Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction [Paperback]

Isabel L. Beck PhD (Author), Margaret G. McKeown Phd (Author), Linda Kucan PhD (Author), Isabel L. Beck (Author), Margaret G. McKeown (Author), Linda Kucan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1572307536 | ISBN-13: 978-1572307537 | Publication Date: March 20, 2002 | Edition: 1

Exciting and engaging vocabulary instruction can set students on the path to a lifelong fascination with words. This book provides a research-based framework and practical strategies for vocabulary development with children from the earliest grades through high school. The authors emphasize instruction that offers rich information about words and their uses and enhances students' language comprehension and production. Teachers are guided in selecting words for instruction; developing student-friendly explanations of new words; creating meaningful learning activities; and getting students involved in thinking about, using, and noticing new words both within and outside the classroom. Many concrete examples, sample classroom dialogues, and exercises for teachers bring the material to life. Helpful appendices include suggestions for trade books that help children enlarge their vocabulary and/or have fun with different aspects of words.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Vocabulary is the bedrock supporting academic language proficiency. Without any doubt, speech-language pathologists recognize the critical importance of vocabulary learning for children and adolescents struggling with language and literacy learning. The challenge is how we can better support genuine vocabulary learning so that struggling students will be better positioned to meet the new reading and writing standards. This book offers speech-language pathologists a strong conceptual framework and evidence-based strategies for achieving the goal of functional vocabulary learning. The rich and detailed strategies are presented in a highly readable way. This accessibility allows the creative speech-language clinician to find many ideas that can easily be adapted into meaningful strategies for boosting the authentic word knowledge that most students with language learning disabilities urgently need for attaining academic language proficiency."--Elaine R. Silliman, PhD, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida

"This little book is a gem. It shows how teachers can teach word meanings so powerfully that students of all ages will be able to grasp an author's meaning or communicate their own more effectively. The book offers a well-organized and first-rate plan for teaching vocabulary, presented by a team of researchers with a genuine grasp of the practical."--Timothy Shanahan, PhD, Center for Literacy, University of Illinois at Chicago

"This book succinctly addresses the challenges of teaching and developing vocabulary, providing research-based, clearly spelled-out strategies and many, many rich examples. It gives teachers the tools they need to effectively increase students' vocabularies. Reflecting the authors' own expertise with words, the book is written clearly enough for undergraduates, yet has a level of depth that will lend new insights to even the most advanced student of language and literacy. This book should be required reading in teacher and reading specialist preparation programs and should be used in in-service programs with reading, language arts, and English teachers as well as with content area teachers. If the strategies and suggestions offered in this book were widely and intensely implemented, we would see significant increases in students' verbal abilities and reading comprehension scores."--John J. Pikulski, PhD, School of Education, University of Delaware

"Bringing Words to Life lives up to its title. It made me want to gather a group of kids immediately, so I could start putting these sensible, practical, novel, and intriguing ideas about building vocabulary into practice. Beck, McKeown, and Kucan show how much fun learning words and teaching words can be. Every early childhood and elementary teacher should have this book on their bedside table for inspirational reading."--Catherine E. Snow, PhD, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

"All educators who are lovers of the English language will thoroughly enjoy and reap the benefits of this articulate book. The authors present a brilliant rationale for delivering lively and direct vocabulary instruction. They offer excellent advice on how to select rich words, present them to students, and help them revel in their usefulness!"--MaryAnne Rossbach, MEd, sixth-grade teacher, Sunrise Valley Elementary School, Reston, VA

About the Author

Isabel L. Beck, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Education in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. She has conducted research and published widely in the areas of decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension. Her contributions have been acknowledged by awards from the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, and the American Federation of Teachers, and she is an elected member of the National Academy of Education.

 

Margaret G. McKeown, PhD, is a Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh. Her research on reading comprehension and vocabulary has been published extensively in outlets for both researcher and practitioner audiences. Dr. McKeown is a recipient of the Dissertation of the Year Award from the International Reading Association and a National Academy of Education Spencer Fellowship. Before her career in research, she taught elementary school.

 

Linda Kucan, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Instruction and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education. In addition to vocabulary instruction, her research interests include classroom talk about texts and the design of meaningful and motivating tasks to support comprehension of text.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (March 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572307536
• ISBN-13: 978-1572307537
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding resource!, August 16, 2004

By 

A reader (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (Paperback)

This book is by far the best resource on vocabulary instruction available today. In my work with teachers, this book has had the best reception with practicing teachers of any book I have used. I has been a very popular selection for professional book clubs.

The authors use common-sense language to explain how to make vocabulary instruction meaningful--and why many commonly used techniques are ineffective. Of the essential elements of reading instruction, vocabulary has easily been the most neglected, despite its clear connection with reading comprehensioin. This book provides teachers with real, usable methods that have been proven effective.

Every teacher should read this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing Solution to Dry Vocabulary Instruction, October 19, 2005

By 

G. Lessey (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (Paperback)

I still remember when my high school teachers would assign the dreaded weekly vocabulary homework. We would painstakingly look up each word in the dictionary, write down what was usually the shortest definition, and then take a wild stab at writing the word in a sentence. I'm not sure how many of those words I actually learned, but I do remember being bored, frustrated and confused. Dictionaries are not necessarily the only tool for deriving meaning of new words.

Thankfully, this book helps educators to realize the importance of meaningful vocabulary instruction. It outlines various techniques for robust instruction in both primary and secondary grade levels. If you teach vocabulary, you should consider this book for your collection.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars easy read with quick interventions for vocabulary instruction, March 26, 2006

By 

Kelly L. Stewart - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (Paperback)

I read this for a graduate class and found it to be a quick, easy read. The authors give you simple ways to enhance your vocabulary instruction. I would recommend this book to teachers at all levels but especially those working 3rd grade and above.