Concept of Definition: A Key to Improving Students'...
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Concept of Definition: A Key to Improving Students' VocabularyAuthor(s): Robert M. Schwartz and Taffy E. RaphaelSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Nov., 1985), pp. 198-205Published by: International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199044Accessed: 12/10/2009 15:27
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Concept of definition: A key to improving students' vocabulary
This easy set of lessons using simple semantic word maps will
help students improve their vocabulary knowledge and compre hension in all subject areas.
Robert M. Schwartz
Taffy E. Raphael
Imagine the following scene in your fourth grade reading group. Eight stu dents are trying to determine the
meaning of one of their vocabulary words
? environment. The word has
been presented in the following written context: "You hear a lot about our envi
ronment these days, but not much about what it is. People talk about
cleaning it up, and it's true that much of our environment needs cleaning. The better our environment, the hap pier and healthier we are."
The group of students has been asked to write down what environment
means. The eight students can be seen
busily reading and taking notes; sud
denly Mitch looks up. "Can I use the
dictionary?" He looks up the word, closes the book again (without copying the definition or parts of it!) and says
"I got it! It tells what it is." Eric then adds "They talk about en
vironment in my science book. Can I use that? The dictionary doesn't tell
any examples." He busily looks up en vironment in the science book index, then finds words to describe it in the text. A few more students are heard
muttering phrases like "not a very good context," "they don't even tell us what environment is like!"
All of these comments involved chil dren making judgments about the ef fectiveness of the context clues, and about what information they need to
get elsewhere to have a complete defi nition.
What is happening here? This surely is not a typical scene in fourth grade
classrooms. Why are these students so
enthusiastic about finding out what a word means? What created their so
phistication in judgments about con texts? These students have been
participating in an instructional pro gram designed to help them develop a
198 The Reading Teacher November 1985
general "concept of definition" through the use of simple semantic maps.
Why teach the concept of
definition?
The concept of definition instruction stresses the importance of students' be
ing able to figure out new words on
their own, instructs them in what types of information make up a definition, and teaches them how to use context clues and background knowledge to in crease their understanding of words.
Most vocabulary programs focus on
teacher directed activities to introduce new words that will be encountered in a reading selection. The best of these
programs stress the need to provide many repetitions of the words, and
ways of making these repetitions meaningful (e.g., Anders and Bos,
1984; Beck et al, 1979; Hansen and
Alfours, 1982; Wixson, 1984). In con
trast, the concept of definition instruc tion helps students gain control of the
vocabulary acquisition process. The distinction between teacher di
rected strategies for enhancing vocabu
lary and strategies that students can use independently is important. The foremost means by which skilled read ers determine the meaning of unknown words is through the use of context clues (Alexander, 1983; Nagy and An
derson, 1984). Learning the meaning of new words from text is one of the
major comprehension activities re
quired when reading science, social studies or other content area texts. We
need to teach students strategies they can use to expand their own vocabu laries and to master unfamiliar con
cepts.
The concept of definition instruction addresses this need. Students are often told to "look at the context clues" or "look at the other words in the sen
tence," but many students do not know what they are trying to find. Further
more, they seem unaware that they
may have background knowledge that
they could apply to comprehending the text (Hansen and Pearson, 1983) or its
concepts. Also, students are often
asked to use glossaries and dictio
naries and then write a new word's
meaning "in their own words." Yet,
they are not taught explicitly what "de
fining in their own words" involves.
They may think they have understood these tasks when in fact they have only a vague or general idea.
Children have difficulty with each of these tasks because determining the
meaning of a new word always poses two problems. The first is specific, tied to the individual word (i.e., find
ing the information that tells its partic ular meaning). The second problem requires a decision about what type of information is needed to define any
word and how that information can be
organized. This problem is general and must be solved repeatedly until the student develops a strong "concept of definition."
The concept of definition instruction
helps solve this second problem. It
provides a general schema or structure for word meaning. In doing so it
makes students more efficient at se
lecting and evaluating different sources of information available for
determining the meaning of a word,
combining the new information with their prior knowledge into an orga nized definition of the concept, and re
calling previously learned vocabulary information. To establish this concept of definition, a simple form of seman
tic word maps is used.
What is a word map? A word map is a visual representation of a definition. This type of mapping has been applied to reading instruction
by Pearson and Johnson (1978; John son, 1984; Johnson and Pearson, 1984). Based on attempts by cognitive
psychologists to describe the structure of semantic knowledge, three catego ries of relationships are used in word
Concept of definition 199
maps: (1) the general class to which
the concept belongs, (2) the primary
properties of the concept and those that
distinguish it from other members of the class, and (3) examples of the con
cept.
These categories can be translated into three questions to guide elemen
tary students in their search for a
word's meaning: (1) What is it? (2) What is it like? (3) What are some ex
amples? This type of map is most appropriate
when applied to nouns, but can be eas
ily generalized to action words and other parts of speech. Figure 1 dis
plays its basic structure. In the center of the map, students
write the concept being studied. Next, in the topmost box, they write a gen eral word that answers the question "What is it?" The answer to this ques tion is a superordinate concept that can
include the concept and other related words. That is, it asks for the type of
thing the concept is. For example, in
defining sandwich, the word that iden tifies the class to which sandwich be
longs is the superordinate word food. Many items are foods; thus the an
swer to "What is it like?" specifies those features that distinguish a sand
wich from soup, pie, or other types of food. Some properties of sandwiches include that they are made with bread, have an edible filler, and are often
served for lunch. The answer to "What are some ex
amples?" requires that the student pro vide examples of the concept being defined. Examples of different types of sandwiches are easy to generate.
How can we teach the concept of definition?
Thinking about word meaning in terms
of these three questions is the basic
concept of definition that we would like students to develop and use. We have found that explicit instruction in
this concept of definition is useful with
students from fourth grade through college. We began to develop this in struction as part of an undergraduate study skills course to help students
clarify and organize the large number of new concepts introduced in college courses. We next applied it in instruc tional research with eighth grade sci ence students (Schwartz and Nicholas, 1982) and then with fourth graders (Schwartz and Raphael, 1984).
Since the work with fourth graders required more elaborate instructional
procedures, we will provide a com
plete description here. The instruction at other levels was basically condensed versions of this program which pro vides a guideline for introducing the
concept of definition and encouraging its independent use. In classroom use, teachers should extend this instruction over a longer period of time and a
number of content areas.
The students described at the begin ning of this article were in a fourth
grade reading group from a Depart ment of Defense school in Okinawa,
Japan. Their reading group received the concept of definition instruction
while another group participated in
regular reading activities. These were
academically talented students, aver
aging the 76th percentile on the Com
prehensive Test of Basic Skills (1968). (For a discussion of the research un
derlying this program, see Schwartz and Raphael, 1984.)
. The special instructional materials included five types of activities. The 4
days of instruction were designed to
provide strong initial support by the in
structor, with gradual transfer of stra
tegic control to the students (Pearson and Gallegher, 1983; Rogoff, in
press). (See Figures 1 and 2 for sam
ples of these activities.)
Lesson One On the first day, the children learning the concept of definition were given
200 The Reading Teacher November 1985
Figure 1 Word map
What is it?
What is it like?
What are some examples?
explicit information about what we
would be doing, why it was important, and how we would proceed (as recom
mended in Roehler, Duffy and Meloth, in press). During this session the stu dents were introduced to the idea of us
ing strategies to gain word meaning, to the need to determine what words
mean to fully comprehend text, and to the value of being able to judge
whether or not they know what a word means. This discussion promoted the idea that the new strategy could add to their control of the reading process.
Following this introduction, the structure of a word map was displayed (Figure 1) and introduced as a type of
picture they could use to remind them of what they need to know to really un
derstand a new word. Next, the stu
dents worked with the instructor to
organize familiar information in terms of the three questions used in the word
map. To maximize support for student
learning, this initial instruction was fo
cused around a categorization task (see
Figure 2). The following is a typical exchange between teacher and stu dents:
T: To answer the question "What is
it?", you need a very general word. This word would answer the question "What is it?" for many different words.
Look on your list under the word com
puter. Can you find a very general word that answers the question "What is it?" It could answer that question for lawn mower or dishwasher or pencil sharpener as well as computer.
S: Machine. T: That certainly is very general,
and it does answer the question "What is it?" Now we'll talk about the ques tion "What is it like?" The answer to this question gives details about the
word being studied. For example, the details for computer are descriptions of what computers are like. These de
scriptions tell things about computers
Concept of definition 201
Figure 2
Categorization tasks
SOUP COMPUTER
chicken noodle Atari
served with sandwiches has a keyboard tastes good a machine
is a liquid can play games on it
eat it with a spoon IBM-PC
served before the main dish at dinner has a screen to read from
served in a bowl people use it to write with
food has "memory"
Words in complete contexts
These examples are considered complete because they refer to one superordinate term, at
least 3 characteristics, and at least 3 examples.
Crops
Have you ever been to a farm? Have you ever seen a farmer work with his crops? Crops come from seeds planted by the farmer early in the spring. The farmer takes care of his
seeds all spring and summer long. Early in the fall, crops are harvested and taken to market.
At the market they are sold to people like you and me. Farmers can plant different kinds of
crops. Some plant potatoes. Some plant onions. Some plant corn and tomatoes. Fresh
crops sure taste good!
Words in partial contexts
These are partial contexts because they do not have all the components needed to fill in a
map and write what the word means.
Environment
You hear a lot these days about our environment, but what exactly is it? We hear a lot of
talk about a clean environment. Many parts of our environment need cleaning. The better
our environment, the happier we can be.
Student decision-making task
Astronaut
The space shuttle is in space again, this time with five astronauts on board. What an
exciting job to have! I'll bet people like John Glenn and Sally Ride really enjoy their work.
Definition: Astronauts enjoy their work. Examples of astronauts are Sally Ride and John
Glenn.
_ This is a complete definition. _ This is not a complete definition. Things to add are:_
and how they are different from other check the list again. Do you see any machines like lawn mowers or pencil examples of computers?
sharpeners or dishwashers. Can you S: Apple 2C. find any? S: IBM PC.
S: Has a keyboard. S: It isn't on the list, but there is the S: Can play games on it. TRS-80 computer. S: Has a screen to read from. T: Excellent. You used information T: Yes, those are properties of a from the list, and also from your own
computer; they answer the question experiences.
"What is it like?" To answer the last Note the use of contrast to demon
question, "What are some examples?" strate the difference between class re
202 The Reading Teacher November 1985
lationships (What is it?) and property relationships (What is it like?). This
tends to be difficult for children to un
derstand, and the use of contrasts is ef fective in making the distinction clear.
Independent activities were com
pleted in the instructional booklet fol
lowing this discussion. These included
having the students map words from
the categorization task and mapping one word of their own choice based on
their background knowledge. They then used the information from their
map to verbalize a definition of the
word.
For example, Natasha mapped the word ice cream and defined it as fol lows: "Ice cream is a dessert. It is cold,
yummy and melts in the sun. Some ex
amples are chocolate, vanilla, and
chocolate chip ice cream."
Lesson Two The second lesson introduced locating components of definition from the con text of the sentence in which the word occurred. "Complete context" senten
ces were used in this initial instruction to support learning of the definition structure. That is, the context senten ces provided at least one class, three
properties, and three examples for each concept. During discussion these
types of information were underlined, checked, or numbered so they would be highlighted and distinguished for later mapping by the students.
Generating oral and written defini tions followed the mapping. At this
point, we began to stress the idea that there was nothing magic about having three examples or three properties in a
map or definition. Students were told that additional ideas could be included in the map or definition if these would
help in understanding the word.
Lesson Three The third lesson was similar to the sec
ond, except the context provided for each concept was less complete. These
partial contexts meant that some of the
class, property, or example relation
ships were not provided. It was at this
point that some students asked to use
dictionaries, textbooks, and encyclo
pedias to obtain specific types of infor mation. Discussion in this lesson, at
the children's initiation, centered around the use of their background knowledge and other sources to locate
components of definition.
Bruce, looking for examples of as
tronauts, asked to get a dictionary. Paula told him it would be a waste of time: "Dictionaries don't have 'what are some examples'; you need an ency
clopedia!"
Lesson Four In the fourth lesson, students were
taught to write what a word meant, in
cluding all components, without map
ping the word. Instead, they were told to think about the parts of the map and use it to gather information in their heads. To practice this internalization of the concept of definition, students were given words in partial context sentences followed by definitions.
They were told that the definitions were written by another group of fourth graders who had been taught
word mapping. They were to evaluate whether each definition was complete and, if not, write in whatever additional information was needed. It was this ac
tivity that elicited many of the remarks
given at the beginning of this article. We found that the children who had
been led to develop the concept of defi nition were much more likely to inter
pret correctly the meaning of a word in
partial contexts. The children also wrote more elaborate definitions for familiar words presented without con
text clues. Finally when asked "What do you do to figure out the meaning of a new word?" they had a greater aware ness of a strategy for determining word
meanings. They indicated they would ask themselves questions and think
Concept of definition 203
about what they already knew. In con
trast, the students without this instruc
tion tended to answer "I would look it
up" (Schwartz and Raphael, 1984). This suggests that students can inter
nalize and use the concept of defini tion.
Implications This type of instruction has implica tions for both teachers and students. Students will find the strategy useful in
evaluating their knowledge of vocabu
lary, guiding their search for new in
formation, and as an aid in recalling other concepts. Internalizing a concept of definition is particularly important if students are to increase the effi
ciency with which they gain new vo
cabulary through reading (Nagy and
Anderson, 1984). Even small gains in
learning efficiency can have a large ef fect over years of school.
Having introduced the concept of definition through the type of instruc tion described above, teachers will find it also provides a shared structure for discussing new concepts. Concept
maps can be quite helpful in presenting information about synonyms, multiple
meaning words and other semantic re
lationships that are often difficult to
explain. Rather than providing defini tions for new words encountered in ba
sal readers, library books, and
textbooks, teachers will be better able to engage the class in discussion of
word meanings and a search for com
ponents of definition.
Vocabulary mapping has often been
suggested as a useful instructional
technique and learning strategy (An ders and Bos, 1984; Johnson, 1984; Johnson and Pearson, 1978). Estab lishment of a clear concept of defini tion makes students better able to
participate in this type of activity. For
example, in discussing related con
cepts, like compound and element, in
terconnected concept maps can be
developed to make explicit the similar
ity and differences among terms.
These simple maps can be expanded into structured overviews that display the relationship among a large set of
subject matter concepts (Barron and
Schwartz, 1984). We feel that the context of the class
room provides teachers with an excel lent opportunity to expand on the type of instruction described here. We hope this article will encourage teachers to
experiment with the procedure, and that you will write to us and share your
experiences in using the concept of definition.
Schwartz teaches and does research on
the reading process and reading in struction at Oakland University, Roch
ester, Michigan. Raphael teaches at
Michigan State University, East Lans
ing, where she does research in com
prehension and composing processes.
References Alexander, J. Estill. Teaching Reading. Boston, Mass.: Lit
tle Brown, 1983. Anders, Patricia L, and Candace S. Bos. "In the Begin
ning: Vocabulary Instruction in Content Classrooms." Topics in Learning and Learning Disabilities, vol. 3, (January 1984), pp. 53-65.
Barron, Richard, and Robert M. Schwartz. "Graphic Post Organizers: A Spatial Learning Strategy." In Spatial Learning Strategies: Techniques, Applications, and Re lated Issues, edited by CD. Holley and D.F. Danse reau, pp. 275-89. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984.
Beck, Isabel, Margaret McKeown, Ellen S. McCaslin, and Ann M. Burkes. Instructional Dimensions that May Af fect Reading Comprehension: Examples from Two Commercial Reading Programs (LRDC Publication
1979/20). Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, 1979.
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. New York, N.Y.: Mc Graw Hill, 1968.
Hansen, Jane, and Georganna Ahlfors. "Instruction in In ferential Comprehension: An Extension and a Sum
mary." In New Inquiries in Reading Research and Instruction, edited by Jerome A. Niles and Larry A. Harris. Rochester, N.Y: National Reading Conference, 1982.
Hansen, Jane, and P. David Pearson. "An Instructional
Study: Improving the Inferential Comprehension of Good and Poor Fourth-Grade Readers." Journal of Ed ucational Psychology, vol. 75 (December 1983), pp. 821-29.
Johnson, Dale D. "Two Important Approaches to Vocabu lary Development: Semantic Mapping and Semantic
Feature Analysis." Paper presented at the International Reading Association Annual Convention, Atlanta, Ga., May 1984.
Johnson, Dale D., and P. David Pearson. Teaching Read ing Vocabulary. New York, N.Y: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1984.
204 The Reading Teacher November 1985
Nagy, William, and Richard C Anderson. "How Many Words Are There in Printed School English?" Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 19 (Spring 1984), pp. 304-30.
Pearson, P. David, and Meg C. Gallegher. "The Instruction of Reading Comprehension." Contemporary Educa tional Psychology, vol. 8, no. 3 (1983), pp. 317-44.
Pearson, P. David, and Dale D. Johnson. Teaching Read
ing Comprehension. New York, N.Y: Holt, Rinehartand Winston, 1978.
Roehler, Laura R., Gerry G. Duffy, and Michael B. Meloth. "What to Be Direct About in Direct Instruction: Con tent-Only versus Process-lnto-Content." In Contexts of
School Based Literacy, edited by Taffy E. Raphael. New York, N.Y: Random House, in press.
Rogoff, Barbara. "Social Guidance of Cognitive Develop ment." In Contexts of School Based Literacy, edited by
Taffy E. Raphael. New York, N.Y: Random House, in
press. Schwartz, Robert M., and Susan Nicholas. "The Effect on
Vocabulary Acquisition of Instruction in the Concept of Definition." Paper presented at the American Educa tional Research Association meeting, New York, N.Y,
March 1982. Schwartz, Robert M., and Taffy E. Raphael. "Instruction in
the Concept of Definition as Vocabulary Instruction." Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, St. Petersburg, Fla., December 1984.
Wixson, Karen K. "Vocabulary Instruction and Children's Comprehension of Basal Stories." Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, St. Petersburg, Fla., December 1984.
Second graders learn best in cooperative groups Second grade children learned a unit on maps much better when they worked
in cooperative groups, with discussion, than when they did the unit individu
ally. The advantage showed up on both pos tins tructional and retention tests.
The cooperative groups discussed the map material and concepts. Results
indicated that group-to-individual transfer takes place in cooperative learning
groups and that orally summarizing the new material and children's monitoring of others' summaries contributes to the efficacy of cooperative learning. Fur
ther, the improvement occurred for children of all ability levels and was most
apparent in their retention of the material.
Structured discussion benefitted the children most, but even an unstructured
discussion produced better learning than did individual work.
For details, see Stuart Yager et al., "Oral Discussion, Group-to-Individual
Transfer, and Achievement in Cooperative Learning Groups," Journal of Educa tional Psychology, February 1985, pp. 60-66.
Armchair travel
Katherine Hatch, today a foreign correspondent in Cuernavaca, Mexico, re
ceived Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels "at the dining room
table in Kansas City on my twelfth birthday, and I've never been the same
since."
This was another world and whetted her appetite for travel adventure. And
yes, she adds, "I've splashed the water of the Blue Grotto, felt the wind blowing down the snowy slopes of Popocatepetl, marveled at the Panama Canal. I'm
still working on that old fabulous list that opened my eyes and my life thirty four years ago?and I still have the book."
Sabine, Gordon and Patricia, Books That Made the Difference: What People Told Us. Hamden, Conn.: Library Professional Publications (The Shoe String
Press), 1983, p. 59.
Concept of definition 205