The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of explicitly teaching

students how to recognize and use context clues in content-area texts through a six-

were increased significantly more than students in the control group. Students who

received the six weeks of instruction more effectively used context clues to determine

the meaning of unknown words than students who did not receive the instruction.

Recommendations for further research are discussed.

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iv

List of Tables ................................................................................................................... viii

Vocabulary and Content-area Texts.................................................3

Two Types of Vocabulary Instruction .............................................4

Statement of the Problem .................................................................7

Statement of the Purpose .................................................................7

Research Question ...........................................................................8

Vocabulary Demands In Content-area Texts .................................11

Low-frequency Vocabulary Words and Concepts .............12

Multiple Meaning Words ...................................................12

Words that Carry Critical Meaning ....................................13

Vocabulary Instruction...................................................................14

3. Methods and Procedures ............................................................................22

Participants .....................................................................................22

Design ............................................................................................22

Procedure .......................................................................................24

Practice ....................................................................26

Control ...............................................................................27

Fidelity of Treatment .....................................................................28

Data Source ....................................................................................28

Pre-test ...............................................................................28

4. Results ........................................................................................................33

Pre-test ...........................................................................................33

Post-test ..........................................................................................33

5. Discussion ..................................................................................................36

Implications....................................................................................38

Appendix

A. Pre-test and Post-test .........................................................................................47

B. Sample Lessons from Instructional Program ....................................................71

learn outside of intentional instruction. However, students often do not know how to use

context to figure out the word‟s meaning. Additionally, the text does not provide a clue

that will lead to the meaning of every word. Moreover, students often do not recognize

clues even when they are present. Thus, even though context can be valuable by helping

Knowing how to use context is one of the most important skills that can be taught

in order to promote vocabulary growth in students (Gambrell & Headley, 2006). In order

for students to utilize context as a word learning method, however, instruction needs to be

given on how to do so. Teaching students how to use context should include steps that are

broken down appropriately to provide efficient scaffolding. The steps should be direct

suggests that teaching students to use context clues can be effective only if the instruction

is explicit, scaffolded, and provides practice and feedback. Explicit instruction can be

described as instruction that (a) provides a clear description of the task, (b) encourages

students to pay attention, (c) activates prior knowledge, (d) breaks the task into small

steps, (e) provides adequate practice throughout each step, and (f) provides teacher

and have found context to be a successful resource or strategy (Buikema & Graves, 1993;

Carnine et al., 1984; Jenkins et al., 1989; Jenkins, Stein, & Wysocki, 1984; Nagy,

previous studies lack the component of teaching students how to use context. A study

done by Nagy, Anderson, and Herman (1987) for example, investigated how well

students were able to derive a meaning from a word used in context. The results of their

study demonstrated that incidental learning of word meanings through the use of context

clues does take place, but no instruction or guidance was given to students in how to do

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of explicitly teaching students

how to recognize and use context clues in content-area texts. Explicit instruction will be

given in 18 lessons over a six week time period. The instructors will explicitly teach three

different types of context clues (synonyms, antonyms, definitions) that can be used to

The specific question that this study will answer is: Does explicit instruction of

vocabulary terms?

1993; Vacca & Vacca, 1993).

Content-area vocabulary will be referred to as the language or words of a specific

content area or discipline (e.g. social studies, science).

Multiple meaning words are words that have more than one known definition.

One must look at the context of the word in order to know which definition is being used.

Intentional vocabulary instruction is instruction in which the explicit purpose of

the interaction is to learn the meaning of a word. This type of instruction includes both

Incidental vocabulary instruction is when the overall purpose of the interaction in

a given situation is not to learn words. Many sources for incidental learning include

conversations, media, and written environments (Beck & McKeown, 1991).

purpose of this study, the specific clues used and taught will be defined as follows:

Synonym clue. A synonym clue is when a synonym is found in the context

surrounding an unknown word and it helped the reader determine the meaning of the

unknown word.

Antonym clue. An antonym clue is when an antonym is found in the context of an

Explicit instruction can be described as instruction that (a) provides a clear

description of the task, (b) encourages students to pay attention, (c) activates prior

knowledge, (d) breaks the task into small steps, (e) provides adequate practice throughout

each step, and (f) provides teacher feedback (Rand Reading Study Group, 2004).

Words are so common in our life and so central to our daily routine in general,

wealth of research that documents the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge

and academic success or achievement (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Irvin, 1990;

Marzano & Marzano, 1988; Scott, 2005; Stahl & Kapinus, 2001; Texas Reading

Initiative, 2000). According to Biemiller (2005) the importance of vocabulary knowledge

for success in schools cannot be over estimated. In order to be academically successful, a

Kameenui, 2003; Irvin, 1990; Yopp & Yopp, 2007). If the reader does not know a

sufficient proportion of the words in a text, comprehension is impossible (Stahl & Nagy,

2006; Texas Reading Initiative, 2000). In fact, a reader‟s general vocabulary knowledge

is the single best predictor of how well that reader can understand text (Anderson &

Freebody, 1981). Many children can decode the words on a page, but fail to comprehend

student‟s comprehension (Pressley, 2000). Thus, the relationship that exists between

comprehension and vocabulary is a reciprocal one (Baumann & Kameenui, 2003; Nagy,

vocabulary does not improve, comprehension may also remain stagnant. A student‟s

comprehension seems to be especially strong.

However, different types of texts have different vocabulary knowledge demands, making

some texts more difficult to comprehend than others. For example, the vocabulary

often necessary for them to expand their vocabulary in order to understand and make

sense of the text. Whereas with narrative text, the vocabulary is generally more familiar.

So, while some children may be able to read a story with ease, they may struggle if they

are confronted with a content-area text about a science or social studies topic (Duke &

Kays, 1998). Thus, content-area texts, or texts connected to a specific discipline, such as

frequency vocabulary words and concepts, (b) multiple meaning words, and (c) the

instructional purposes associated with content-area texts.

Low-frequency Vocabulary Words and Concepts

One reason content-area texts are more difficult to comprehend than narrative text

content-area and the reader may not have been exposed to the word enough times to take

ownership of it (Harmon et al., 2005). The word tundra, for example, is not likely used in

many contexts except when speaking about different biomes or ecosystems. If a student

has not frequently read about biomes and he/she comes across the word tundra, there is a

high probability that the word will be unfamiliar due to the infrequency with which it is

Wittrock, 1974).

Content-area texts also use multiple meaning words. The intended meaning of a

multiple meaning word is determined by how it is used within the text (Crawley &

Mountain, 1988). Sometimes a word a student already knows is used in a specialized way

seek. However, the word hide when used in a social studies text, may have a different

meaning, such as the skin of an animal. When dealing with multiple meaning words,

there are several ways a student might become confused. One possibility is that the

student may hear a word and associate it with one of its more common meanings.

able to understand that a plain can also be used to reference an area of land. This is an

example of one of the varying degrees of knowing a word as previously discussed by

Beck et al. (2002). In this case, the student has a narrow knowledge of a word that he/she

would recognize in context, but not be able to transfer it to a different context.

(2000) demonstrate and elaborate on this idea with the following example:

comprehend without that understanding. So, as expressed in the example, in content-area

text one word can be crucial for a reader to understand an entire passage (Marks et al.,

1974).

for all students to gain access to knowledge about the academic discourse needed to

knowledge is to have teachers teach effective word learning strategies that help students

understand and learn specialized vocabulary (Allen, 1999). However, to know if this is a

good solution, it is important to look at the vocabulary strategies being taught and

instruction with the explicit purpose to teach the meaning of a word. An example of

intentional instruction is when a teacher directly provides one or more resources, such as

a dictionary or a more knowledgeable person, with the strict intention of having the

student learn the meaning of a word. Beck and McKeown (1991) describe incidental

vocabulary instruction as an experience where a student may increase their word

teaching word parts like prefixes and suffixes (Graves, 2006), semantic mapping, or

using mnemonic methods (Baumann & Kameenui, 2003). However, one of the most

of words on Monday, looking up words in a dictionary on Tuesday, doing skill work on

Wednesday and Thursday and having a test on Friday (Rupley & Nichols, 2005). This

type of dictionary activity (look it up, define it, use the word in a sentence) is often

discouraged (Nist & Olejnik, 1995), yet it is a daily routine in thousands of classrooms

(Greenwood, 2002). Ironically, “asking students to look up words in the dictionary and

vocabulary knowledge.

While there are likely positive and negative aspects to every type of vocabulary

instruction, there seem to be a high number of negative criticisms towards intentional

dictionary instruction. There are many reasons why the dictionary method of intentional

vocabulary instruction should be discouraged. For example, Greenwood (2002) and Irvin

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of instruction designed to

teach content-area vocabulary terms through the use of context clues. More specifically,

Thirty-seven students from three third-grade classrooms within the same school

participated in the study. Each class was relatively small (less than twenty) and two of the

classes were taught by an intern, which is a first year teacher who has a full-time mentor.

A mentor is a more experienced teacher who acts as an advisor in helping new teachers

with curriculum and school culture. The school is located in the Mountain West and is

American Indian and 2% other. There were 19 female and 18 male participants. One

student received Special Education services. (See Table 1 for the Participant

Demographics).

A pretest-posttest control-group design was used for this study; however, the

Table 1. Participant Demographics

Summary of the Control and Treatment Participant Demographics (N=37)

Control Treatment

% (n=) % (n=)

provided the researcher with greater access in supervising the implementation of the

instruction and the ability to check for fidelity of treatment.

instruction intervention in a natural educational setting. This design consisted of

variable (Johnson & Christensen, 2004). The scores from the pre- and post-test were then

after the treatment was complete as well as if the dependent variable produced an effect

(Johnson & Christensen, 2004).

teacher (9 years experience) was designated as the control group.

Treatment

focused on context clues. The target vocabulary words used in the instruction were taken

from the social studies content and curriculum, which is part of the Utah State Core

social studies unit that correlated with the content of the vocabulary lessons. (See

Appendix A for the Pre- and Post-test).

The 18 lessons were presented in a small group setting (3-5 students). The lessons

were not scripted, but they were outlined in order to ensure that the teachers in both

Sample Lessons from Instructional Program).

included in the Utah third grade Social Studies State Core (Utah State Office of

Education, n.d) more specifically information on the Ute and Inca Indian tribes. The texts

found in the instruction were all expository text giving information on one of the two

of the 18 vocabulary lessons which were presented in small groups during reading

workshop. The pre-test was given before the unit on the Utes was taught and the post-

test was given when the Utes unit was completed.

The first of the 18 lessons was an overall introduction to context clues, followed

by five lessons focused on synonyms, five lessons on antonyms, and five lessons on

(d) breaking the task into small steps, (e) providing adequate practice and (f) providing

teacher feedback (Rand Reading Study Group, 2004). Each lesson, excluding day one,

contained three distinct sections. These three sections were (a) introduction, (b) modeling

and (c) practice. These three parts will be described in the following sections.

done to check their recall of the definition and to provide students with more than just

one exposure to the words.

the students likely did not know was presented in a sentence. The teacher modeled a

series of steps that helped students use context clues to learn an unknown word. The same

were (a) underline the unknown word, (b) re-read the sentence before and after the

unknown word, (c) circle the word clue or phrase that acts as the clue, (d) replace the

unknown word with the synonym clue, and (e) check for understanding. When teaching

the antonym clues however, rather than replacing the unknown word with the clue, the

student had to think of a word with the opposite meaning of the antonym clue and then

the words before seeing either word in context. The children alternated between reading

the text individually and reading it as a shared read with their teacher. This helped to

provide a gradual release of responsibility and prepared the student to use the strategy

when reading independently. The child then practiced following the same five steps used

each day providing a more concrete understanding of the new vocabulary terms. One of

mentally, to see similarities and differences among them and to consider multiple

definitions and shades of meaning” (Greenwood, 2002, p. 259). The ten lessons on

synonyms and antonyms used the same graphic organizer. However, the days in which

group retelling.

The third participating class (control group) received the same social studies unit

as the treatment classrooms and were administered the pre-test prior to receiving any

instruction on that unit. However, the students in this classroom (control group) did not

study were observed 6-7 times through the six weeks of instruction. A checklist was

composed that had all of the components of the lesson plan to insure that the teachers

The primary data sources for this research were the pre- and post-test that were

designed specifically to match the instruction used in this study. (Copies of the pre- and

post-test can be found in Appendix A). All text used on the pre- and post-test was tested

for readability using the Dale-Chall Readability Scale (Chall & Dale, 1995).

key vocabulary terms that was used during the 6 weeks of instruction. The key

vocabulary words found in the instruction were a combination of social studies terms

listed in the Utah State Core Curriculum (USOE, n.d) for grade three, as well as some

additional words chosen by the researcher. The extra words chosen connect to the content

being taught (the Ute Indians), yet were assumed to be words the students would not

assessed student‟s ability to use context clues to figure out word meanings in content-area

text.

Post-test

The post-test had the same items as the pre-test for the purpose of assessing

text containing only familiar content (Hall, Sabey, & McClellan, 2005).

To assess students‟ ability to use context clues, six different measures (three

instructional measures and three transfer measures) were used. The instructional

measures assessed vocabulary words students had seen in their instruction previously.

They were asked to define target word when seen in isolation (instruction definition

seen at any time during the instructional program. As such, the transfer measures

included the same tasks as the instructional measures (transfer definition, transfer

sentence, and transfer context) but were considered transfer measured because they were

completed with novel words and content.

The instruction definition measure and the transfer definition measure were used

having a narrow knowledge that is context bound and cannot be transferred to a different

context, (d) having knowledge of a word, but not being able to recall it readily enough to

use it in an appropriate situation, and (e) having a rich knowledge, or de-contextualized

knowledge of the word and its meaning.

context measure and the transfer context measure allowed the researcher to determine if

the student‟s knowledge of the word was context bound. For example, a student may not

have been able to provide the definition of a word when seeing it in isolation (the

definition measure), but when he/she saw the word in context were able to pick out clues

that helped to figure out the meaning of the word.

independently scored by two different scorers to check for inter-rater reliability. Inter-

rater reliability on the ten tests was 90 percent. On the ten percent of the scores in which

the two scorers did not agree, the score was discussed and a consensus was made as to

what the proper score should be. In the instances in which it was difficult to determine

where the student ranked on the sentence measure, the definition measure was looked at

scores were compared using a series of ANOVAs and ANCOVAs. ANOVAs were used

to determine if there were any significant differences between the groups at the outset of

the study (pretest). ANCOVAs were used on the post-test analyses, with the pre-test as

individual as the unit of analysis.

A limitation of using the pretest-posttest control-group design is that many

potentially confounding extraneous variables can influence the post-test results (Johnson

& Christensen, 2004). This questions the validity of the study. Did the assessment test

cannot be directly interpreted (Johnson & Christensen, 2004). Thus, the results cannot be

generalized to a larger population.

A limitation previously mentioned is that individual students were used as the unit

of analysis, but they were not randomly assigned to their classes. Classrooms as a whole

were assigned to be a treatment or control group, but individuals within that classroom

the word in a sentence, students would sometime include the definition as part of the

sentence, but not use the actual word. For example, when asked to use the word hide in a

particular example, it is clear that the student does have an understanding of the word, but

understood the meaning of the word, but were unable to recall the word readily enough to

use it in an appropriate situation.

as a word learning strategy (Allen, 1999; Baumann & Kameenui, 2003; Schatz &

Baldwin, 1986). However, this study adds to the literature suggesting that context is an

These findings have at least two important implications. First, this study can be

added to the list of those that claim that there is a role for instruction in the use of

contextual clues in the classroom (Buikema & Graves, 1993; Carnine, Kameenui, &

Coyle, 1984; Greenwood, 2002; Nagy & Scott, 2000). However, this study also adds to

the literature by helping to determine the role of this type of instruction. For example, this

was improved. Students also increased their level of word knowledge. According to

Carnine et al. (1984), in order for students to use context clue to their advantage, they

need to be experienced in using them. Explicit teaching of context clues was needed to

help students make the substantial gains that were made. When given explicit instruction

to use it in an appropriate situation (Beck et al., 2002). The students in this study were

given explicit steps on how to recognize a context clue and then they were provided with

practice in recognizing them. With this scaffolding and structure, in a remarkably short

period of time, these young students made substantial gains in their knowledge of how to

recognize and utilize context clues to determine the meaning of a word, which in turn

plans will help strengthen students‟ ability to determine word definitions of unknown

words found in text and may thereby help students to improve their ability to comprehend

passages. Knowing that vocabulary and comprehension have such a strong relationship

(Baumann & Kameenui, 2003; Irvin, 1990; Yopp & Yopp, 2007), it can be concluded

that the use of context can potentially help comprehension in all subject areas at school

This study could be extended in several ways. The data from this study indicated

that when students in the treatment group learned words in context, their word knowledge

was improved, but it was narrow and often remained context bound. Students were able

student obtains when seeing a word in context could be improved to a richer knowledge

of the word and its meaning. Could the instruction be altered in a way that would provide

students with a deeper level of understanding that is not so specifically context bound?

In addition, the data from this study also elicited many questions in regards to the

sentence measure and how it was used or could be used in future research. In order to

particular word. Having more information in these areas could extend this research

beyond just how context can help with student‟s reading abilities, but look to see how it

provide explicit information about word meanings, while context only provides implicit

information. However, they continue to say that one of the main weaknesses of

or written language? Future research could explore the idea of teaching context clues as a

way to improve writing as well as reading.

Knowing that teaching context clues improves a student‟s ability to figure out the

meaning of an unknown word, future research could also examine other ways that context

practice and feedback. These guidelines leave a lot of room for interpretation. This study

demonstrated only one way context clues can be taught and it focused on only three

specific types of clues. Is there a different format for teaching context that is more

effective and yields even better results? In addition, it is known that the meaning of every

to know many strategies for how to learn the meanings of unknown words encountered in

text. When students struggle to figure out the meanings of unknown words, it effects their

comprehension and overall success in school (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Irvin, 1990;

Marzano & Marzano, 1988; Stahl & Kapinus, 2001). This study opens up many ideas for

further study. Future research should continually strive to help determine the most

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used in the sentence, write down what you think the words means.

________________________________________________________________________

your understanding of the word. Look at example #1. If I didn‟t know what the word

Example #2:

Hemisphere means: _______________________________________________________

3. Jordan was elated when he saw that Santa brought him a new bike for Christmas. Jessie on

the other hand was very sad to see that she had only some new socks in her stocking.

caused sweat to role down his face.

The word recreation means: _________________________________________________

Preparation:

Materials:

How can context clues help us learn new words?

Over the next few days we are going to find synonym clues as we practice these steps.

means, so that other students can have the chance to figure out the words meaning for

themselves.

We will do an example together so you can see how the steps work.

III. Practice:

Teacher: Now that you have seen an example of how a synonym can be used as a word

clue to understand the meaning of an unknown word, you are going to have a chance to

practice. Today we are going to read about the Ute Indians. The Utes Indians were the

mud and sticks.

highlighted in red) Circle the synonym word clue. (Step 3) Record the synonyms on Day 3‟s

worksheet.

Graphic Organizer

dwelling: ______________________________________________________________