Pages: 163 Price: $18.50 ISBN: 978-1-57110-399-4
When my husband and my son begin talking about BMX bicycles and riding (a type of sport/hobby where smaller bikes are adapted so that riders can do various tricks and stunts) I tend to stop listening with both ears. While I care about their interest in this activity, and enjoy watching them ride, when they begin talking, they tend to use language that is unfamiliar to me (e.g., detanglers, pegs, grinds and rollbacks) and I just cannot quite follow them.
In her introduction to her new book, Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary Grades 4-12, Janet Allen talks about this idea (citing Moore, Readance, and Rickelman (1989) and Readance, Bean, and Baldwin (1985)), saying that students need to gain an insider position "in relation to content area reading and writing" (p. 4). Without adequate vocabulary knowledge (following from effective vocabulary instruction), students will remain outsiders to the academic content they need to master, just like me, listening as an outsider to my husband and son talk about their specialized activity. For me, this concept of insider - outsider status, and how it can affect students' ability to fully comprehend certain content area texts and topics, is a powerful argument for teaching vocabulary, and one of the most useful points that Allen makes in this book.
The other useful point I found in Allen's introduction was the relationship between background knowledge and vocabulary, and in turn, comprehension of content-area reading. Here, Allen cites Marzano (2004), who says that teaching vocabulary is essentially the same as teaching background knowledge. With more emphasis on vocabulary, prior to embarking on content area topics, Allen writes "learners would not only know more about the content, but they would also know the language used inside [italics added] the content" (p. 2).
While these two ideas were both compelling and interesting to me, I finished the introduction still wanting more; not so much more reasons for why we should teach vocabulary, I am already sold on that idea, I just wanted more knowledge about the topic, a more in-depth and extended discussion about what we gain when we teach vocabulary. Allen's introduction feels very brief and, really, in terms of actual talk about the teaching of vocabulary, it is brief. What this book really is is a collection of concrete strategies, or activities, if you will, for teaching vocabulary. And her introduction is just a very quick "hello" before embarking on discussion of the activities. For me, a first time reader of a book about the teaching of vocabulary, I wanted something in addition to an array of strategies to try, and I left my reading of the book feeling disappointed, as though there was more out there and I did not get to learn about it.
Indeed, this book follows several others by Allen, and an ever-growing body of work on the importance and teaching of vocabulary (much of which she clearly draws on here). The problem may be that I am simply entering in the middle of the conversation, and need to back up and start somewhere else. Allen's first book on the subject is Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12, (1999); perhaps that is where a person should start.
After the too-brief-for-me introduction comes the tools and strategies; Allen's myriad ideas for different ways to teach or work with vocabulary in the classroom. Not surprisingly, I found some of these approaches to be just the sorts of things I would like to try, and others, not of much interest. The ones that spoke to me the most were those that had students talking together, thinking about the words and what they might mean and not mean, and, in particular, had students doing labeling or categorizing work with the words (concepts). For example, two chapters that I was particularly drawn to were titled "Concepts and Vocabulary: Categories and Labels" and "List-Group-Label." Each chapter is organized as answers to the same set of questions:
I am glad to have this book as a part of my library. But, given my desire to dig a little deeper, to know a little more about this topic, I think that if I had it to do over again, I might start somewhere else. Given the wealth of knowledge she clearly has, Allen's earlier book, Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12, might be a logical place.
References
Allen, J. (1999). Words, words, words: Teaching vocabulary in grades 4-12. York, ME: Stenhouse.
Marzano, R. J. (2004). Building background knowledge for academic achievement: Research on what works in schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Moore, D. W., Readance, J.E., & Rickelman, R. J. (1989). Prereading activities for content area reading and learning (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Readance, J. E., Bean, T. W. & Baldwin, R. S. (1985). Content area reading: An integrated approach (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
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