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Should We Still Teach Dictionary?
Teacher question: I hope you can help me as I have learned, and continue to learn, new things from your blog. Is there any benefit to using dictionaries in middle school? Is there any research you can share that discusses the pros/cons of using a dictionary in middle school? The students are native speakers, but there are some ELLs. Shanahan replies: The value of the dictionary depends upon your purpose. If the idea is to teach word meanings or to facilitate reading comprehension, then provide the definitions directly Wright & Cervetti, 2017). All the looking-things-up and choosing among definitions increases “cognitive load.” That is, the ...
Vocabulary's Three-Legged Stool: The Place for Dictionary Skills in Vocabulary Instruction
I’m a literacy coach, and one of the teachers in one of my online classes asked the following question: “The article mentions that using a dictionary to define a word is a superficial method of vocabulary acquisition. While it may be too rash to discontinue using dictionaries, how should they be used in vocabulary instruction, and how much should teachers rely on them in the classroom?” Vocabulary teaching is currently in vogue; there are lots of good books and articles out there on how to teach word meanings. That’s good, as far is it goes. Steve Stahl used to ...