1. Six Step Vocabulary
Instruction - Marzano
Betancourt, Hollis & Rainwaters
November 3, 2009
Immokalee High

2. Timed Pair Share
 The teacher announces a topic,
states how long each student
will share and provides think
time.
 In pairs, Partner A shares;
partner B listens.
 Partner B responds with a
positive gambit
 Partners switch roles

3. Gambits
 Copycat response
◦ “Thanks for sharing!”
◦ “You are interesting to listen to! “
 Complete the sentence gambits
◦ “One thing I learned listening to you
was…
◦ “I enjoyed listening to you
because…”
◦ “Your most interesting idea was…”

4. One must be drenched in words,
literally soaked in them, to have the
right ones form themselves into the
proper pattern at the right moment.
-Hart Crane

5. Essential Questions
How do I effectively teach
vocabulary?
How do I choose
vocabulary to teach?

6. Essential Vocabulary
CPR
Academic notebooks
Survival of the Fittest
Semantic Feature Analysis
Word Sort

8. Rationale
Research conducted in the
past ten years indicates that
vocabulary knowledge is the
single most important factor
contributing to
comprehension.

9. Myth
Wide reading will suffice as
the primary vehicle for
learning vocabulary

10. Factoids
 Explicit teaching of vocabulary is
essential
 Vocabulary demands balloons to
85,000 words at the secondary
level
 Conversational speech consists of
only 5,000 – 7,000 words

11. Six Steps to Vocabulary Instruction
1. Teacher
provided
explicit/direct
instruction
2. Students
restate in own
words
3. Students
create
nonlinguistic
representation
of term

12. Steps Continued
4. Students engage in activities
5. Students discuss terms
6. Students are involved in games

13. Step 1 Explicit Instruction
 A dwarf planet is a celestial body
that
 (a) is in orbit around the Sun,
 (b) has sufficient mass for its self-
gravity to overcome rigid body forces
so that it assumes a hydrostatic
equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
 (c) has not cleared the
neighborhood around its orbit, and
 (d) is not a satellite.

14. What’s the
difference?
Definition Description
Formal
language
Everyday
language

15. Definition/Description
Word Definition Description
Covert Kept from
sight; secret;
hidden
Describes
something that
is done in a
hidden or
secret way
Illusion Appearance or
feeling that
mislead because
it is not real
Something that
looks like one
thing but is really
something else or
is not there at all

16. Step 2 Restate in Own Terms

17. Academic Notebook (SSR)
My Description Representation New Insight

18. Step 3 DRAWING
 Draw the actual term, that is diameter,
triangle, circle, etc.
 Draw the familiar symbol for the term, that
is DNA, Justice, etc.
 Draw an actual illustration of the action the
term depicts such as food chain.
 Draw graphics for terms easily
represented that way, that is,
centralization, decentralization, etc.
 Dramatize the term using cartoon bubbles
that represent the meaning.

19. Term, phrase
Category: (standard, unit, alphabetical…)
Picture/graphicDescription:
Related terms, phrases
©Marzano Research Laboratory

20. Step 4 Activities
 Comparing terms
 Classifying terms
 Generating metaphors
 Generating analogies
 Revising definitions and pictures
 Using understanding of roots and
affixes to increase knowledge

21. Step 5 - Think Pair Share

22. Step 6 Games

23. Work in Groups
CPR – (Janet Allen)
Survival of the Fittest – (Janet
Allen)
Word Sort – (McREL)
Semantic Feature Analysis –
(McREL)

24. What is it?
How and when do
I use it?

25. GAMES

26. Occasionally, schedule games that
encourage students to play with the
terms.
 Plan for games at least once a week.
 Guide students in the review and use
of important terms that you have
presented.
 Modify the games listed on the
following slides to be used in the
major subject areas and for use with
your students.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

27. Definition Smefinition
 This game (modeled after
Scattergories), requires little or no
knowledge of the relevant terms and
phrases. In fact, part of the fun of
the game is not knowing the
definitions. It can be played in any
content area (language arts, social
studies, science, math), and it is
best suited to upper elementary
through high school students.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

28. Definition Smefinition
 Break the class into teams of three, four, or five.
The game can be played within each group, or it
can be played with a whole class.
 Give one team a bowl full of folded paper scraps
on which vocabulary terms are written and a
dictionary.
 One member chooses a term and reads it aloud.
 Write the term on the board and begin the game.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

29. Definition Smefinition
 The team with the dictionary looks up the real
definition of the term.
 The other teams work collaboratively to
develop a definition of the term.
 The teacher collects all definitions and reads
them aloud.
 Each team, except the team with the dictionary,
guesses which definition is correct.
 Points are awarded for the correct definition.
 Students are directed to write the word and the
correct definition in their vocabulary
notebooks.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

30. Stream of Consciousness
 Possible definition: The water that
comes out of any faucet the Dalai
Lama is under.
 Real definition: A form of writing in
which a character’s thoughts occur
and continue in random form
without logic.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

31. Angle of Depression
 Possible definition: How far the
couch sinks down when you sit
down.
 Real definition: The angle at which
you look down to see something
that is below you.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

32. Recessive Trait
 Possible definition: All of the bad things
you are capable of doing but do not
actually do.
 Real definition: A trait that can be
inherited by a child only if both parents
carry the right gene.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

33. Review Activities
 Free Association
◦ Call out a term (the target word)
◦ Ask students to respond with any word
they believe is related to the target word.
(Small or whole group
◦ Ask the last student who offers a word to
explain how the word is related to the
target word.

34. Which One Doesn’t Belong
 Modify the game to be used in any
of the four subject areas (language
arts, social studies, science,
mathematics).
 Tailor the game to the vocabulary
abilities of students.
 Direct students to look a groups of
terms or phrases and identify the
term that does not belong.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

35. Which One Doesn’t Belong I
 A story about a man battling Bipolar
Disorder
 A story about a man who committed a crime
and is torn between turning himself in and
keeping the secret to avoid punishment
 A story about a woman’s abusive
relationship with her husband
 A story about a woman’s path to recovery
from alcoholism
Answer: The third option is an example of external conflict
while the other three options are examples of internal
conflicts.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

36. Which One Doesn’t Belong II
 The school is attended by many different races,
but each race tends to spend personal time with
people of their own race.
 A restaurant has one bathroom for people of
one race and another for people of a second
race.
 A country allows residents of one race to vote in
election but not residents of another race.
 A store is owned by a person who only hires
people of one race.
Answer: The first option is an example of de jure
segregation and the other three are all examples
of de facto segregation.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

37. Which One Doesn’t Belong V
 The square of the hypotenuse of a
right triangle is equal to the sum of the
squares of the other two sides.
 a2 + b2= c2
 c= square root: a2 + b2
 a2 + b2 + c2= 0
Answer: Only the last option is not the Pythagorean
theorem.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

38. Which One Doesn’t Belong III
 Helium
 Nitrogen
 Oxygen
 Carbon Dioxide
Answer: Helium is the only gas that
cannot be found in the makeup of the
atmosphere.
©Marzano Research Laboratory

39. Word Selection
Essential
Vocabulary

40. Questions?

41. Resources
http://www2.visalia.k12.ca.us/literacy/newsletter/April
%20newsletter.pdf
www.esd123.org/images/.../WashStateAcadVocabPr
oj41509.ppt
Building Background Knowledge for Academic
Achievement by Robert Marzano
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/vocab/strategies.html