Using objects to teach vocabulary words with multiple meanings

The activities we present here were piloted with students at a rural public school in southwestern Idaho having a large population of students from migrant families who speak Spanish. Two third-grade classes containing students at mixed ability levels participated in our study. Those students who scored 100% on the pretest were eliminated from the study sample because they already had mastered the material. One group of 15 students in teacher A's class (9 Hispanic, 6 White) served as the control group, while 15 students (8 Hispanic, 7 White) in Teacher B's class received the experimental treatment of using object boxes of words with multiple meanings.

Teacher A taught 30 words (fly, ring, comb, skate, nail, spade, tree, bar, club, pen, orange, shell, straw, thread, bow, card, kid, bulb, foot, column, saddle, basin, range, horn, mesa, slide, cone, mounds, bed, fan) via traditional direct instruction using overhead projector transparencies with illustrations of the different word meanings. She introduced and explained the concept, then guided students through several examples. Students practiced their new learning by completing worksheet activities during which they cut and pasted pictures of the two meanings next to each word. The teacher presented 9 words at each of the first two lessons, and 12 land form-related words at the final lesson.

Students in Teacher B's class were taught the same 30 words in a hands-on manner using objects, word cards, and definition cards as described later in this article. The teacher presented a different object box of words with multiple meanings at each of three lessons. Equal amounts of time were devoted to studying the vocabulary words in both classes. Teachers of both classes extended the lesson by asking students to find words in their own experience that had two or more meanings. Control group students worked in small groups to produce a glossary of the words and definitions. Experimental group students also worked togetherto create new object boxes of words with multiple meanings. Examples of their work are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

All students were administered identical pretests and posttests with two types of test items. In the first part of the test, a definition of a word was followed by two short sentences. Students were asked to mark the sentence in which the underlined word had the same meaning as the given definition. The second section test items each presented a word and asked students to mark all the definitions that could be applied to the word. Teachers read each test item to students during the test so that the assessment would focus on comprehension of vocabulary rather than decoding ability.

It was important to determine whether the groups being tested were similar at the outset of the study, or so different that results might be skewed in favor of one group or another. Students in both groups were found to be similar on the pretests. Group analysis of pretests showed no significant differences between the groups (Control mean= 64.6%; Experimental mean= 61.8%; tcalculated= 0.65; t critical= 2.05).