susan Lambert (19:24):
We'll be right back. For this
knowledge-focused season of thepodcast, we've asked the
finalists for the 2023 Scienceof Reading Star Awards to offer
some of their thoughts andadvice on knowledge building
throughout this season. We'resharing some of their insights.
This time we're hearing fromAnne Elizabeth Carter , a

(19:45):
kindergarten teacher from theWake County Public School
system in North Carolina. Annewas a winner of the Data Dynamo
Award.

Anne Elizabeth Carter (19:54):
As a kindergarten teacher, sometimes
it can be tricky to collect thedata, you know, not only
accurately but efficiently. Youknow, five- and six-year-olds
are pretty independent,depending on the time of the
year, however, just, you know,I'm sure you know, five- and
six-year-olds, they need thingsto be very explicit. And so in

(20:18):
order to collect accurate data,a lot of times that'll take us
kind of sitting down one-on-onewith the students and having
those conversations and kind ofdigging deeper.e Data is one of
the most important pieces, Ithink, to getting to know the
students, taking that data,analyzing it, not just one type
of data, but several differenttypes of data. And then using

(20:41):
that to plan your instruction.
Having those data pieces oneach of the children, it is
super important in helping meunderstand just exactly where I
need to go next with myinstruction and how can I
tailor that to better meet theneeds of each individual
student.

Susan Lambert (21:02):
That was Anne Elizabeth Carter , kindergarten
teacher in the Wake CountyPublic School system in North
Carolina. Applications are nowopen for the third-annual
Science of Reading Star Awards.
Find out more information andsubmit a nomination at
amplify.com/sor-star-awards.

(21:23):
And now, back to ourconversation with Dr. Tanya S.
Wright . So I know you talked alittle bit about integrating
vocabulary across thecurriculum and I think probably
this is true for all gradelevels, and I think sometimes
we think of vocabulary as anELA sort of endeavor. So can

(21:47):
you talk a little bit aboutwhat that would look like,
vocabulary across all thecontent areas?

Tanya S. Wright (21:52):
Yeah, so sometimes I think we think of
vocabulary as an ELA thing, orwe think of it as like a
five-words-a-day, to study foryour SATs, or you know, one
magical word. So it's very outof context or add-on to the
learning of the classroom. Butif we remember that we learn
new words when we learn newthings, and hopefully we're

(22:13):
learning lots of new thingsacross the day in school,
right? That's what school isfor. There's lots of
opportunities to integratevocabulary into everything we
do. So if we're doing aninteractive read-aloud, we can
teach vocabulary, whetherthat's happening during science
or during ELA. If we arelearning social studies, there
are going to be wonderfulwords. Mathematics are going to

(22:35):
be wonderful words. The arts,right? So what we are trying to
do is support kids learning andgive them the words they need
to share their ideas across allthe parts of the day, rather
than making vocabulary asupplement or, you know, 10
minutes in ELA every day andthat's it, because it's not
realistic to how we use wordsin life and in learning.

Susan Lambert (22:58):
Hmm . And when we're thinking about
particularly K–2, but thiscould apply to any grade levels
of course, you mentioned thefact that sometimes in those
early grades vocabulary or thesort of language development
gets overlooked in order to getthat word recognition in place.
But I think one thing we knowabout vocabulary development is
that, or language in general,is it takes longer, right? To

(23:21):
develop some of these and, andvocabulary, like we said, isn't
an either-or thing. And so howcan we actually get this rich
vocabulary to students in theseearly grades if they can't
actually decode it themselves?
What are some strategies thatwe could employ there?

Tanya S. Wright (23:39):
So just to go back to your first point. For
sure, right? Scholars callvocabulary an unconstrained
skill, because there are alwaysmore words to learn. So it's
not the same as the letters ofthe alphabet, which is
constrained, right? You know'em or you don't. So there's
always more words even asadults, which is wonderful.
That's a wonderful opportunity.

Susan Lambert (24:00):
So how do we get that to, to young kids? Because
for me, my vocabulary growswhen I hear and listen and read
and and write, frankly, whenI'm trying to find the right
word choice. How do we do thatfor kids when they can't yet
decode those words on the page?

Tanya S. Wright (24:16):
Right. So from birth, when we are speaking to
children and or reading aloudto children, we are teaching
them vocabulary and words,right? Think about how babies
learn new words. We point tothings, we name it, we name it
again, we name it again.
Eventually they do anapproximation, they say
something similar and wecelebrate and then we say it
again. Right? So most of ourwords that we learn, especially

(24:40):
as young children, are reallythrough oral language
interactions, typically withadults who know more words than
the child. So as we interactwith kids, we bring lots of
wonderful words into theenvironment and then especially
as we read aloud with children,because books often have
specialized words that we don'tuse in our everyday oral
language. And these specialbook words come up as we read

(25:02):
with kids and we explain thosewords to kids and talk to them
and show them what it means.
That means, right, that wewanna be making sure that we're
having interactive read-alouds,that we're having lots of
knowledge-building activitiesas kids are learning to decode.
And the hope is that it allsort of comes together. They're

(25:22):
decoding fluently and they knowwhat the words mean and they
have a lot of knowledge tobring to making inferences
about the text and they lovereading and read a lot and are
very successful readers. That'sthe goal.

Susan Lambert (25:35):
That's great.
What did you say? Magical bookwords or something like that?

Tanya S. Wright (25:39):
Oh, special book words.

Susan Lambert (25:40):
Special book words.

Tanya S. Wright (25:41):
Right? Because realistically, in classrooms,
when we are having a lot of theoral language interactions,
especially in early childhood,right? Are things like, "let's
put your coat on," "let's zipit up," "it's time to go
outside," "what do you want forsnack?" Right? So those are
everyday oral language andthey're very important, but we
don't necessarily speak to kidsin the ways that books present

(26:04):
language, right? Or uselanguage. So there's a lot to
learn as children interact withtexts.

Susan Lambert (26:11):
What would you say to those that say, "Oh,
those words are too hard for akindergartner, or a first
grader, or a second grader, sowe don't want to use words that
are too hard for them"?

Tanya S. Wright (26:23):
No such thing.
Kids learn the words that arein their environment. So if we
use words with kids, that'swhat they say. Um, a favorite
story from when I first startedworking on this, we were
talking to kids about pets andwhich animals make good pets.
And one of the things that cameup was that pets should not be
ferocious, right? And we taughtlittle kids, these were

(26:46):
four-year-olds, the word"ferocious." And a few days
later we saw kids playing withplastic animals in the dramatic
play area, and they wereholding up, I think it might've
been dinosaurs, and they weresaying, "I'm fewocious." Right?
They were so into it. Anotherexample, a principal called me
to tell me, we did a scienceunit with kids about how

(27:07):
different clouds predictdifferent types of weather. And
the principal wanted to tell methat these kindergartners were
waiting for the bus and theywere having a very heated
debate about whether the cloudsin the sky were cumulonimbus
clouds, because they knew thatthat kind of cloud were storm
clouds, and if they werecumulonimbus clouds, they would

(27:28):
not be able to go to baseballtoday because there'd be a
storm and baseball would becanceled. So realistically,
kids love to learn big words,they make use of them, they
don't really differentiate it,so that's an adult imposition,
right? Which ones are the bigones or which ones are the hard
ones. If we use them with kids,they will use them, too, and
enjoy it.

Susan Lambert (27:48):
That reminds me of a time I was observing in a
classroom and the kids werelearning about trees, plants ,
and trees, and they were havingquite a conversation , um, if
this particular tree wasdeciduous or if it was not
deciduous. And so I was kind ofblown away to hear those words
come out of a kindergartenstudent, but it's really fun.

(28:09):
It makes them feel like they'repart of that conversation,
which you talked about earlierin our conversation, is that it
helps them feel part of thatcommunity or part of that
knowledge-building exercise,

Tanya S. Wright (28:23):
You know, and they might not use the words
correctly the first time, andthat's okay. When my oldest
daughter, who's now 16, wasreally little, I found her kind
of crouched in her bed , um,kind of curved , uh, like
curled up, and she was supposedto be sleeping. And I said, why

(28:44):
are you curled up like that?
You're supposed to be asleep.
That doesn't seem like a reallycomfortable position for
sleeping. And she said, "I'mbeing a knock-turtle." So she
had heard the word "nocturnal"and she had heard "turtle." And
so she decided she wanted tostay up at night and understood
something about, if you're aturtle, you won't go to sleep.

(29:05):
And so that remains a reallyfunny story in our family. But
how wonderful that she tried tofigure out this word
"nocturnal" and interpret itand applied it to her life.

Susan Lambert (29:15):
Yeah. And, and in ways that make a whole lot
of sense, right?

Tanya S. Wright (29:19):
Sure, if you hear it as "nocturtle," you
might think you have to be aturtle if you wanna stay up
late.

Susan Lambert (29:24):
Well, you have a new book out. So your newest
book is called "LiteracyLearning for Infants, Toddlers,
and Preschoolers." So I knowit's a little bit broader than
just knowledge and vocabulary,that book, is that correct?

Tanya S. Wright (29:39):
Yeah. It really talks about all of the
literacy learning that we'rehoping to see in our early
childhood classrooms withchildren birthed through age
five.

Susan Lambert (29:49):
Such a need for sure. Can you tell us a little
bit about those influences onearly learning for both
knowledge and vocabulary?

Tanya S. Wright (29:57):
Sure. We have a whole chapter called "Clever
Communicators," and it's allabout building oral language,
vocabulary, and knowledge withyoung children. And really, if
you think about everything thatI've been saying so far, it's
the idea that we give kids newexperiences, right? Which for
four-year-olds could be thingslike observing what's going on

(30:19):
in their school yard , right?
It doesn't have to be, youknow, a field trip to the next
city or something like that.
Right? So it can be smallthings that are still new for
them that help them learn abouttheir world and really how we
talk to kids about the newthings that they're learning,
the new ideas, and that wescaffold and plan opportunities

(30:41):
for young children to learn newthings, to read texts.
Obviously we're reading aloudwith them, but to participate
in the reading of texts, toengage in discussions and
conversations and with ouryoungest learners to really try
to encourage kids to havemulti-turn conversations,
right? Not just the kid saysone word and the teacher says
"right." But really encouragingtheir talk because, like you

(31:04):
pointed out, it's the using ofthe words that really helps
them to share their ideas. Andthen we really know that they
know the meaning of those newwords.

Susan Lambert (31:14):
Hmm . And it seems to me this information
that's in this book, since itsbirth through age five, would
be great to get to parents andcaregivers. Is there any
momentum that you know of totry to get this information to
parents and caregivers to helpsupport the language
development of their ownchildren ?

Tanya S. Wright (31:33):
Well, I'm not writing that book right now,
but , um, I could! But yeah,no, of course we want families
to talk with their children,just, it doesn't have to be
some special big activity,right? It doesn't have to be a
trip to the zoo. It could bewalking around the neighborhood
and talking about what we seeand what we notice. And that's

(31:56):
wonderful. Right? Let's seewhat's going on with the
squirrels in our neighborhoodand what are they up to this
time of year. That's plenty.
There's lots to say and lots todiscuss all about that. So I
think just looking foropportunities to talk with
children about everything thatthey're up to. And then also,
of course, reading books withchildren, all different kinds

(32:18):
of books. Sometimes parentsthink only storybooks for
little ones, but informationalbooks as well. Kids get really
interested in learning aboutthe world. So making sure we're
exposing kids to a range ofbooks and talking with them
about the ideas in those books,including encouraging kids to
say what they're thinking andtheir ideas.

Susan Lambert (32:37):
Hmm . That's great. And when you do write
that book for parents andcaregivers, let us know and
we'll get you on for anotherepisode.

Tanya S. Wright (32:44):
Sounds good.

Susan Lambert (32:46):
So you've been, you've been thinking about
vocabulary for a really longtime. How has your thinking
changed about the approach tovocabulary from when you first
started researching?

Tanya S. Wright (32:57):
I think I used to really think a lot about
kids learning individual wordsand which are the right words.
And now I think much more aboutkids learning, kids learning of
new things and how we can buildvocabulary instruction into all
of that. So I think I have amaybe more holistic view about

(33:21):
how vocabulary fits intoeverything we do. Just the more
I learn , the more I realizeit's not just about learning,
you know, words that are gonnabe on your SAT some day or in a
New York Times article. It'sreally all the words that let
kids participate in all thelearning in the classroom. And
that if we're doing thatrepeatedly over time, we're

(33:42):
gonna get a lot of words tokids, right? They're gonna
learn a lot of words. So Ithink rather than figuring out
which are the best five wordsthat we must learn this week,
is really to think about thisas an all-the-time teaching
practice where we ensure thatkids know the important words
for their learning. And I thinkif we're doing that regularly,

(34:05):
they're gonna be able tocomprehend texts, right?
Because they're gonna learn andknow a lot of words.

Susan Lambert (34:11):
And when we start getting them in the habit
of that, in the early grades,like to your point earlier,
it's really an unconstrained,vocabulary's unconstrained. So
just like kids in kindergartenare learning words in their
context, just like you weretrying to learn new words and
with your MRI and in thereport, right? Once we build
that habit of being curiousabout words in their context,

(34:33):
we continue that for the restof our lives.

Tanya S. Wright (34:36):
I hope so. And you know what's really lovely
in a classroom is when childreninitiate conversations about
words and they say, "What doesthat word mean?" Or they're
engaging in discussions aboutwhat a word means, and we can
support that too, right? Wewanna make sure that we're
teaching kids vocabularystrategies so that they can

(34:58):
figure out a new word when theyencounter it and maybe are not
in the learning situation ofthe classroom or someone's
planned that for them. So justlike we teach decoding
strategies, what do you do whenyou get to a word that you
don't automatically recognize?
Or we teach comprehensionstrategies. What do you do when
you don't understand, you'rereading along and something is

(35:18):
tricky. Same thing withvocabulary strategies. What do
you do when you get to a word,you know it's important, but
you don't know what it means?
What are some things you cantry as a reader? So we
definitely teach kids thosethings so that they can gain as
much as possible independentlyas they read text, and pay
attention to vocabulary.,

Susan Lambert (35:38):
Anything new you're thinking about in terms
of research looking forward?

Tanya S. Wright (35:43):
Yeah. So much of my work right now is really
about developing curriculum forkids where I actually work in
science curriculum a lot of thetime with very young children,
K–2, a space where we often seescience pushed out of the
classroom because there's somuch to do about ELA and
literacy. And I really arguethat learning new things opens

(36:07):
up opportunities for moreliteracy learning. So my
current work is reallydeveloping science curricula
with integrated literacylearning, including, of course,
lots of vocabulary as kidsdevelop in their science
understandings and ideas.

Susan Lambert (36:23):
That's amazing.
Well, as we sort of wrap up, doyou have any final words of
advice for educators as itrelates to knowledge and
vocabulary?

Tanya S. Wright (36:32):
Start somewhere. If you're not having
science and social studies,step one, you need to have
those times of day. We have alot of evidence that those are
places where lots of newvocabulary come up and kids
need to build that knowledge tosupport future text
comprehension. So if those arebeing pushed out of the school
day, that's something to reallyfight to have back , um, those

(36:53):
times of day. Teach some words,integrate vocabulary into a
unit, see what happens when weteach kids lots of wonderful
words and they get using them.
I think teachers who start todo this get really excited when
they see kids using wonderfulwords to share their ideas, and
it'll make you wanna do more.

(37:14):
And I think the last thing iswork with your colleagues. So
it can feel really challengingto have to do planful
vocabulary instruction. Youknow, for every read-aloud
that, how do I get started onthat? Or for all the science
for the whole year, how do Iget started on that? But I
think we just split it up,right? If each teacher takes
three books and plans, avocabulary-focused interactive

(37:35):
read-aloud, and there's fourteachers at a grade level,
that's 12 books that areplanned. Or if each teacher
takes one science unit andreally thinks about weaving in
more vocabulary instruction andyou do three science units a
year, that's great. You justplanned the year, right? And
you can use it again thefollowing year. So I think just
getting started, and I think ifteachers are not already doing

(37:55):
this, they're gonna beimpressed by what young
children can do. They'reamazing. They're brilliant, and
they love to use big words.

Susan Lambert (38:04):
Well, Dr. Tanya Wright, thank you so much for
joining us and we will link ourlisteners in the show notes to
both of these books that wetalked about. And it was just a
pleasure to have you heretoday. So thank you very much.

Tanya S. Wright (38:17):
Thank you so much.

Susan Lambert (38:20):
Thanks so much for listening to my
conversation with Dr . Tanya S.
Wright, associate professor oflanguage and literacy in the
Department of Teacher Educationat Michigan State University.
Check out the show notes forlinks to some of the resources
we discussed, including thebooks, "A Teacher's Guide to
Vocabulary Development Acrossthe Day," and "Literacy

(38:41):
Learning for Infants, Toddlers,and Preschoolers." Let us know
what you thought of thisconversation in our Facebook
discussion group, Science ofReading: The Community. Science

of Reading (38:52):
The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For
more information on how Amplifyleverages the Science of
Reading, go toamplify.com/ckla. Next time on
the show, a fascinatingconversation with a cognitive
scientist, Maryanne Wolf, aboutthe reading brain and much

(39:13):
more, including the impact oftechnology on reading.

Maryanne Wolf (39:17):
This is becoming, you know, one of the
most, if you will, perniciousinvisible threats to reading as
well as one of the greatadvantages, because it both
increases what you can read,but potentially short-circuits
how you read.

(39:37):
That's coming up next time.
Don't miss that or any otherupcoming episodes by
subscribing to Science ofReading: The Podcast wherever
you find your podcasts. Whileyou're there, please consider
giving us a rating and review.
Thank you again for listening.
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