When and Where I Found It: As I have been reviewing the Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III for research to support projects I am working on in my two classes, I came across the journal article Vocabulary Processes by William E. Nagy and Judith A. Scott (2000). This article discusses “the complexity of word knowledge” and one of the five aspects of this is “interrelatedness” (p. 270).
Nagy, W. E. & Scott, J. A. (2000). Vocabulary Processes. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.). Handbook of reading research: Volume III (pp. 269-284). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Meaning: Nagy & Scott (2000) assert that interrelatedness is an important aspect of word knowledge to consider when discussing how students’ vocabularies grow. The authors state that interrelatedness means that “one’s knowledge of any given word is not independent of one’s knowledge of other words” (p. 270). They argue “ Words are often taught and tested as if they were essentially isolated units of knowledge. Clearly such practice is inconsistent with a constructivist understanding of knowledge that emphasizes the importance of linking what is learned to familiar words and concepts. How well a person knows the meaning of whale depends in part on their understanding of mammal” (p. 272). We learn nothing in isolation, we base what we learn on what we already know, our background knowledge. It’s interesting that we so often try to teach vocabulary in isolation.
Level of Familiarity: I had heard the term interrelatedness before, and know that it indicated the degree to which to items were related. I had not heard this term specifically utilized when discussing the complexities of word acquisition.
Do I Want to Know This Word Well? Why? I would like to know this word well. It is important to remember to activate background knowledge when teaching vocabulary. The interrelatedness of words is one level of the multidimensionality of words – This is important for me as a literacy educator to be aware of.
Do I Want Others to Know this Word Well? Who and Why? All literacy education teachers should know this word well. Literacy specialists need to both be able to use this word as well as teach the implications of this word to other teachers. Content area teachers need to be able to show students how each new vocabulary term relates to information that they already know as well as to other words and concepts in a given area.
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