The word analogy makes many people shudder. It is associated
with No. 2 pencils and unfulfilled dreams of full-tuition scholarships
to prestigious universities.
Your students need not have those negative experiences.
This is not a test
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Savvy teachers and literacy coaches avoid those headaches by avoiding
those multiple choice questions for which there is only one correct
answer.
Instead, they develop reading and writing activities that create
tools for promoting literacy beyond mere vocabulary recognition.
The raw material for those tools is the open-ended analogy.
Research reveals an odd thing. Those students who are taught vocabulary
beyond the basic reading recognition level score better on standardized
tests than students with broader, but more shallow, vocabulary instruction.
Teaching word meanings
If students have never seen the terms glospit and frogel,
they will not be able to solve word problems that use those terms,
will they?
But just recognizing words or even having a general idea of their
meaning is not adequate. Before students can solve an word problem,
they need a thorough understanding of the meaning of each term in
the comparison.
Activities that promote in-depth
vocabulary knowledge are discussed elsewhere on this thread.
Teaching types of analogies
Before students can work with word problems, they need to understand
the kinds of relationships that are possible between words, such
as:
-
Synonyms
-
Antonyms
-
Cause-effect
-
Category-example
-
Part-whole
-
Object-use
Once you have taught students a few of the more common types of
relationships, model how to identify the relationship between two
words.
First, let students listen as you identify the meanings and relationship
of the first pair of words and the meaning of the first word of
the second pair. Then lead a class discussion about words that would
complete the second word pair.
Please note that to make this activity useful, you need to use
authentic examples from your curriculum. An illustration such
as cat : kitten :: dog : ? is not an authentic example for English
language arts.
Call for constructed responses
To be sure students understand how the comparisons work, start
with word problems in which students must supply a missing word
rather than selecting one.
Foster vocabulary learning by encourage students to come up with
as many appropriate answers as they can. Allow students to discuss
why some answers are "better" — more precise —
than others.
This kind of teaching forces students to go beyond recall and recognition.
The learning tasks involve application,
analysis, and evaluation. Students must employ critical thinking
strategies to find the best solution to the problem from among the
vocabulary options open to them. Using words that are not in their
vocabularies is not an option open to students in this situation.
Use informal oral assessment
Instead of giving students a quiz, let students give 2-3 minute
oral presentations in which they discuss for the class how they
solved the word problem.
You might have students work in pairs or teams. The presentations
can be informative, persuasive, or even presented as arguments in
favor of one solution over another.
The oral activities promote vocabulary retention by giving students
opportunities to speak the words on their vocabulary lists, instead
of merely reading them.
