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Descriptions of effective teaching often depict an idealized form of "perfect" instruction. Yet, pursuing perfection in teaching, which depends on children's behavior, is ultimately futile. To be effective, lessons and educators need to operate with about 75% efficiency. The remaining 25% can be impactful, but expecting it in every lesson, every day, is unrealistic. Perfection in teaching may be unattainable, but progress is not. Whether you are aiming for the 75% effectiveness mark or striving for continuous improvement, this podcast will guide you in that endeavor.
Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.
This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education.
Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.
I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.
And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.
A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.
Only stuff that works.
My guest today is Sean Morrissey.
Sean is a fifth grade teacher at Pinehurst Elementary School in the Frontier Central School District, located just outside of Buffalo, New York.
He is a former school psychologist who spent eight years supporting students' academic and behavioral needs before transitioning into the classroom, where he has spent the past 18 years teaching students in the first, fourth, and fifth grades.
Grounded in the science of learning and the science of reading, Sean's work focuses on helping students build strong connections bes- between sound, spelling, and meaning to support long-term vocabulary and literacy development.
He is the creator and author of the Word Mapping Project curriculum, a structured morphology-rich approach designed to make the inner workings of words visible and meaningful to students.
Through his teaching and professional development work, Sean emphasizes practical research-aligned strategies that help educators deliver explicit effective vocabulary and word study instruction with clarity and confidence.
I think you're gonna like this one
Gene: Sean, thank you for being on Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works.
Sean: I'm s- very excited to be here, James.
Gene: Very
Sean: excited.
Gene: Well, I'm very happy to have a chance to talk to you about something that I'm very interested in it always comes up in my work with teachers, and that is vocabulary.
And one of the things that I'm really interested in, especially, you know, hearing your background about being a school psych before
you became a teacher, was what did you bring from the school psych life to becoming a teacher and now having a focus on vocabulary?
Sean: Yeah.
I think honestly, the word is research.
So, like, I think school- the schools of education versus school psych is, like, r- very much more research oriented.
And when I was an undergrad I would … I was lucky enough to study under a big researcher William Pelham.
He re- he researched students with ADHD.
So I kind of learned like the research process and, you know, how, like, empirically validated treatments was kind of like the term used in psychology that we should be using treatments for students that had the best chance of working.
So that definitely came over into education.
Interesting in my school psych program during a c- consultation class, we were taught not to use the word research with teachers that as a consultation
tactic that they teachers w- don't like that word and you're not they're not gonna listen to you if you say the, you know, the research says.
So, and, like, that consultation class proved kind of correct, like, 25 years ago.
A lot of teachers didn't want to hear, like, "Oh, this has, you know, research support behind it," and things like that, which was really interesting to me.
So there, there was definitely like, I think with school psych it kind of brought me, like, ooh, you need to read a lot of the research.
And when I became a, like, an a- you know, a practicing school psychologist I think I realized early on a lot of the students that were getting referred to me were for reading, like, for suspected reading disabilities.
So, I definitely had to start reading a lot on the reading process and things like that.
I remember early on, like, the National Reading Panel, I think I read it cover to cover maybe twice kind of the full version, y- you know, 'cause I needed to know.
And I don't think I got, like, a ton of training in the reading component during my graduate program.
So research was like, like, big for me, so I kind of started off, like, really focused on just reading as much as possible.
Gene: So when you… I mean, a lot of the school psychs jobs that I know about unfortunately, it's, a lot of it is just assessment.
Sean: Mm-hmm.
Gene: And I don't know if, I don't know if that was your life, you know, a lot of it was assessment.
And so you are getting referrals for kids who aren't reading well.
When did you start putting things together that maybe maybe part of this just had to do with instruction, that there really wasn't any sort of, you know, identifiable condition or disability or whatever word we're supposed to be using now?
Sean: Yeah.
Yeah, it's a great, that's a great question.
I think as part of the evaluation process you're… I was fortunate to be, to observe in hundreds of classrooms.
So like I, I definitely like be- like as now as a teacher, like I think that gave me a really great foundation.
But you know, back in the day, it was balanced literacy, like in my district and in other d- in other districts.
It was Fountas & Pinnell, Lucy like Lucy Calkins, where, you know, I'm observing students during like the ELA block, and the teacher is working with a small group, you know, generally doing reading strategies in, in the upper elementary grades, you know.
Or maybe they're doing somewhat of a phonics lesson, but then all the other kids are at stations But it when I'm observing students, like in stations, you know, there are times where a student was off task almost the c- the entire time.
So we're talking like an hour of an ELA block.
And I was very research-based where I would actually, I had a headset and I would record every 30 seconds if a student looked like they were paying attention.
And I would observe another student that was like and I would rotate like the typical peers.
And there would be times where, you know, this, I would be rating the student off task almost the whole time, you know, for that hour.
And then, you know, you're looking at the instruction and, you know, students are reading like, like a level C book where, you know, none of the phonics patterns carried over like in a kindergarten classroom or in early first grade.
And it just, it didn't make, it didn't make sense to me.
And it then as a s- as a psych trying to assess for a true reading disability, it's almost impossible to do that.
You know, there's no blood test.
You're taking like the culmination of all this evidence.
But, you know, when a student is off task a lot, like you're not using like research-based methods, how do you tell if the student truly has a learning disability or not?
You know, you, it, obviously some students, you know, struggle more and you could see that, but it w- it was really difficult.
It, that is one of the reasons why I started to think about moving i- into teaching.
I had a really difficult time with that.
It was hard for me.
Gene: So when you moved into teaching were you able to carry a lot of- Good things that you witnessed, or were you more of a "Well, I'm not gonna do that.
That's something I saw that I'm gonna do differently"?
Sean: I think it was honestly both because, like, 'cause you're in s- like, you know, hundreds of classrooms, Gene, and I… There were some teachers who just were
brilliant, and you're like, "Oh, definitely they had the management down. They just…" You know, you could see the kids are, like, 100% active participation with students.
But then on the on the reverse side of that, there, there's definitely things like, yes, you know, when I start in first grade, I'm not gonna have all these centers
where, you know, the kids are just off-task because, you know, you can't manage… Like, it's really hard even when you're an expert teacher to manage that all.
Like, the cognitive load of trying to teach a small group- … and then have things, i- it… People say, "Oh, we can do it," but i- it's really difficult.
Yeah.
So it was kind of a bo- It w- it was definitely both, for sure.
Gene: So you moved in, so you left, said goodbye to school psychology, and you moved into the classroom.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: Were you as interested in vocabulary development in the beginning, or was it something that you just saw, "Wait a second, th- this is… There's a deficit here somewhere in our curriculum and I need to do something about it"?
How did that develop?
Sean: Yeah.
I think it w- it was honestly from the get-go.
Early on, and I don't remember what year it was, but I read Bringing Words to Life, you know, Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown's book.
And in- interesting, when I switched over to the classroom, I went through an alternate pathway, so I never student taught.
So I worked at a preschool to kind of get my hours and to get my certification in New York State.
My first true lesson was my observation lesson for teaching.
So, like, you know, I applied in my own district, but I had to apply for the job.
And I actually used a vocabulary lesson based on the structures in Bringing Words to Life.
So, like, the structures of, like… Well, you write about it.
You have a book on it.
Yeah.
The structures of a lesson plan are so important.
And I remember at the end of that lesson, I'm like, "Wow, that was my first lesson I've ever done, and it went really smoothly- … 'cause the structures were in place." Yeah.
And e- even the the administrators, they I think they were pleasantly surprised 'cause they knew I, I was a reader.
I loved, like, literacy, but, you know, coming from the school psych world, I don't know if they thought if I could do it or not, you know?
And yeah.
Gene: Well, well, I have to- make a confession here.
I was following you on Twitter, and you said something about bringing words to life, and it's like it just kind of, really got my attention because that was a pivotal book for me.
You know, I never… I was already consulting then, but I wasn't so I wasn't applying what was there, but I was sharing with teachers so, you know, some of the content and told them, you know, this is a great resource and this sort of thing.
So I have to say that that was kind of it for me as well.
You know?
Mm-hmm.
Read- reading, reading that book and and a lot of… the thing that was different in the book was something that you talk about in your lesson structure.
And I w- and I wanna talk a little bit about what you just mentioned about the coherent lessons and the structure being so important because you talk about daily instruction in vocabulary.
Can you talk a little bit about what that what that sequence is, the s- the sequencing of it?
And and then at some point we wanna go back to first day, and so don't re- don't worry if you didn't remember everything that I just said there because I know I wanna get back to that day one instruction.
Sean: So I think, like, when we think about the lesson structure, you want it to be fairly fast-paced where, you know, the kids are still learning throughout, but you have their attention for, you know, for that whole time.
So I always start off with some sort of, like, review or retrieval practice of what, like, previous day or days learning.
So with vocabulary, it's always, like, asking kids questions where they turn and talk about words that they learned either the previous day or a couple days before.
So you know, basically you're asking a student, you're asking the class a question, quick turn and talk.
You know, let's discuss.
So they're trying to apply their thinking about previous words right away.
So, you know, a- Yeah … and as kind of that retrieval practice.
Gene: So I'm sorry to, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think- You know, when we talk about retrieval practice, I think most people who listen to this podcast understand retrieval practice.
But when you're asking about vocabulary words that you learned the day before- Yeah … what does, what might a question-
Sean: Yeah
… Gene: look like that you're asking them to retrieve?
Sean: Yeah.
Okay, so like f- for example, say we learned the words, and I always kind of teach, I like to teach my words in pairs, like segregation and congregation.
So like I taught those words a- as a pair previous day.
So like a qui- a question would be like, "Okay, laws at the time enforced segregation in schools and public places.
What might have that meant for how people were treated?" And so you're just, like it's a, it- it's a general question, but the kids can have
somewhat different answers and, you know, they're talking with one another, and then I'm kind of cold calling on, on, on certain students there.
You know, it could be like, ooh "With trepidation, she stepped onto the stage and looked at the crowd." All right.
How did she feel in that moment?
You know, so like, you know, so then the kids are retrieving like, you know, you're, "Okay, whoa, what is trepidation?" And then okay, so she has this feeling of an- like then, oh, she's feeling anxious.
She's nervous.
There's a big crowd there.
So those are the type of questions that are like what I call retrieval practice, but it's more thinking, you know?
Well, and- And giving a variety.
Gene: And Sean, that, what you just described was what was most important to me in reading th- that book, Way- W- you know, the Ways With Words book, because that was the distinction.
It wasn't like, "Here are three possible definitions. Don't get…" No, dude, no, we're not worried about the definition.
We're worried about an understanding.
And and so, so that's your retrieval, but that's also the way that you check for understanding later and when you teach the words, correct?
Sean: Yeah.
So I mean, you could see, like, with individual students or as a group where, you know, which words do they seem to, like, pick up right, ri- right away, you know, as a group, and which words, you know, that are, you know, more difficult f- for sure.
So, like, in the future, you're gonna spend more time on the ones that the class isn't picking up a- a- as quickly as others, for sure.
Gene: Okay, so that's the first part of the lesson.
You've done the retrieval, and then what's next?
Sean: Yeah.
So in, in the first part, I actually… Like, there's a couple of retrievals there where I am…
So interesting with vocabulary I like to tie spelling with it.
So when you think of, like, mapping words in long-term memory I think people really have to understand you want kids to pronounce the word, you want kids to spell the word, and you want kids to learn the meaning.
You want all three of those.
Like, you know, if you leave, leaving spelling off actually hinders long-term mapping of those words.
Spelling actually really helps.
So, I do a spelling dictation where the kids are listening to the words in context.
So it's not like an active retrieval, but they're hearing the words in context in a different way, and then they're spelling those words.
So to help map to help map that into long-term memory as well.
So spelling dictation's always a part.
And a little retrieval of just… it's a little bit more memorization, but a little more retrieval of just, what does this prefix mean?
What does this suffix mean?
You know, like P-R-E means what?
Write it on your wipe-off boards.
So there's a… Those are quick, though.
Like, that's, like, one to two minutes.
Gene: Okay.
And, so retrieval practice, you having some new content- Yeah … covering it, and then you ment- you say that it is explicit instruction.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: And that's a term that means a lot of things to a lot of people.
So, so when you say you're gonna do a few minutes of explicit instruction, what does that look like?
Sean: Yeah, so I'm teaching the words directly, like, like I'm teaching the meanings of the words.
So, so here's kinda what it looks like.
So if, say I say "Okay, the next word we're learning is segregation.
What's the word?" Choral response.
We- I wanna- So we want kids to pronounce that word correctly right away, 'cause that's, that, that helps with mapping that word.
Then I'm on the doc- under the document camera, and I'm s- putting that word in syllables, we're saying the word in syllables, and then I quickly move into basically giving a f- a student-friendly de- definition.
Like, "Segregation means keeping people or things separated." So it's this, it's quick.
It's their first exposure, and then a couple of quick examples so that they can tie it into context.
Like, "In history, segregation kept people apart based on their race." You know, so you're giving a couple examples just like that.
So but i- it's quick, it's explicit.
You're not, like, playing guess what's in my head, like, "Oh, who knows what segregation means?" And I mean, we've all done this.
Yeah.
Like, I, you know, r- and y- you see teachers do this where, and then you call in a student, and a student is totally off, and you're like, "No."
You call in another student, "What does segregation mean?" They're totally off, and then all the rest of the class has listened to, like, three wrong definitions, right?
Or three wrong, and then that's what they're thinking about.
So I just wanna, like, give them, you know, what it means right away.
Gene: You know, a lot of people are, you know, look to you right now as the vocabulary guy.
So let's talk about one of the things that still persists, that we can't kill it, and that is, "Okay, here are our vocabulary words for the day. I'm gonna give you 10 minutes. Look them up in the dictionary." Does, do you ever do that?
Is that ever something you do or does it have its place?
Sean: I think… Okay.
Nu- number one is I do that 0% of the time in school.
Okay.
School, the time is just, minutes are precious, and I'm a, like, I always think opportunity cost.
If I'm gonna have kids look up definitions for 10 minutes, that's 10 minutes that they're not doing something else.
And are they really going to learn the words based on, like, a def- like, it, I it's just not a great use of time.
I mean, certainly if a student is reading at home, they're reading their independent book and they don't know a word, like, yeah, like encouraging students to, to look up, l- look up meanings of words, like, like, th- I would encourage that.
But doing that in school, I think we're too time poor
Gene: and so what do you say to folks who say, well, we'll say "Well, you're just spoon-feeding them.
You're just spoon-feeding them this information"?
Sean: Yeah.
There's a lot of words in the English language, and we can't, of course, we can't teach them all, but there are a lot of really important words
that kids need to know, and if they don't, it's going to really hurt their reading comprehension going into middle and high school and even beyond.
So w- I … we have to.
Like, in, in spoon-feeding, like, we would … We just want kids to learn.
Like, I'm gonna teach them, and they're gonna … They're, like, they're gonna listen and practice.
And it's not just, like, the definitions too.
Like, when you get into, like, if I'm teaching segregation, I'll teach congregation right after, but then, like, within that explicit instruction routine, right away I'm asking kids to differentiate between those two words.
So I'm giving them examples right away.
So, so, like, if you think it's kind of like guided practice where li- like, okay, so the people came together to sing and pray.
Is that segregation?
Is that congregation?
So they're differentiating, but it's very structured and, you know, w- right away you want more correct answers, and so you're not making it too hard.
But then the kids are spelling those words on mini whiteboards as well, so they're getting spelling practice.
So, I'm not … I don't … Like, I wouldn't call that spoon-feeding 'cause they're always, you're always making them think.
Yeah.
Like, that's the whole point of it, right?
Gene: Pe- people can't see me, but I'm smiling so big because yes, I mean, there are just some things that need to be mediated by adults.
Mm-hmm.
And I imagine that the way that you present that content, which by the way, is exactly the way you do the retrieval, you know, you put the words together so the kids are, the kids have an understanding of how these words are gonna be presented.
But those are sophisticated words and- and as I'm thinking about, you know, the different tiers, and I'm thinking about, oh, you're doing social studies.
Is segregation a tier two word or a tier three word?
Ir- it's irrelevant.
They- Right … they still they still need mediation from an adult.
Sean: Yeah.
And even with that, like, I'm, like, who cares if we're, someone categorizes a tier two or three word?
But, like, even with the word segregation, breaking it up, and we'll g- we can get more into morphology, but, like, breaking it up into
its parts, it's … You, then you're g- you're gonna, you're gonna think about other words that have those different morphemes in it.
Like in segregation, G-R-E-G, greg means flock- And segregation, S-E the prefix, like you're, it's, you know, y- the group, you're breaking it apart you know, versus congregation, C-O-N being the prefix there, which is with or together.
So then you're, like, kind of layering that in and you're scaling up and having kids think about the parts of the words as well, you know?
So you're always wanting kids to be thinking about li- like, you know, the whole word, the parts of the word, and things like that
Gene: So, okay, four parts of your lesson.
So far we've talked about the retrieval, which i- includes spelling and dictation.
Yeah.
The explicit instruction- Yeah … which you've just described, and then you have fluency passages.
Sean: Yeah, so, so fluency passages, you want, like, after explicit instruction, you want students to be reading those words in context, so you want kids to be pronouncing those words.
And these are hard tier two words, like when you think about… and they're multi-syllabic words.
So for upper elementary kids, you know, th- they're not always easy to pronounce.
Like when you think about, like, trepidation, segregation, you know, confidence, like congregation.
So you're embedding those words into into a fluency passage.
So then students are going through a nice, a fluency routine.
And the fluency routine is, you know, there's so much research on different fluency routines that work, but you're just embedding those words so they're practicing those words in context as well.
And it kind of changes up the lesson.
So the kids get up, they move with their partners and I think it you know, they're, I- they're mentally, they're, like, even refreshed.
You know, they're still with it in the lesson, 'cause you kind of just, you kind of changed it and you broke it up a little bit there.
Yeah.
Gene: A- and so, like you said, there are various fluency routines, so it doesn't ha- it's not the exact same thing every time or do you do the exact same routine every time?
Yeah,
Sean: so, so that is all gonna be de- dependent on the students in your classroom, grade level.
You know, for example, you know, if you're, if I'm a third grade teacher and my students are less fluent, I may be reading that passage first aloud so the kids can hear f- fluent reading.
They can hear especially the w- the focus words more.
They're hearing it in context from you.
So for sure.
You could even have kids chorally read as a class one time before they break up into partners.
If your class in fifth grade, if you have a fairly more on the fluent side of fifth grade, you may, th- those kids may not need all that scaffolding.
They may be able to jump right into, to partnerships.
And, you know, because time is precious, you know, the more time you spend on a fluency passage, it's important, but if your class is fairly fluent and you
can move through that routine a little bit quicker, then you have more time to do something else But even in my class I have a very wide range this year.
For a couple of my strugglers, when they do break into partners, I'll use like an echo routine where the more fluent partner reads a paragraph and the less fluent par- partner kind of echoes that, 'cause they need that scaffold.
They need to hear it, and then they need to read it right away.
It's definitely a big help.
Gene: Wow, I got so many things I wanna ask you.
So, after this, let's let's finish the fourth part, and then we'll go back and a- and ask some questions.
And then the fourth part is the, is independent practice.
Sean: Yeah,
Gene: so- So, so what does that look like?
With the selected words
Sean: just a variety of independent practice routines.
It may be like sentences and context where they're filling in previously learned words, and they're trying to figure out which one of these words fits in this sentence.
So, you know, and it could be words like with, like, the same, like, morphology base.
It could be like segregate.
It could be congregate.
It can be like an aggregate or aggregate.
It could be gregarious.
So just figuring out which words fit in context.
It could be writing tasks like because, but, so.
You know?
You know, the dogs were segregated because… or, you know, something like that where the kids really have to think and then complete, you know, a sentence in, in, in context.
So it's just a variety of independent where you want… You- they're put in there so the kids, you want them to be pretty successful, but you also want them to be thinking the whole time in various ways.
Sometimes it's just like, "Here's a picture.
Here are like 10 words we just learned in like the last, you know, three, three or four days.
Write a short story about this picture, and try to embed a- as many words as you can." And kids love that.
Like, like, they, they wanna write stories, and how creative they are to embed some words where, as an adult, you think, "Oh, I can, like, they're never gonna be able to do this." And they always rise to the occasion, for sure.
Gene: You know, so we've talked about your vocabulary lesson and you've r- you're recommending approximately 30 minutes a day that you're spending on this.
And most elementary schools where I work, at elementary, by the way, where I am, it's the same as elementary where you are.
Sean: Okay.
Gene: I learned that in New York.
I had never heard elementary, so I was ready fo- I was ready for you Sean.
So most elementary blocks are like at least 90 minutes.
Sometimes they're 120 minutes.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: So you, you described a big portion of this block as designated for vocabulary, but it sounds like you embedded a lot of stuff in there.
Sean: Yeah.
So it's just kinda layering things.
So, like, y- I think vocabulary, if peop- if people look at the lesson, yes, vocabulary stands out, but you're also spelling throughout the lesson as well.
You, there's a fluency within the lesson, so- A lot of times I think, you know, programs or teachers, like, they, like, put those, all those things into different parts.
But I don't think we have to put them into parts.
Can we put them in a structure that, like, makes sense and everything's interconnected where, you know, okay, it is vocabulary, but it also is fluency.
It also is spelling.
And then there's the other piece that kind of ties it all in.
It also is morphology.
So it's just bi- it's bigger than just learning, like, like this word here or this word there
Gene: so we've made reference several times to tier two and tier three words.
We haven't mentioned tier one words.
Could you just give a brief description for everybody who might not be up on what those tiers are, what they mean?
Sean: Yeah.
So tier one words are, like, really common words that, like, m- kids would just know, unless you're just new, unless you're new to the language.
So house, ball, run, those are tier one words that generally students know.
We wouldn't wanna spend time teaching them, tho- those because they already know them.
Tier two words, I kind of break these up a l- a little bit m- maybe differently than some.
I would say, like, descriptive vocabulary words that are harder than typical words we use in speech, like words for happy, you know, like euphoric, elated, you know, jubilant.
Sometimes we don't use those even as teachers in our daily, like, talk.
I would consider, like, that- those descriptive vocabulary words as tier two words.
Then I would consider, like, academic vocabulary that c- that words that come up in content areas like science or social, like function or aspect or characteristic or feature.
Those would be considered tier two words because they're really important.
They come up a fair amount, but we may not necessarily use them in our daily language that much.
But these are vital words for kids to know or it could really if they don't, it's gonna really hinder their comprehension of the material for sure.
Gene: And then the tier three?
Sean: Yeah, tier three words are, like, specific to, like, the content area.
Like maybe, like, photosynthesis for science.
You know, that would be more of, like, a, of a tier thr- three word that we're gonna generally teach that in, in the con- in the content area where you know, for the most part.
Gene: So it sounds like a lot of work has to be and the work that we just described in your lesson, mainly tier two, there could be some tier three- Yeah … but mainly tier two words.
How do you determine- which tier two words to use to teach?
Sean: Yeah.
So I don't think there's like a, there's not a, like a per- like a perfect answer for this.
There are a couple, like there are a couple lists out there.
Like there's a list called Coxhead's Academic Word List.
I think they're out of Australia.
I think about 25 years ago, they actually looked up the corpus of like words that are in like a lot of like high school and college textbooks, and they kind of ranked ordered what words came up more often.
Like the word benefit would be one of those words.
So like that list, there's a lot of words that come up a lot that I think are important to teach.
But you know, after like those lists, it's just like words that, you know, you think that would be really important for kids to know, and how to like scale that up.
Like, you know, if you're doing words for happy, let's talk and teach a bunch of those.
Let's not just do one.
Let's really focus on, you know, satisfied, content, you know, elated, euphoric, and getting some range of like happiness as well.
So it's just like studying words in groups.
I think some words in groups are more important, like words for change.
You know, y- there's so many important words that have to do you know, with change.
You know, you know, you have evolve, you have adapt, you have morph, you know?
So like thinking about all of those type of words I think like in some of those categories are really important.
Gene: So as you choose these words and wherever teachers get a list like that, Do they include the morphology that you talk about, or is that something that you need to now create?
Or do the lists include some of that content, or is that… Th- this is where your work benefits the teachers?
Sean: Yeah.
I think, like, you know, I've embedded morphology just into my daily lessons.
I think that's a, it's a it's part of it.
Because you just… Morphology is one way you could really scale up vocabulary learning, because if you know a certain base m- means something, you can k- kind of start picking up other words other words as well.
So morphology kind of ties, I think morphology ties it all together.
Like, like for example, cult, C-U-L-T, meaning to grow.
You know, you have aquaculture, right?
You know, then you're thinking, "Oh, what does aqua mean?" You know, you have agriculture.
You have cultivate.
You know, you even have, like, words like multicultural, uncultured.
So, you know, trying to put v- various different words, but that kind of hold that same base is important.
Gene: So what do you think after… What's your goal for a year?
That you're doing this a whole year.
Like, is there a number of words?
Is that even a nonsense question, or?
Sean: No.
So I'm a little bit of an outlier here, Gene.
So, like, there's… You'll read in books, like, kids can only learn this amount of words, and, you know, we should only teach kids, like, you know, five, like, five, 10 words a week and things like that.
I don't like to put any constraints.
Like, typically, I probably within a two-week period throughout all my subject areas, oh, I'm teaching well, I'm probably teaching over 50 words Yeah, for sure.
Like, I'm t- you're talking about 25 wor- probably five different words a day, which seems kinda crazy.
But if your lessons are, there, there's … if you are in your lessons, and you're making sure there's a ton of different opportunities that
the kids are seeing these words and thinking about the words and using the words, and it's structured in that way, kids can pick them up.
But, you know, th- that's the hard thing for teachers.
It, it takes a l- it takes a lot of planning time.
Like, it's not … I think vocabulary's difficult 'cause it takes a lot of planning time to to do it all.
Gene: Well, you know, I think one of the things that I t- that I heard you on another podcast or saw you someplace, you talked about being able to
expand the number of words and that maybe they weren't as specifically taught, but they continued to be used in your language as a teacher- Yeah
almost as a positives.
Like, you kept going back to them, and just the repetition-
Sean: Yeah
… Gene: the kids would pick it up.
Is that, am I correct in how you do that?
Sean: Of g- 100% correct.
Like, I think that's one thing that every year, I think over the last 15, 20 years, every year I slowly get a little better, and I'm just using more words in, in, in daily language.
I don't know what the study was.
I can't, I forgot the authors.
But there's a study done, it was in second grade, on vocabulary, and they actually taped teachers, like, throughout the course of the year, and the students that were the best
readers, that had the best reading comprehension it, the teachers, they had the teachers who used more sophisticated words throughout the day Which was like a big, like…
So just using words throughout the day i- is so important, and they don't even have to be words that are sort of like in your, like, vocabulary lessons.
Like for example, the word ambiguous.
It's, you know, right away, like you're giving kids directions, the kids aren't following them very well.
You know, I never yell at the kids.
It's like, yeah, it was my fault, obviously, right?
So I'm like, "Ooh, those directions were ambiguous. They were not clear." So I'm like giving a little definition right with that, and let me make those, let me make those directions more clear.
But if you say like ambiguous like that a, like a few times throughout like that week, the kids just naturally pick up on what that means, and you didn't have to do like a lot of explicit instruction with that.
You know, and, you know, it's like, like I use this as example, like concur.
And my first grade colleague, I gave her that one about two weeks ago, and her first graders have been using it.
And like even the other day, she was … Sh- she came up to me and she's like, "Oh my goodness," like, you know, one of the kids an- answered the questions and one of her other first graders kind of said like, "Oh, I concur with Mary."
Like, just like said it like that.
And you know, so like it's very cool, and she just started using it in language.
Like, you know, because I told her, "Oh, just use concur and like say, 'Oh, do you agree?'" And the kids, like she did it, you know, a bunch of times, but it was, i- it's, it didn't take… It wasn't, it w- there was no time off from instruction, right?
She's just saying, oh, like if you normally say, "Hey, do you agree with Mary? Do you concur? Do you agree with Mary?" There's no more time, you know, for instruction there, and the kids are naturally picking it up.
Gene: Yeah.
V- you know, ve- very interesting.
And it, like you said it takes some awareness from the teacher's part, not necessarily a lot of time, but just an awareness of- Yeah
of some op- well, the opportunities.
Like, this is an opportunity.
Sean: Yeah.
I think we need to do, and this is definitely what I think we need to do, is we need to have words like that are, like, written down for us because the cognitive
load for teachers, you are trying to manage a million different things, and you will not go back to words like that, especially if this is m- more newer to you.
You need it there to look, oh, I need to use this word today.
And so it's almost, you know, like, sort of in your lesson at the, like, be- oh, I'm gonna use these two words today.
I'm gonna try to use them three times.
I'm gonna use these couple words the next day, and maybe Thursday and Friday you try to u- use, like, those five or six words just in your daily language.
But they need to be written down or you'll, y- you just don't think about it.
Gene: You know, I could see that would be a nice grade level activity or PLC activity or something just coming up with these lists because so many times there are nice lists, as you mentioned,
but- They don't know you, they don't know your kids, they don't know where you're going, and it's nice that at the end of the year you've got not just Sean's class, but every class- Yeah
has had an opportunity.
Well, I want to talk about tier three words for a second.
And you mentioned that tier three words are the related to the disciplines.
And so for example, you used the example of photosynthesis might be a word that- Yeah … that you're gonna be teaching.
I'm gonna make a statement based on our conversation so far and if you concur, let me know.
So, so photosynthesis doesn't seem to be one of those words that would be taught explicitly as a vocabulary word.
It seems to me photosynthesis needs a much deeper explanation about what's going on.
A- and the reason that I'm asking you this is because I know a lot of teachers when we talk about vocabulary, they make no distinction
between what are the concepts that they're gonna teach- Yeah … in the lesson that have a term r- tied to it versus just … I concur.
I mean- Right … you know, there, there's a big difference.
Right.
There's a big difference there.
Sean: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, 'cause the photosynthesis is a process.
So you're t- you're teaching that within the pro- with- within the process of that unit.
You're not going to like, you know, just teach that kind of out of the blue.
That, that needs to be a process.
Now, I will say after kids learn that word, like within the science concept, you could pull the morphemes out of that word, like photo meaning light, but, you know, generally that would come after.
You know, that would come after,
Gene: it's almost as a cue for them to remember the concept.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: But knowing it beforehand it's like reading a dictionary definition.
It's not really that useful unless you know what's underneath it.
Sean: Right, right, right.
Gene: Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
S- so, so when you're doing your vocabulary routine, those tier three words- Are not in them, are not in the they're g- they're gonna be in your lessons about the content.
Sean: Yeah for the most part.
I mean, there are some words, like if people want it, like maybe say like democracy or autocracy.
Maybe some people may consider those tier three words.
But, you know, i- in parts, you know, if you're teaching the w- the root C-R-A-C-Y, meaning ru- rule, sometimes just teaching all those words because they g- they're
anchored back to that base that means rule, so like I don't think that's a bad thing to do either, 'cause then they're like, "Oh, autocracy, one ruler," and then
But in general, doing that within the unit I think is definitely more powerful.
Yeah.
Gene: Well, be- because even those examples like autocracy and democracy, there are still a lot to understand that the kids need some mediation on, on, on those terms.
It's not enough say, "Oh, we're gonna vote on it."
Nah nah.
Yeah.
You know, there, there's still more, there's still more mediation that needs to happen.
Sean: And I think what would … It's interesting is, like I wonder, like if kids are learning more out of context those words, but
they're getting a little bit of a base, if they're learning, then when the content comes will be a little quicker, you know, as well.
You know, but that but that's hard, 'cause you don't wanna, you don't wanna wait too much for words like that until you're getting into really in-depth, you know, kind of conceptual work in high school, you know what I mean?
Like- Sure … so there's a middle ground, I think, in, in some times.
Gene: Well, yeah.
Well, I think in social studies that really is a dilemma- Yeah … because we want to build this content knowledge, but it's at a seven-year-old level.
So what does democracy mean when you're seven?
Sean: Right.
Gene: Versus, you know, learning about the electoral college.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's a it's a very different type of thing.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's interesting, you know, as I've, … I was wa- reading Twitter once, and there was a teacher was sharing with you about the excitement that their kids had about learning vocabulary.
And I was tell- talking to a friend of mine and I said, "You know, I could just imagine that, that teacher is just a geek about, you know, about learning vo- learning words and just loves language."
And whatever identity a teacher has, that excitement is gonna spill over to the kids.
And I had … And then I was talking about you with my friend, and I said, "I bet Sean's like that. I bet Sean's like that." Is that how you were?
Sean: Th- I've been totally the opposite.
So I grew up in a little city outside of Buffalo, and like, w- I was al- I was always an okay student.
Like, ex- I think I excelled in math, but my language was never, like, really strong.
You know, people who know the SAT, like, I think I, I would … I struggled to get a 500 on the ELA portion of the SAT, and I just remember the analogies.
I had no idea how these words were related.
And you know, like somet- like you get there, "Oh, you gotta practice before college."
And I'm, like, practicing with these books, you know, I don't know how many, like a l- a lot of years ago, but I had no idea.
So my language was never, … I don't think my language was w- was strong early on.
I think honestly my language now is much stronger just because I'm teaching, 'cause I'm teaching the words.
Gene: Yeah.
Sean: Interesting.
And I'm teaching the morphology.
I think I've scaled up.
If I was ever tested and we had, like, a longitudinal test, I think the last 10 years would … I probably ha- I have a little spike because just of teaching it.
I'm better at it.
Yeah.
Gene: So, we're getting near the end here.
So thinking about teachers who just haven't really done a lot of work in vocabulary, or they've … it's been very rudimentary or it's been things that just haven't been effective, what advice would you give them for getting started?
Sean: Yeah, I think n- number one, small steps.
You know, you're not going
This isn't gonna be an overnight process.
You know, I think for me, every year I try to s- you know, slowly get better.
I think number one though, explicit instruction.
Like I, you know, I share my routines, you know, on social media where teaching, you know, teaching pairs of words.
Steal that, take that, and use that in all your d- all your content areas.
So like, for example, whatever reading program you use, you know, they usually will like say, okay, they pick some words out of this chapter.
Okay, take the word that they pick and then find a really good antonym or a word that's not related, and use, use the structured routine I use.
'Cause I think, you know, having kids learn two words and then they're differentiating right away spelling them, like that's something that you could take and implement tomorrow in your classroom for sure.
And one summer, and I did this, sometimes it just takes hard work.
I studied prefixes, suffixes.
I st- I studied roots.
And that summer I'm really glad I did because, you know, the … I just learned a lot.
And then when words come up now just, you know, off the cuff, I'm just much more comfortable.
I can stop now, you know, and discuss, you know, parts of a word like I couldn't, you know, 10, 15 years ago.
So some of it is just, you know, going online, what are the most common prefixes, what are the most common roots, a- and starting to just do a little self-study.
Gene: You know, you are, in addition to just in a broad sense the vocabulary guy, also so much work in morphology, which we did not talk about much at all.
Yeah.
We did not talk about much at all.
So in a- again, in addition to your work, which they have access to and we'll put it in the show notes, you know, where they could contact you what should- a teacher think about morphology?
Should they sh- if they're intimidated by it- Yeah
what, a- any suggestions for that?
Sean: Definitely.
I'm a big believer in word sums and word matrices.
So, you know, you can go online and look those up.
You know, so now I'm pretty good at creating those on my own.
So it's a little bit, it's a, it- it's a little bit, you know, there's a little bit of work learning how to create those on your own.
There, there is we could put in the show notes there is a website which it's called Mini Matrix Maker, Neil Ramsden, where you can make those on your own.
But br- having kids look at a matrix and seeing prefixes like- Thinking about, like, the matrix like using the word cult, you know, then you have like a suffix U-R-E, culture.
So they see these word parts in a matrix, and kids are putting those words in word sums where they're actually, "Okay, prefix plus the base or the root, plus the suffix," and then they're writing the whole word, and they're really playing with words there.
"Oh, is this a real word?" And then teachers discussing.
Learning more about word sums and morphology matrices I … Definitely worth your time, for sure.
Gene: You know, the other thing that the way you talk about it, I could also see a lot of these activities like as sponge activities.
You're lined up at the door, and, you know, you're asking these questions, you know?
Turn to your partner, you know.
The the kid that was frightened on the … What was the word?
The kid that was frightened to go on stage.
It was,
Sean: Oh, trepidation.
Gene: Trepidation.
You know, trepidation.
H- "Oh, we're having hamburgers today at lunch.
Anybody have any trepidation about eating lunch?"
Sean: So, and the fun part of it is sometimes, like, you just have these moments.
Like, I just wrote about this just yesterday.
So I had a moment where a, one of the a student l- gave me a bl- I kinda commandeered this student's pen, and I've had it for, like, the last two months, and I always lose my pens.
This is the first one.
It has, like, a big hand on it.
I love this pen.
Well, the other day I'm writing down under the document camera, and it runs out of ink, and I, like, I really played it up.
Like, I was just so distraught, and I didn't like- I paused.
Like, there was, like, silence, and the kids kind of were, like, chuckling.
But then the kids started playing 'cause, like, they know, like, like, we're all kinda word nerds now, and literally one of … The first kid goes, "Mr.
Morrissey, you look a bit distraught." And I, like, kinda nod, and then w- the other one, one student shouts out, "Oh, he's solemn." And one other student's like-
"He's feeling melancholy." So I'm, like, getting, like, giddy here, and one from the back is like, "He's almost despondent." So, and that's just, like, they- just, like, natural.
Yeah.
Just so much fun.
And then w- like, a- at the end there, you know, one kid ca- one of my students came up, gave me a pat on the back, and I'm like, and I'm just like, "Oh, thank you for being so compassionate."
And it ended with one of my students took their little, like, car- pen cartridge out of their pen and held it up and like, "We can transplant this, Mr. Morrissey." So, yeah.
It just, like, those are the moments where, like, ooh, the whole class is, like, on board.
Gene: Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
That's great.
Sean, I could talk to you all day about this.
You have any questions for me?
Sean: You know, like, thinking about … Yeah a couple.
Like, when we … You wrote y- kind of the what your books are, and we want like … I have so much collaboration, like, on, on X, which, like, professionally, I think that kinda
saved me, where it seems like it's really hard for schools still collaborating, like, even for new teachers to be, like, coming up to veteran teachers, asking questions and that.
it still seems like we're not quite there yet.
And, you know, some schools don't have coaching models.
How do we kinda break that, where people feel comfortable, like, trying to learn from others outside of maybe, like, Twitter, outside of X?
Gene: Well, man, you asked a big question.
It's a loaded
Sean: question, yeah.
Gene: It's a big question.
I'm gonna give you a small answer, and it is something that is so common that I think you're gonna recognize it.
And your original question had to do about being able to collaborate, coming together to talk about things.
Yeah.
And gosh, it's gonna get back to some vocabulary.
And that is there needs to be a shared vocabulary about instruction.
Just like I went, kept going back and asking you to clarify what you're doing with regards to explicit instruction there is no agreement about a lot of the things we do about instruction.
Sean: Mm-hmm.
Gene: You, if you're on X, you know, and you mention something about "Oh, this is what I do for retrieval," sure enough, somebody's gonna say, "Well, that's not retrieval, That's not it.
That's a lethal mutation.
And then he says, "Well, what about this? What about that?" And so I think one of the first things when we ever work with a district is let's come up with a shared vocabulary.
Sean: Mm-hmm.
Gene: And it's not a shared vocabulary … Gosh, it goes right back to what you're talking about, Sean.
It's not a shared vocabulary of, "Okay, here are some potential definitions. Do we agree on the definition?" No.
What does it look like in action?
What does it look like operationalized?
Can we distinguish between this and this given the situation?
Mm-hmm.
So it takes … That that's the first step.
Otherwise, you cannot communicate.
Another thing that you said before, it's complicated.
Teaching is complicated.
And so there are all of these different moments that we have to name somehow- Yeah … and agree and agree on it because you could have a grade level meeting, and you could be talking about things and say, "We're gonna do explicit instruction."
And, "Okay, great, that sounds great." You do what you just described, and somebody does, "Well, I'm gonna have the kids look them up in the
dictionary, and then we're gonna talk about it." So, that, that's the first thing, agree on a some vocabulary, but not just on the words.
Agree on what it looks like.
Sean: Mm-hmm.
Gene: And s- and so now we can talk about it.
If you don't, then the, you just wasted your time.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: Now, how you get to that is the question, and that takes some professional development.
It takes some coaching because the other thing about professional development, if you just talked about this, that we need a shared vocabulary a real common thing that teachers will say, "Well, we already do that."
Yeah.
We already, we al- we already do retrieval.
We already do this." And so, if you don't have an opportunity to be observed- to check that then we really don't know what's going on.
And that gets back to, you know, eventually down the road, what we need is to Sean to be able to come into Gene's class and see what I'm doing, and vice versa.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: And then, and now we can talk about it, because we could talk about, "Oh, this is where I'm doing the explicit instruction. This is where
I'm doing the practice, e- et cetera, et cetera." But we, there's just too many assumptions that we know what the other person is talking about.
Right.
And that was one of the reasons that I wanted in my questions today, is to clarify some of those things.
Because it's easy to look at your four things that you do, say, "I do that. I do that." You know, maybe you call it that, but it's not the same, it's not the same thing.
Sean: Yeah.
And I think v- videotaping, and I've just started to do this in the last year or so, v- videotaping lessons is a game changer.
You know?
So, 'cause I think it, it helps others, like, "Oh, that's what it looks like." And it also like, like when you're reflecting on y- like your own, you know, watching yourself it's a little humbling.
You're, you know, like, "Oh, boy, that student wasn't paying attention for 10 whole minutes, and I didn't-
like, like, and like y- you're a veteran teacher.
It's like, oh, and I didn't even notice that because teaching's hard.
You're, there's- Yeah … so much involved and, you know, videotaping is something that I'm going to keep doing as much as possible.
Gene: you know, if you have status as a teacher on staff, and you're doing that and sharing that's important because a lot of teachers are afraid to do that for whatever reason.
Yeah.
And so I, I think that's important that they know you're doing that, and that you're welcome to look.
Sean: Yeah.
Gene: You know, and talk.
In fact if I was a coach at your site, I might even suggest to you, Sean, let anybody who wants to take a look at your lesson, but do it with them.
Mm-hmm.
So you can point out what you did.
You know, they didn't know that it took you six weeks to develop that routine.
Yeah.
You know, they say, "I'm gonna go do it," and then it doesn't work, and then I you know.
So, I just think that there is so much that a coach can do- to move things along more quickly to help develop that culture that you're talking about to work with other teachers, to be able to share everything and to be able to talk about it.
And the reality is there is stuff that you've created, but without you talking about it, having a chance to discuss it- It's just gonna go over some people's heads Yeah So-
Sean: yeah.
Gene: Well, Sean, it has been a pleasure.
I learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing you.
Just so folks know, this is gonna be out.
You can- they can come see both of us in Atlanta, and then the following week in Houston at at ResearchEd, and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person.
Sean: I am as well.
I am as well.
Gene: All right, so thank you, and we'll talk soon.
Sean: Okay, great.
Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend.
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