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Liz Canny: Okay, friends, we're going to get started with reading this morning, so thank you to friends who already have your eyes on me. We are going to start off with vocabulary this morning, and then we're going to get to read a story.
VO: Many of the words that young readers come across have multiple meanings, and their meaning is often determined by how they're used in context.
Liz Canny: Thumbs up if you've ever heard of that before. Multiple meaning words. Show me with your thumbs.
VO: When students are still working hard to decode, knowing these multiple meaning words in advance of reading frees up their attention for comprehension. Watch us teacher Liz Canney at AIM Academy in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, preps her second graders by reviewing the words pen and park before they meet them later in a story.
Liz Canny: Who can read this one? Raising a hand. Edie.
Edie: Pen.
Liz Canny: Pen. Thumbs up if you know what a pen is.
Students: Yeah.
Liz Canny: I'm going to show you a few different pictures. What do we see here?
Students: A pen.
Liz Canny: A pen. We would write with a pen. You guys don't typically get to write with a pen at school, but it is something to write with. Raising a hand if you recognize the next picture. Bea.
Bea: A pen.
Liz Canny: A pen. What do you think this pen might be used for?
Bea: Pigs.
Liz Canny: Pigs. So this is a pen used to close in animals or where animals might live.
Student: Poor pigs.
Liz Canny: I want everyone to, when I put the next one up, after you observe, put your hands on your shoulders if you notice anything about the next picture. So hang on. Once you notice anything, put your hands on your shoulders.
VO: This pause is doing more than it looks. Asking students to signal on their shoulders once they notice something gives every student time to think before anyone answers and gives Ms. Canny a way to see who's ready.
Liz Canny: Raise your hand if you want to share something you notice. Marceline.
Marceline: It's a pencil.
Liz Canny: A pencil.
Marceline: Writing on a notebook.
Liz Canny: A pencil writing on a notebook.
VO: Up to now, every meaning has been something students can point to in a picture. A who or a what. This one is trickier.
Liz Canny: If we're talking about the word pen, it's kind of interesting there's a pencil on a notebook. But the word pen, when it's used as an action, as a verb can mean to write. Everyone pretend you're writing to write.
VO: Ms Canny isn't just showing that words can mean more than one thing. She's stretching their thinking to show that the same word can be both a noun, a who or a what, and a verb. A did what.
Liz Canny: I could pen a letter to a friend. I could pen my homework on the bus. Oh, that would be kind of messy though. Okay. We're going to do a few more. This word is park. Elijah, what would you do at that kind of park?
Elijah: Play.
Liz Canny: You might play. Good. Does anyone recognize this park? Oh, what does this park, Bea?
Bea: It's the park where they do all the tournaments for baseball.
Liz Canny: Yeah. So this is a sports park? Where baseball players would play.
VO: Using pictures to support meaning does two things at once. It activates students' prior knowledge and gives them a visual anchor for the word.
Liz Canny: All right. On the bottom, raising a hand, what do you notice here? Elijah?
Elijah: Parking lot.
Liz Canny: A parking lot. So cars are parking. That's the action version of park — to put a car in a spot.
VO: Now that Ms. Canny's students know these words can mean more than one thing, the next step is to listen for them in the story and let the context guide them to the right meaning.
Liz Canny: "Owen was a very young hippo."
VO: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; the AFT; and several anonymous donors. Special thanks to AIM Academy and the AIM Institute for Learning and Research in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. Reading Universe is a service of WETA Washington D.C. and was developed in collaboration with the Barksdale Reading Institute and First Book.
