Pre-Teaching Vocabulary:
Pre-teaching vocabulary is making the students aware of important concepts before they begin reading a text (Miller & Veatch, 2012). By introducing unfamiliar terms to students before they begin to read the text, the students will have a heightened awareness of the vocabulary they will encounter while reading (2012). Pre-teaching vocabulary can improve a students comprehension of a text (https://etd.auburn.edu/handle/10415/3423). It also allows the students to see that some words have different meanings in an academic setting from their everyday setting (Miller & Veatch, 2012).
How it works (Miller & Veatch, 2012):
- Begin with a term that is important for comprehending a text. For each term:
- Pronounce the new word and have students repeat it
- Give an explanation of what the word means
- Rephrase the explanation. Have the students complete the explanation by stating the new word aloud where appropriate.
- If possible, show a visual of the word.
- Check for beginning understanding of the word by asking questions to the whole group while assessing whether the students understand the word.
- Ask students to generate their own examples.
An Example of a Pre-Teaching Vocabulary Chart:
Common Core Standards met using Pre-teaching Vocabulary(http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RST/6-8/#CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.1):
Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; provide an accurate summary of the text distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.
Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).
Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.
Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).
Why use Pre-teaching Vocabulary:
1. Allows the students to develop an understanding of the word’s connotations as well as its denotation (http://www.k12reader.com/effective-strategies-for-teaching-vocabulary/)
2. This will students the chance to identify words and then be able to place them in context and remember them (http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/teaching/vocabulary/).
3. Research shows that when the component skills of mathematical procedures are pretaught, children learn to solve math problems much faster than when the components and the procedure were learned at the same time. (http://nycdoeit.airws.org/pdf/Preteaching.pdf)
Variations and/or additions to Pre-teaching vocabulary (http://elt-resourceful.com/2012/03/30/should-we-pre-teach-vocabulary-before-reading-and-if-so-how/):
- Categorizing can help students engage with the meaning of words. You could ask students to put words into categories, or if that does not work well you could ask students to put words into the categories "words I know", "words I am not sure about" and "words I don't know". Meanwhile, being able to walk around and monitor the students as they are involved in peer teaching and also helping them with the "words I don't know"
- Connecting words: Ask the students to choose two or three words from the pre-teaching list and have them make a sentence using those words.
- Predicting: Students will make a prediction of text using the words given.
- Using the context of the text. Pull out sentences containing the words you want to pre-teach leaving gaps in the sentence. Ask students to help you decide what should go in the gaps.
- If appropriate, match a vocabulary term with a picture.