Teachers at every level are challenged to help students acquire vast vocabulary knowledge in a finite amount of time. I create time for vocabulary learning for my elementary students by integrating it into content area learning, using the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), developed by Emily Calhoun. This method of vocabulary instruction encourages students to think inductively and make generalizations, based on words or word features that they already know, and apply this knowledge to learning the meanings of new words. For example, in one PWIM lesson, my students "shake the words out" of a large picture depicting a science concept. As students label the words associated with the image, they create a word chart that is sorted according to shared features.
In another lesson, students might read aloud excerpts of nonfiction texts and sort content area vocabulary words according to their phonetic and morphemic characteristics.
To be able to read and understand these words in various contexts, students should write their own sentences, and eventually paragraphs, using their new vocabulary.
PWIM helps students develop vocabulary as well as reading and writing comprehension through related strategies such as the Read Aloud and Talk or Think Aloud method. With this strategy, students are able to hear teachers share what writers do intentionally in informational text to support reader understanding. They learn about common text features—such as labels, captions, signal words, illustrations or photographs, bold print, table of contents, headings, and titles—and see how to use these features strategically to support their understanding of a text and improve their own writing. PWIM can easily be adapted to different learners—for example, English language learners can use pictures or native words to label vocabulary.
Vocabulary for inductive word study can come from informational pictures and texts or data sets that teachers create. A language arts teacher might create sentence strips of examples and nonexamples (e.g., including a noun among a listing of adjectives) of different parts of speech, sentence types, or literary devices. As students sort and categorize these sentence strips featuring vivid verbs, for example, their think-aloud conversations reveal the emerging awareness that words like construct, build, and create have similar meanings. Students love this activity—it's game-like and challenging—and it helps solidify their schema of word knowledge in meaningful ways. Once students discover ways to categorize words, they love to search texts for examples of words or sentences that might fit into a particular category and share these connections with their peers. They also love challenging peers to guess the attribute that all sentences or words in a category might have in common. I have found that learning increases exponentially during peer-to-peer interaction, and PWIM truly helps students learn how to learn.
To get started using PWIM to grow content area vocabulary, check out the steps and strengths listed in Figure 1, which comes from chapter 2 of Emily Calhoun's book Teaching Beginning Reading and Writing with the Picture Word Inductive Model (ASCD, 1999).
Figure 1
Ask students to identify what they see in the picture.
Label the picture parts identified. (Draw a line from the identified object or area, say the word, write the word; ask students to spell the word aloud and then to pronounce it.)
Read and review the picture word chart aloud.
Ask students to read the words (using the lines on the chart if necessary) and to classify the words into a variety of groups. Identify common concepts (e.g., beginning consonants, rhyming words) to emphasize with the whole class.
Read and review the picture word chart (say the word, spell it, say it again).
Add words, if desired, to the picture word chart and to the word banks.
Lead students into creating a title for the picture word chart. Ask students to think about the information on the chart and what they want to say about it.
Ask students to generate a sentence, sentences, or a paragraph about the picture word chart. Ask students to classify sentences; model putting the sentences into a good paragraph.
Read and review the sentences and paragraphs.
The basic steps of the PWIM stress these components of phonics, grammar, mechanics, and usage:
Students hear the words pronounced correctly many times and the picture word chart is an immediate reference as they add these words to their sight vocabulary. The teacher can choose to emphasize almost any sound and symbol relationship (introduced or taken to mastery).
Students hear and see letters identified and written correctly many times.
Students hear the words spelled correctly many times and participate in spelling them correctly.
In writing the sentences, the teacher uses standard English (transforming student sentences if necessary) and uses correct punctuation and mechanics (e.g., commas and capital letters). As different mechanical and grammatical devices are used, the teacher describes why the device is used. After several lessons and experience with the teacher modeling the devices, the students learn how to use them, too.
