Children are exposed to words that have multiple meanings on a daily basis at school and social settings. Students are expected to access their lexical dictionaries quickly enough to accurately respond to a teacher’s directions or questions; however, sometimes the teacher’s directions or explanations may contain words that have more than one meaning, making it very difficult for children with limited vocabulary knowledge to understand. Students who are learning to read can also experience reading comprehension difficulties when reading a new word or a word that has multiple meanings (Adams, M., 1990). Understanding words with multiple meaning is also importing in social settings, as children need to employ figurative and humorous usage of multiple meanings. Children who struggle with multiple meanings, for example, may not understand the inferences or jokes that are presented by their peers, and because of this, they may feel isolated. Most researchers of vocabulary agree that the best method for vocabulary teaching should employ both direct and indirect teaching that includes both receptive and expressive tasks (Vacca, Vacca, & Gove, 2000; Marzano & Marzano, 1988). Children learn multiple meanings by constructing a visual image that connects the target word with a familiar word through exposure to words in multiple contexts by listening to varied information about each word. (Beck 2002) The Multiple Meanings Library employs the above research by providing students with repetition and multiple exposures to words in different context. References: Adams, M. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Beck, I. L., M.G. McKeown, & L. Kucan. (2002). Bringing words to life. New York: The Guilford Press. Marzano, R. J. & J. S. Marzano. (1988). A Cluster approach to elementary vocabulary instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Vacca, J., R.Vacca, & M. Gove. (2000). Reading and learning to read (4th ed.). New York: Longman.
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