Part 2: The Wonder of Teaching Vocabulary with Freddy Hiebert
Part Two: Practical Implementation and Beyond
Building on her foundational principles, Hiebert delves deeper into practical classroom implementation, distinguishing between narrative and informational text vocabulary demands. She explains how stories use varied, sophisticated words for familiar concepts—characters "lumber" rather than simply "walk" or "eavesdrop" instead of "listen"—while informational texts introduce entirely new concepts requiring background knowledge development alongside vocabulary instruction.
The conversation takes a modern turn as Hiebert shares her innovative use of artificial intelligence tools like Claude to create sophisticated semantic maps and organise word relationships. She provides specific prompts teachers can use: "Which of these words are really important to generalise to other topics?" and "Can you put them into important categories?" This approach transforms technology from a simple definition-lookup tool into a thinking partner that helps identify patterns and relationships.
Hiebert addresses concerns about overwhelming linguistic instruction by emphasising that students don't need to know everything before they can engage meaningfully with texts. She advocates for giving children fundamental insights about how language works rather than exhaustive technical knowledge, comparing effective vocabulary instruction to basketball coaching—providing strategic guidance rather than micromanaging every movement.
The discussion reveals alarming trends in American education where interventions promise to teach 150 letter-sound correspondences, which Hiebert warns will "kill a kid's interest" in reading. She advocates for statistical learning through extensive reading rather than explicit instruction of every possible pattern.
Throughout both segments, Hiebert consistently emphasises that children are naturally brilliant learners who develop word consciousness through meaningful engagement rather than drill-and-practice methods. Her approach transforms vocabulary instruction from passive memorisation into active investigation, offering educators research-backed alternatives that honour both language complexity and student intelligence. The conversation concludes with her invitation for continued collaboration and her promise to share practical resources including AI prompts, semantic map examples, and implementation guidelines with the Australian teaching community.
TEXT PROJECT WEBSITE BY FREDDY HIEBERT
- Text Project website - free student texts (Plus +)
SPECIFIC RESOURCES FROM FREDDY HIEBERT, AS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST
1. AI Semantic Map Examples
- You will find an example in this ILA presentation .
- As well as the presentation, the following paper, which is in review at a journal, gives examples of maps and grids created with AI
2. ILA Website Presentation
- Fundamentally, the ILA presentation will have a similar structure to the above presentation:
- See the ILA webinar here on YouTube.
3. AI Prompt Examples
- The above presentations and the paper (Leveraging AI) should give some examples).
4. 'The Story of English' Picture
- Visual representation showing bratwurst (German) in baguette (French) with yogurt (Greek)
- Illustrates how English draws from multiple language traditions
5. Etymology Resources
- Stories of Words develops students' interest in fascinating words like snickerdoodles and terrapin. Using the TExT model, this 16-volume series explores vocabulary through four word-formation methods: borrowed words, life themes, manipulated words, and technological innovations.
6. Text Models Examples
- Text Models Examples are here.
- From Freddy: "This site at TextProject provides illustrations of texts that I have developed with AI assisted. I should emphasise that I do AI-assisted, not simply AI-generated. A text typically goes through numerous iterations and I also analyse the texts to determine its distribution according to word zones (more on word zones)
- And I’m attaching a blog on Word Zones as well
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