I’m always torn over the decision to pre-teach vocabulary. Whether it’s via the 7-step (Calderon & Minaya-Rowe, 2011) or 6-step (Marzano, 2007) approach, both of which are well-established and looked highly upon by teachers and admin alike, I always feel that this results in too much teacher talk and passive students. Even when eliciting CCQs to check understanding, pre-teaching vocabulary just seems to take so much time. Can’t we just jump into the reading already?
The point of pre-teaching words is not to ensure students understand every word they will encounter; rather, it’s to avoid unknown words hindering their comprehension (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2008). With that in mind, sometimes only a few words need preteaching, and sometimes there isn’t a need to preteach anything! If a word that a student is unlikely to know appears in a text, it’s useful to ask yourself whether 1) it is a Tier-2 word they are likely to encounter often in other academic subjects, and 2) if they actually need to know the word to grasp the main points of the text. If they’re reading an entire article about sustainable materials, for example, they should probably learn the word “sustainable” in advance. However, if the article contains the word “exceptionally,” it probably just modifies an adjective and isn’t necessary to understand the main points.
It is a common refrain in the literature on teaching public school MLLs that in order to expand their academic vocabulary quickly and ensure they are able to access grade-level content, tier-2 academic words (words that can be “recycled” and will be encountered across academic subjects) should be directly and explicitly taught. Suggestions for this include allocating time each day to teach several words via a 7-step (Calderon & Minaya-Rowe, 2011) or 6-step (Marzano, 2007) approach. The more words that can be taught this way to learners, it is reasoned, the more quickly they will be able to approach a level of understanding 90-95% of the words in a text, a percentage frequently cited as necessary for unassisted comprehension (Schmitt, Jiang, & Grabe, 2011).
On the other hand, several educators have recently advocated for a more relaxed, reduced approach to pre-teaching to promote greater agency among students (Chong, 2017; Chowdhury & Ara, 2021). By not pre-teaching, we help learners become comfortable with not understanding every word and guessing meaning from context. We also prevent the anxiety that students might feel about needing to learn the “magic 10 words” that the teacher presented, especially if they’re going to be on a quiz. Both of these help students focus on comprehension, language acquisition over memorization, and meaning making from the text.
Tucker (2023) suggests a “pre-questioning” approach as an alternative, in order for students to focus on ideas and comprehension rather than individual words. He cites a dissertation by (Cowell (2012) to emphasize that learners, through repeated exposure and use, can eventually learn any words that would have been pre-taught anyway.
Overall, aiming to give students a “rough idea” of the text prior to reading seems to be a balanced approach that could be effective. It will also cut down on teacher-centeredness, allow students to jump into the reading more quickly, and offer an experience to students that can promote their autonomy. Teaching words that students find they need to know after an initial reading could also be an effective method.
References:
Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G. & Kucan, L. (2008). Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently asked questions and extended examples. The Guilford Press: NY.
Calderon, M. E. & Minaya-Rowe, L. (2011). Preventing Long-term ELs: Transforming Schools to Meet Core Standards. Corwin.
Chong, C. S. (2017, October 17). The Dangers of Pre-Teaching. Modern English Teacher. https://www.modernenglishteacher.com/the-dangers-of-pre-teaching
Chowdhury, Takad Ahmed, and Arjumand Ara. “Pre-Teaching Vocabulary in Teaching Reading Skill: A Hindrance to Learner Autonomy?” Indonesian TESOL Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, 2021, pp. 123–132., https://doi.org/10.24256/itj.v3i2.1818.
Cowell, Leslie Scott. Pre-Teaching Vocabulary to Improve Comprehension of a Narrative Text. University of Auburn,https://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/3423/Cowell%20Final.pdf;sequence=2.
Marzano, R. J. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Schmitt, N., Jiang, X., & Grabe, W. (2011). The percentage of words known in a text and reading comprehension. The Modern Language Journal, 95(1), 26–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01146.x
