There is nothing scientific about the way words are identified for attention in school materials. Some words are obvious candidates, such as selecting the word representation for a social studies unit on the American Revolutionary War era. But beyond the words that play major roles, choices about what specific set of words to teach are quite arbitrary. Teachers should feel free to use their best judgment, based on an understanding of their students’ needs, in selecting words to teach. They should also feel free to treat words in different ways. As Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will show, Tier Two words are not only words that are important for students to know, they are also words that can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students have opportunities to build rich representations of them and of their connections to other words and concepts.
In many texts, however, there may be several unfamiliar words that do not meet the criteria for Tier Two words but which nevertheless require some attention if students are to understand a selection. Consider the following excerpt from the short story “My Father, the Entomologist” (Edwards, 2001, p. 5):
“Oh, Bea, you look as lovely as a longhorn beetle lifting off for flight. And I must admit your antennae are adorable. Yes, you’ve metamorphosed into a splendid young lady.”
Bea rolled her eyes and muttered, “My father, the entomologist.” “I heard that, Bea. It’s not nice to mumble. Unless you want to be called a … Mumble Bea!” Bea’s father slapped his knee and hooted. Bea rolled her eyes a second time.
The first day of fifth grade, and my father tells me I look like a longhorn beetle. Bea shuddered at the thought. She absolutely detested bugs.
With fourth and fifth-grade students in mind, we have divided the 12 underlined words from the story into the following three categories:
| Tier One | Tier Two | Tier Three |
|---|---|---|
| longhorn beetle | obsessed | splendid |
| antennae | detest | shuddered |
| metamorphosed | despise | mumble |
| entomologist | muttered | |
| hurl |
The first column contains words that are important to the story but that can be dealt with very quickly. Longhorn beetle does not call for attention — students will understand it as a type of insect, and more knowledge is not needed to understand the story.
Antennae and entomologist are needed to understand the situation the author uses to set up the story, but the two words can be quickly described as “those things that stick out from an insect’s head” and “a scientist who studies insects.” More precise information is not required for this selection.
Metamorphosed can be explained as simply changed or grown, but to get the humor intended here, the information needs to be given that it is the type of change that certain insects go through, such as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. But, again, no more precision is required, and this is not the place to go through the elaborate explanation about the process or how it occurs. That should occur in a science unit about insects.
The words in the next two columns have more general applications and are consistent with Tier Two words. The words in the second column — obsessed, detest, and despise — are most substantively related to the plot of the story, which is about a father who is obsessed with bugs and his daughter who detests and despises them. Detest and despise create a kind of “two-fer” situation, in that they are very close synonyms that could be introduced together and used interchangeably.
The rest of the words do not play key roles in the story, nor is their unfamiliarity likely to interfere with comprehension. So, which other words are attended to, if any, is simply a matter of choice and convenience. That is, a decision as to the number of words taught might be made on the basis of how many a teacher wants to make room for at the moment. Factors in this decision may include, for example, how large the current vocabulary load is in the classroom, the time of year, and the number and difficulty of other concepts presently being dealt with in the curriculum.
Assume that there is room for several more words from this story. It might be convenient to teach splendid and shuddered, because they could take advantage of concepts already established for the story. Shuddered fits well, since something that is detested might well make one shudder. Splendid is also a good fit, as in: “Bea’s dad thinks bugs are splendid, but Bea detests them.” Or “If you’re obsessed about something, you might think it’s splendid.” These two words would also be favored because they have a bit more dimension to them than mumble, muttered,or hurl. This is not to say that mumble, muttered,or hurl should not be taught, but simply that, presented with the choice of words to work with, splendid and shuddered seem to lend themselves to a wider diversity of possible uses.
