Philadelphia Empowerment Schools

in collaboration with VoyagerU

April 24, 2009

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 Agenda
• Skill focus – Continued Vocabulary
Development – Current Teacher
Practices
• Planning and Practice using
Philadelphia Schools Empowerment
tools
• Reflection and Observation

2
 Agenda
• Successes and Challenges
• Data analysis review
• Skill focus – Vocabulary
Development
• Planning and Practice using
Philadelphia Schools
Empowerment tools
• Reflection and Observation
• Delivery Plan

3
Circle of Action

4
 Successes, Challenges, &
SOLUTIONS

– Differentiated Instruction
– Academic Rigor
– Data Analysis and Improvement for
schools to improve students’ reading
performance
– Increase effectiveness regarding
successful instructional strategies
– Provide specifications and
opportunities for schools to improve
students’ comprehension performance
– Increase communication between all
parties
5
 Session Goal

Build the knowledge and skills

necessary to share and
disseminate vocabulary
strategies, so that every teacher
provides quality instruction to
students

6
 Taking on Unfamiliar
Roles
• Middle School and High School
teachers must take on a new
and often unfamiliar role.
– how to provide quality reading
and writing instruction to meet
literacy expectations
– instructional strategies to
assist struggling readers.

Reading to Achieve: A Governors

Guide to Adolescent Literacy
7
 Implications for Practice
1. Adolescence is not too late to intervene. Interventions do
benefit older students.

2. Older students with reading difficulties benefit from

interventions focused at both the word and the text level.

3. Older students with reading difficulties benefit from

improved knowledge of word meanings and concepts.

4. Word-study interventions are appropriate for older

students struggling at the word level.

5. Teachers can provide interventions that are associated

with positive effects.

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 Implications for Practice
Continued
6. Teaching comprehension strategies to older students with
reading difficulties is beneficial.

7. Older readers’ average gains in reading comprehension

are somewhat smaller than those in other reading and
reading-related areas studied.

8. Older students with learning disabilities (LD) benefit from

reading intervention when it is appropriately focused.

9. To learn more about instructional conditions that could

close the reading gap for struggling readers, we will need
studies that provide instruction over longer periods of
time and assess outcomes with measures more like those
schools use to monitor reading progress of all students.

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 Recommendation:
Provide explicit
vocabulary instruction
• Teachers should provide
students with explicit
vocabulary instruction both as
part of reading and language
arts classes and as part of
content-area classes such as
science and social studies.
Through:
– Direct Instruction
– Indirect Instruction 10
 How to Carry Out the
Recommendation
1. Dedicate a portion of the regular
classroom lesson to explicit
vocabulary instruction.
2. Use repeated exposure to new
words in multiple oral and written
contexts and allow sufficient
practice sessions.
3. Give sufficient opportunities to
use new vocabulary in a variety of
contexts.
4. Provide students with strategies
to make them independent 11
 High School Plan

• Refer to your plan

– What is the vocabulary model?
– What does it look like in the
classroom?

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 So Which Words To Teach

• Useful words (Tier 1)

– Clock, baby, happy
• High-frequency words (Tier 2)
– Coincidence, absurd, industrious
• Specific domain words (Tier 3)
– Isotope, lathe, peninsula

From: Bringing Words to Life (Beck, McKeown&

Kucan)

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 Academic Vocabulary

• Specialized high utility

vocabulary words used in the
classroom
• Includes high-use academic
words (i.e., summarize,
analyze, specify, formulate,
evaluate, respond)
• Includes the vocabulary,
grammar, and syntax
necessary to completely
discuss a topic PRJ III Word List 14
 College Placement
Vocabulary
• Specialized high utility vocabulary
words used on college placement
tests
• Includes high-use academic words
necessary for college success (i.e.,
abject, bourgeois, conjecture,
locuacious)
• Includes the vocabulary, grammar,
and syntax necessary to
completely understand the word
meaning 15
 Career, Technology, and
Content Vocabulary
• Specialized high utility vocabulary
words used specific to content and
careers
• Includes high-use academic words
necessary for job success (i.e.,
accurate, column, exact, freehand)
• Includes the vocabulary, grammar,
and syntax necessary to
completely understand the word
meaning and application
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 Effective Vocabulary
Teaching
Strategies Students Must Learn
for Discovering Word Meaning

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 Procedures for Analytical
Vocabulary Instruction

• Present the word

• Explain the meaning/function

• Display the word

• Have students create a phonological
representation

Page 5: Apply in Core

Vocabulary Development
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 Procedures for
Analytical Vocabulary
Instruction
• Give examples of the word in
different contexts
• Have students interact with
the word
• Have students see the word
and say the word
• Provide practice with the word
Page 5: Apply in Core
Vocabulary Development
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 Explicit Teaching of Word
Meanings
• Using Context
• Using Word Parts
• Using Dictionaries
• CPR
– Context
– Part of Word
– Resource

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 “Its not what you say or do that
ultimately matters…It is what you
get the students to do as a result
of what you said and did that
counts”
Archer, Feldman & Kinsella,
2008

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 Techniques for Building
Word Knowledge
• Involve students in
thinking about
word meanings
• Involve students in
making
associations among
• Semantic Features
words
Analysis
• Semantic Mapping
• Frayer Model

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Seven Categories of Word
Play – Gallery Walk

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 Word Games

• HISTO
• BLUFF
• BACK WORD
• Charades
• Pictionary
• Scattegories

Handout Word Games

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 Agenda
• Introduction to the Philadelphia
Empowerment School and VoyagerU
Framework
• Data analysis review
• Skill focus – Vocabulary Development
• Planning and Practice using
Philadelphia Schools Empowerment
tools
• Reflection and Observation
• Delivery Plan

25
 Empowerment Tools

Working in teams, identify:

• Vocabulary practices to support
items in the “Indicator” column
of the walk log
– What are items that may be
evident to reflect indicators are in
place?

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 Agenda
• Introduction to the Philadelphia
Empowerment School and VoyagerU
Framework
• Data analysis review
• Skill focus – Vocabulary Development
• Planning and Practice using
Philadelphia Schools Empowerment
tools
• Reflection and Observation
• Delivery Plan

27
 Reflections

• What are some things that you

want to share at your schools?
• What are some things that you
currently see in classrooms that
you can reinforce?
• How can you encourage the use
of stronger vocabulary lessons
using the current core program?

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