G.
REMEDIAL VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION
Vocabulary is initially acquired in four ways:
-reading and conversation
-direct instruction
-self instruction
-mental manipulation
1. Considerations in remedial vocabulary instruction
Connect vocabulary instruction to the natural processes of word learning.
*The literature on vocabulary acquisition tends to divide the teaching of vocabulary into five phases.
These are:
a. Disposition – opening the student’s mind and will to engage new words.
b. Integration – establishing ties between the meaning of a new word and the student’s existing knowledge.
c. Repetition – provisions for practice distributed over time, as well as opportunities for frequent encounters
with the word in similar and differing contexts.
d. Interaction and meaningful use – social situations conducive to using new words in interactions with
others and thus mentally referencing new words in listening, reading, writing and speaking.
e. Self instruction – maintaining an awareness of new words outside the classroom.
2. Concept-Based Approach to Vocabulary Building
a. Identify the relevant and irrelevant features of the concept in question
b. Provide examples of the concept.
c. Provide examples of irrelevant but loosely related concepts with which it might be compared.
d. Relate the concept by some possible smaller or subordinating concepts.
e. Relate or categorize the concept by some possible larger or superordinating concepts
f. Relate or categorize the concept alongside equal or coordinating terms.
3. Subjective Approach to Vocabulary (SAV)
a. Identify two to four words to be taught or pre-taught if SAV is used as a pre-reading activity.
*If a word list is used, be sure to include as many words as possible that impart concepts and feelings that you
would wish students to learn.
b. The teacher tells the student the full meaning of a word, much as it might be found in a dictionary.
*It is recorded in a Word study Journal as the ‘objective; or dictionary meaning.
c. The teacher asks the student, ‘What does the word remind you of?’ or ‘What do you picture or think of when
you hear this word?’
*Explain that discussion of a personal association with a word can be very helpful in remembering and
clarifying its meaning.
d. The teacher talks to the student through this personal search for meaning by asking further clarifying
questions and in group situations by pointing out those images suggested that seem most vivid.
*The teacher may add his or her own images. Students are then directed to write some ‘subjective’ or personal
associations for the new word under the previously written dictionary definition in their journals. Drawings can
be added.
e. Silent reading follows next when SAV is used a pre-reading vocabulary development. When it is being used
for general vocabulary development, students are given 5-10 minutes to study and rehearse the new and
previously recorded words.
f. The teacher lets the student close the Word study Journal and asks him/her the meanings of the words
studied that day and a few others from previous days.
*This step can be tied to seat exercises in conventional workbooks such as crossword puzzles, category
games, etc.
*This manipulation and reinforcement step can be made easier by selecting the words to be taught from the
exercise material.
4. Motor Imaging
PROCEDURE:
1. Take a difficult word from the text, write it on the chalkboard, pronounce it, and tell what it means.
2. Ask students to imagine a simple pantomime for the word meaning. (How could you show someone what
this word means with just your hands or a gesture.
3. Tell students that when you give a signal, they will do their gesture pantomimes simultaneously
4. Select the most common pantomime observed. Demonstrate it all to the students, saying the word while
doing pantomime.
5. Repeat each new word, this time directing the class to do the pantomime while saying a brief meaning or
simple synonym.
6. Let the students encounter the word in the assigned reading material.
7. Try to use the pantomime casually whenever the word is used for a short time earlier.
It appears that even the highest forms of vocabulary and concept learning have psychomotor foundations
or equivalents.
Hence, motor movements associated with certain stimuli can become interiorized as a ‘symbolic meaning’
There are three considerable advantages in knowing this where remediation is concerned:
a. First, since physical-sensory or proprioceptive learning can be interiorized, they also can be self
stimulating and as such; they are easier to rehearse and recall with the slightest mental reminder, as
well as from external stimulation
b. Second, proprioceptive learning is so basic to human learning that it is common to all learners, fast and
slow and hence, ideal for heterogeneously grouped classes.
c. Third, the act of identifying and acting out a word becomes a life experience in itself with the word – a
value that F. Duffellmeyer demonstrated when he successfully taught youngsters words via the
‘experiential approach’
