Deepening Comprehension with Six Steps of Vocabulary Instruction:
Honor Marzano’s 6 Steps
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Honor Marzano’s 6 STEPS
STEP 1:
EXPLAIN
STEP 2:
RESTATE
STEP 3:
SHOW
STEP 4:
DEVELOP
STEP 5:
REFINE
STEP 6:
PLAY
Marzano’s 6-step, systematic approach to teaching a vocabulary word includes: EXPLAIN, RESTATE, SHOW, DEVELOP, REFINE, & PLAY. Learn more by reading Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement.
Add a tech twist to Marzano’s six steps of vocabulary instruction. Expose students to various technology tools that they could utilize as they work with a word. These include apps, websites, and various digital resources.
Step 1: Explain the word’s meaning
Check students’ level of background knowledge
Provide kid-friendly examples
Students need to hear an informal definition of a term presented in kid-friendly language. Offer examples that relate to students’ background knowledge.
Brainstorm additional kid-friendly examples using the results of students’ reading interest inventories.
Build a word bank
Add the new term to the physical environment on a bulletin board, chart paper, or presentation board.
Heritage Hills Elementary
Physical Education Word Bank
Triton Elementary
Math Word Bank
Presentation Board
Stick-With-It Word Strips
Step 2: Restate the word’s meaning
Layer initial understanding
After the teacher introduces and explains the term to students in a variety of ways, the students will then restate the meaning in their own words.
Add terms to vocabulary notebooks
Step 3: Show the word’s meaning
Locate digital images to represent the term’s meaning
Flip through print text
Label evidence of a term’s meaning based on illustrations from a wordless picture book, magazine, newspaper, clipart, photo file, catalog, etc.
Draw a visual representation
Teach students five ways to draw or depict the meaning of a term over multiple lessons or days.
Draw accurate shapes.
Before students can draw shapes independently, they may need to trace shapes.
Draw side-by-side with students, showing how to draw simple (sometimes seasonal) objects line-by-line.
Numerous lessons within the Launching the Writer’s Workshop: Grades K-2 resources support students drawing accurate and detailed pictures.
Apply Step 3 to spelling words
Second grade teacher Janice Reed of Riverview Elementary School (Marion, IN) believes her students don’t really know the meaning of the weekly spelling words unless they can conjure up a visual representation for them. Notice how these second graders draw and label their words.
Encourage visual representations
Create a 3-D representation using Play-Doh. In addition to viewing their creations, listen to their rationalizations for what they made. Their understanding of the term comes out in that explanation.
Highlight purple words. Celebrate accurate and precise use of vocabulary in student writing by stroking those words with the purple highlighter.
Step 4: Develop a deeper understanding
Create lists of related words or descriptions
Lists and Haiku poems allow students to use vocabulary and their knowledge of the content without getting bogged down with syntax or sentence structure. See examples at Kidzone.
At Haiku at Read Write Think.org, students first brainstorm words on a topic and record the number of syllables for easy placement within the haiku. Students can customize fonts and backgrounds. Access Kristi’s Music Haiku as an example.
Use concept sorts.
Concept sorts are powerful ways to introduce vocabulary or to give students repeated practice. Sort terms, pictures, text features, and quotes pulled from content areas.
Access the Reading Rockets resource website for ideas about planning a sorting activity and to view a clip of Cathy Doyle’s second graders (Evanston, IL).
Step 5: Refine understanding with peer interaction
Allow students to pool their thinking with peer interaction
Conduct a picture scramble
Groups compete to find evidence of vocabulary words.
Use a busy scene like these images from archived Highlights magazines.
(Download all six as an 11×17 PDF or click each JPEG image.)
Complete an information pyramid
Students customize their understandings by completing an Information Pyramid with no one right answer.
Information Pyramid
Template | Template with Summary
Dissect abstract concept words
Generate ABC lists.
Poster | Word | PDF | Smartboard | Promethean | Google
Interview the word.
Students personify the word by pretending to interview it. Provide sample interview questions and use the interview script template. Students can perform their scripts aloud to see if anyone can guess the word.
The Bio-Poem requires students to think deeply about how a word would think, feel, or behave as if it were a person.
Step 6: Play with words to cement understanding
Review terms with Headbands
Require students to quickly recall a term’s meaning and application while playing various games.
Play Headbands to have students ask questions and guess the vocabulary words of your choice.
Charades Kids! is a free app with categories and an option to customize your own deck.
Heads Up! Guess the word on the screen from your friends’ clues before the time runs out!
Access the card-generating website kitzkikz.com to create your own set of flashcards for FREE!
Taboo obvious words
Just like the game, students have to get their class/team to guess a relevant content-area term—without using the most common words associated with it.
Play Cubing
Review several terms in a small-group activity.
Play Cubing as a whole class using virtual dice.
Make connections
Students make as many connections to a word as they can while gently tossing a ball back and forth within a circle. Another fun way to do this is to play Spider’s Web and have students pass a tightly-wound ball of yarn back and forth to each other to see who can make the most intricate spider web of connections.
Access additional vocabulary strategies
Vocabulary Games for the Classroom
Flocabulary teaches content-area vocabulary through rap, videos, and songs. Sign up for 45-day free access.