Choosing Words To teach

[ C H A P T E R 2 ]
Choosing Words to Teach
The teacher’s edition for a fourth-grade anthology suggests teaching
the following words before inviting students to read an excerpt from
Charlotte’s Web (White, 1952): comfort, cunning, endure, friendless,
frolic, lonely, soaked, and stealthily. Why do you think these words were
selected? One obvious reason for selecting words to teach is that students
do not know the words. Although cunning, endure, frolic, and
stealthily are probably unfamiliar to most fourth graders, comfort, friendless,
lonely, and soaked are probably not. Familiarity does not seem to be
the principle used to make the selection. What about importance or usefulness?
Are the selected words useful for writing or talking? Would the
words be important to know because they appear in other texts with a
high degree of frequency? Some—but not all—of the words might be
considered useful or important. Thus, the question remains: Why were
the words selected? The purpose of this chapter is to consider what principles
might be used for selecting words to teach.
USEFUL WORDS
As a way to begin thinking about which words to teach, consider that
words in the language have different levels of utility. In this regard,
we have found our notion of tiers, as discussed in Chapter 1, to be one
helpful lens through which to consider words for instructional attention.
Recall that Tier One consists of the most basic words—clock,
15
baby, happy—rarely requiring instruction in school. Tier Three includes
words whose frequency of use is quite low, often being limited to specific
domains—isotope, lathe, peninsula—and probably best learned
when needed in a content area. Tier Two words are high-frequency
words for mature language users—coincidence, absurd, industrious—
and thus instruction in these words can add productively to an individual’s
language ability.
IDENTIFYING TIER TWO WORDS IN TEXTS
To get an idea of the process of identifying Tier Two words, consider an
example. Below is the opening paragraph of a retelling of an old tale
(Kohnke, 2001, p. 12) about a donkey who is under a magical spell that
forces him to do the chores for a group of lazy servants. The story would
likely be of interest to third and fourth graders.
Johnny Harrington was a kind master who treated his servants
fairly. He was also a successful wool merchant, and his business required
that he travel often. In his absence, his servants would tend to
the fields and cattle and maintain the upkeep of his mansion. They
performed their duties happily, for they felt fortunate to have such a
benevolent and trusting master.
The underlined words are those we identified as consistent with the
notion of Tier Two words. That is, most of the words are likely to appear
frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language
of mature language users. (Note: We chose this paragraph because there
were so many candidate Tier Two words; however, most grade-level material
would not have so many words in only one paragraph.)
One “test” of whether a word meets the Tier Two criterion of being
a useful addition to students’ repertoires is to think about whether the
students already have ways to express the concepts represented by the
words. Would students be able to explain these words using words that
are already well known to them? If that is the case, it suggests that the
new words offer students more precise or mature ways of referring to
ideas they already know about. One way to answer the question is to
think about how average third and fourth graders would talk about the
16 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
concepts represented by the Tier Two words. We think that students
would be likely to offer the explanations shown in the accompanying list.
Tier Two words Students’ likely expressions
merchant salesperson or clerk
required have to
tend take care of
maintain keep going
performed did
fortunate lucky
benevolent kind
Adding the seven target words to young students’ vocabulary repertoires
would seem to be quite productive, because learning the words
would allow students to describe with greater specificity people and situations
with which they already have some familiarity. Note that these
words are not simple synonyms of the familiar ones, however, instead
representing more precise or more complex forms of the familiar words.
Maintain means not only “keep going,” for example, but also “to continue
something in its present condition or at its present level.” Benevolent
has the dimension of tolerance as well as kindness.
SELECTING FROM A POOL OF WORDS
The decision about which words to teach must also take into account
how many words to teach in conjunction with any given text or lesson.
Given that students are learning vocabulary in social studies and science
as well as reading or language arts, there needs to be some basis for limiting
the number of words so that students will have the opportunity to
learn some words well.
Now consider which of the words will be most useful in helping students
understand the above paragraph. For the seven words noted there,
our thinking is that fortunate is particularly important because the fact
that the servants thought they were lucky is an important condition of
the story. Similarly, benevolent plays an important role in setting up the
story, as the servants appreciate their master’s kindness and do not want
Choosing Words to Teach 17
to upset their pleasant living situation. If one other word were to be selected,
a good choice would be merchant. Merchant is a word that comes
up in fourth- and fifth-grade social studies textbooks in discussions of
colonization of the Americas (e.g., “European merchants were eager to
locate new resources like tobacco and indigo which could be found in
the colonies”; or “Colonial merchants were dismayed by the taxes on
English goods which meant higher prices for their customers but no
more profit for themselves”).
The other candidate words, tend, required, performed, and maintain,
are also words of strong general utility, and the choice of whether to
include any more words is based solely on considering how many words
one thinks students can usefully handle.
■ You Try It ■
Below is another excerpt from the tale about the donkey under
the magical spell described above (Kohnke, 2001, p. 12). You
might find it useful to try your hand at identifying Tier Two
words. You will get to see our choices below the excerpt, so that
you can compare your selections with ours.
The servants would never comment on this strange occurrence
[finding the kitchen clean even though none of them were seen
doing the cleaning], each servant hoping the other had tended to
the chores. Never would they mention the loud noises they’d
hear emerging from the kitchen in the in middle of the night. Nor
would they admit to pulling the covers under their chins as they
listened to the sound of haunting laughter that drifted down
the halls to their bedrooms each night. In reality, they knew
there was a more sinister reason behind their good fortune.
Which words did you select? Trying to be all-inclusive, selecting
any words that might fit Tier Two, we chose comment, occurrence,
tended, mention, emerging, admit, haunting, reality, sinister, and fortune.
We considered them Tier Two words as we viewed them as fairly “general
but sophisticated words.” That is, they are not the most basic or
common ways of expressing ideas, but they are familiar to mature language
users as ordinary as opposed to specialized language. The con-
18 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
cepts embodied in each word are ones that students already have some
understanding of, as shown in the accompanying list.
Tier Two words Students’ likely expressions
comment something someone has to say
occurrence something happening
tended took care of
mention tell
emerging coming out
admit to say you did something
haunting scary
reality being read
sinister scary
fortune luck
Now, the notion of tiers of words is not a precise one, and the lines between
tiers are not clear-cut, so your selection may not match ours.
Thinking in terms of tiers is just a starting point—a way of framing the task
of choosing candidate words for instruction (see the accompanying box).
Even within Tier Two, some words will be more easily familiar and some
will be more useful than others. For example, our hunch is that admit, reality,
and fortune are likely known to most fourth or fifth graders; that tended
is not often used in a way that is key to understanding; and that fifth graders
may already associate haunting with scary things—a Halloween context—
Choosing Words to Teach 19
Some Criteria for Identifying Tier Two Words
■ Importance and utility: Words that are characteristic of mature
language users and appear frequently across a variety of domains.
■ Instructional potential: Words that can be worked with in a variety
of ways so that students can build rich representations of
them and of their connections to other words and concepts.
■ Conceptual understanding: Words for which students understand
the general concept but provide precision and specificity in describing
the concept.
which is fitting for this story. Thus we ended up with comment, occurrence,
mention, emerging, and sinister.We judged the first four of these to be most
useful across a range of contexts, and we chose sinister because it is a
strong word with emotional impact that is used in literature to describe fictional
characters as well as in nonfiction, such as when describing a group’s
sinister plans to invade another’s territory.
CONSIDERATIONS BEYOND TIER TWO
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.
20 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
Why does Dad have to be obsessed with insects? She wondered.
Why not football or golf like most fathers? The answer was simple.
Bea’s dad was weird. His weirdness made the whole family weird.
And he had made Bea the weirdest of all when he named her Bea
Ursula Gentry . . . B.U.G.
Suddenly, Bea felt angry. She flew into the kitchen where her father
sat reading Insectology. She hurled her backpack onto the table.
“You know what, Dad?” she asked, tugging on one of her pigtails.
“these are not antennae! Your bumper sticker, ‘Have you
hugged a bug today?’ is not cool! And I despise eating in the dining
room with all those dead bugs pinned to the walls!”
With fourth- and fifth-grade students in mind, we have divided the
12 underlined words from the story into the following three categories:
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
Choosing Words to Teach 21
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.
WHAT IF THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WORDS?
Now let us consider a text that does not seem to offer much for vocabulary
development because all of the words in the text are familiar to
students. An approach in such a case could be selecting words whose
concepts fit in with the story even though the words do not appear.
For example, if the story features a character who is a loner, introduce
the words hermit, isolated, or solitary; if a problem is dealt with, present
it as a dilemma or conflict; if a character is hardworking, consider if
22 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
he or she is diligent and conscientious. Think in terms of words that
coordinate with, expand, or play off of words, situations, or characters
in a text.
Bringing in words whose concepts fit with a story is especially salient
when young children are just learning to read and there are only
the simplest words in their text. Consider a story in which two children
(Pam and Matt) try on a number silly hats, some of which are very big
and two of which are exactly alike. A number of words came to mind,
and we chose absurd, enormous, and identical. Next we suggest how
those words might be introduced to young children:
■ In the story, Pam and Matt had very, very silly hats. Another way
to say that something is very, very silly is to say that it is absurd.
When something is absurd, it is so silly it’s hard to believe.
■ Some of the hats that Pam and Matt wore were so big that all you
could see were their feet. Another way to say that something is
very, very big is to say that it is enormous. Enormous means “very
big—very, very big.”
■ Pam and Matt put on red hats that were almost exactly alike. A
way to say that two things are exactly alike is to say that they are
identical. Identical means “exactly alike.”
Words don’t need to be completely unfamiliar to students in order
to be good candidates for instructional attention. Words might be selected
for attention that may be familiar to students but which illustrate
the power of an author’s choice of words to reveal information about a
character or situation. For example, notice the underlined words in the
following excerpt, which is taken from a sixth-grade unit on Egypt
(Banks et al., 1997, p. 87). The topic is Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh.
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was a princess and the wife of a pharaoh. She seized the
chance to become pharaoh herself when her husband died. Her
young stepson was supposed to become the new pharaoh of Egypt.
Hatshepsut proclaimed, however, that the ten-year-old boy was too
young to rule on his own. In this way she succeeded in being named
co-ruler.
Choosing Words to Teach 23
Hatshepsut’s Trading Journey
In the eighth year of her reign, Hatshepsut organized the biggest
trading expedition of her career. An expedition is a group of people
who go on a trip for a set reason. The goal of Hatshepsut’s expedition
was to trade with Egypt’s neighbors to the south in Punt. Historians
think Punt may have been in what is today Ethiopia or Somalia. . . .
The huge caravan of scribes, soldiers, artists, and attendants set
off along a dusty road that led east to the Red Sea. There they loaded
their cargo onto five sleek ships for the long journey south.
The only word identified for attention by the publisher in this segment
is expedition, which is explained within the text. The two underlined
words—seized and sleek—offer possibilities for drawing students’
attention to the effect of an author’s choice of words and help the topic
come alive.
That Hatshepsut “seized” the chance to become pharaoh reveals
something about her character that would make for an interesting discussion.
For example: “It says that Hatshepsut seized the chance to become
pharaoh. Seize means ‘to grab something or take control of it
firmly.’ So, what does that tell us about Hatshepsut? Was she afraid of
being pharaoh? Do you think she was eager to become a ruler?”
Similarly, that the expedition sailed off in “sleek” ships communicates
the prosperity and style of the Egyptian civilization. Discussion
could prompt thinking in that direction: “Sleek is a word used to describe
something graceful and stylish, that marks its owner as well-to-do.
‘They sailed off in sleek ships.’ What picture does that give us of Egypt?”
Additionally, words like ambitious and calculating could be introduced to
characterize Hatshepsut.
AN EXAMPLE FOR OLDER STUDENTS
The examples provided thus far were drawn from texts for readers in the
intermediate grades. Although the same principles apply to selecting
words from texts for students in the upper grades, they may play out a
bit differently. Thus, we present a discussion of the words that might be
selected for Agatha Christie’s “In a Glass Darkly” (1934), a story that is
24 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
likely to be of interest to students in eighth or ninth grade. It is a rather
brooding tale that moves from a murderous premonition to unrequited
love, jealousy, and near tragedy before resolving happily. The story begins
as the narrator, while staying with a friend, sees a vision of a man
strangling a woman. The woman turns out to be his friend’s sister, Sylvia,
with whom he falls in love. But Sylvia is engaged—to the man he saw in
his vision. He tells her of the vision, and she breaks her engagement. For
years, the narrator is unable to tell her of his feelings for her. Finally, love
is revealed and they marry. But he is deeply jealous, a feeling that results
in his nearly strangling his wife—until he notices in the mirror that he is
playing out the scene of his premonition.
The language of the story is sophisticated but not particularly difficult.
Most words will likely be at least passingly familiar to many readers
in eighth or ninth grade. However, many of the words are probably not
of high frequency in the students’ vocabularies, and thus an opportunity
presents itself for students to work with these words and gain fluency
with them. Here are the 30 words from the story that we identified as
Tier Two words:
essential appreciated altered
intervened decent well-off
attractive rambling prospect
valet throttling complication
gravely upshot leisure
disinterested scornfully devotedly
absurdly endangering inevitable
entrenched gloomy sullen
savage unwarranted abuse
endurance revelation sobering
Of the 30 words, we decided to focus on 10 of them: essential, altered,
well-off, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, revelation, upshot,
and disinterested.
Ten words may be a lot to develop effectively for one story, but we
see it as a workable number because many of them will already be familiar.
Also, two of the words could be introduced rather briefly with little
or no follow-up work. These are altered, which could be defined simply
as “permanently changed,” and well-off, which could simply be given
Choosing Words to Teach 25
the synonym wealthy. The reason for attention to these two words is that
they could cause confusion at the local level in the story if not understood.
Two other words were also chosen because they could cause confusion
in a part of the story. These are upshot and disinterested. The narrator
talks of the upshot of his decision to tell Sylvia that he saw a vision of
her fiancé choking her. Because of the context and feel of the story, we
thought upshot might be interpreted as some sort of physical violence,
instead of simply “the result of.” The word disinterested meaning “not
being involved in a particular situation” is often confused with uninterested,
meaning “not interested,” and the story provides a good opportunity
to introduce that distinction.
Five words seem to convey the mood and emotional impact of story
developments: devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, and revelation.
And the word essential was chosen because “one essential detail” turns
out to be a key plot device—that is, in his premonition, the narrator notices
a scar on the left side of the choker’s face. The essential detail he
fails to account for is that he is seeing this in a mirror, so the scar is actually
on the right. The five words can be used to describe the plot as follows:
The narrator is devoted to Sylvia, although entrenched in a jealousy
that causes inevitable problems. Only a sobering revelation (that essential
detail) saves him, his marriage, and his wife.
A couple of points should be emphasized here. The words were selected
not so much because they are essential to comprehension of the
story but because they seem most closely integral to the mood and plot.
In this way, the vocabulary work provides both for learning new words
and for enriching understanding of literature. This decision was made
possible because there was a large pool of words from which to choose.
Sometimes choices are more limited, and sometimes the best words are
not so tied to the story. In such cases, a decision might be made to select
words that seem most productive for vocabulary development despite
their role in the story.
For the six words we consider to be most important to teach, some
characteristics of the words themselves also drove our selections. Sobering
was selected because its strongest sense for students might be as
the opposite of drunk. So, the context of the story provides a good opportunity
to overcome that and introduce its more general sense. The others,
essential, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, and revelation, have wide
26 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
potential for use and are not limited to specific situations or stereotypical
contexts. Yet, they seem to be strongly expressive words that can bring
emotional impact to contexts in which they are used.
AN EXAMPLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
We turn now to selecting words to enhance the vocabulary repertoires of
young children—those who are just learning to read. We make two immediate
distinctions between vocabulary work with intermediate and
older students and work with students in the earliest grades, typically
kindergarten though early second grade. The first is that we consider the
best sources for new vocabulary to be trade books that teachers read
aloud to children rather than the books children read on their own. In
Chapter 4 we will make our case for that position. The second distinction
is that in contrast to introducing words before a story, in our work
with young children we have found it most appropriate to engage in vocabulary
activities after a story has been read.
There are two reasons we decided that vocabulary activities for
young children should occur after a story. First, if a word is needed for
comprehension, since the teacher is reading the story she is available to
briefly explain the word at the point in the story where it is needed (e.g.,
“A ukulele is a kind of guitar”; or “When ducks molt, they lose their
feathers and can’t fly until new ones grow”). Second, since the words
that will be singled out for vocabulary attention are words that are very
likely unfamiliar to young children, the context from the story provides a
rich example of the word’s use and thus strong support for the children’s
initial learning of the word.
The basis for selecting words from trade books for young children
is that they are Tier Two words and words that are not too difficult
to explain to young children. Here, we present our thinking for selecting
three words for instructional attention from The Popcorn Dragon
(Thayer, 1953), a story targeted to kindergartners.
In our review of The Popcorn Dragon for Tier Two candidate words,
we first identified the following seven: accidentally, drowsy, pranced,
scorched, envious, delighted, and forlorn. From the pool of seven, we decided
to provide instruction for three: envious, delighted, and forlorn.
We considered three issues in making our choices. First, we determined
Choosing Words to Teach 27
that the concept represented by each word was understandable to kindergartners;
that is, 5-year-olds understand the concepts of wanting
something someone else has (envious), being very happy (delighted), and
being very sad (forlorn). Second, it is not too difficult to explain the
meanings of those words in very simple language, as illustrated in the
previous sentence! And, third, each word has extensive possibilities for
use. In particular, the words are found in numerous fairy tales; that is,
there is often some character who is envious of another, and there are
characters who are delighted or forlorn about the turn of events. The
words, however, are not restricted to make-believe; they can all be used
in describing people in common situations.
We found the other candidate words—pranced, accidentally,
scorched, and drowsy—interesting and potentially useful, but we saw
scorched and pranced as narrower than the ones we chose, and drowsy
and accidentally as not quite so interesting. We hasten to make the point
that this is all a matter of judgment. The final decisions about which
words to teach may not be as important as thoughtful consideration
about why to teach certain words and not others.
WHAT ABOUT WORDS BEING ON GRADE LEVEL?
A concern that surfaces in deciding which words to teach is whether
words are appropriate for students at certain grade levels. Key to this
concern is to understand that no formula exists for selecting ageappropriate
vocabulary words despite lists that identify “fifth-grade
words” or “seventh-grade words.” There is simply no basis for determining
which words students should be learning at different grade levels.
For example, that coincidence is an “eighth-grade word” according to a
frequency index means only that most students do not know the word
until eighth grade. It does not mean that students in seventh or even
third grade cannot learn the word or should not be taught it.
There are only two things that make a word inappropriate for a certain
level. One is not being able to explain the meaning of a word in
known terms. If the words used to explain a target word are likely unknown
to the students, then the word is too hard. The other consideration
for word selection is that the words be useful and interesting—
ones that students will be able to find uses for in their everyday lives. Of
28 BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
course, this is a matter of judgment, best decided by those who know the
individual students. Work we have done with kindergarten and firstgrade
children shows that sophisticated words can be successfully taught
to young children. For example, kindergartners readily applied nuisance
to disruptive classmates, and understood what was happening when a
commotion occurred in the hall; first graders could easily discern argumentative
peers from those who acted dignified!
IN SUMMARY
In evaluating words as possible candidates for instruction, here are three
things to keep in mind:
1. How generally useful is the word? Is it a word that students are
likely to meet often in other texts?Will it be of use to students in
describing their own experiences?
For example, students are likely to find more situations in which to apply
typical and dread than portage and brackish.
2. How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students
know or have been learning? Does it directly relate to some
topic of study in the classroom? Or might it add a dimension to
ideas that have been developed?
For example, what might knowing the word hubris bring to a middle
school student’s understanding of the battles at Lexington and Concord,
which set the Revolutionary War in motion?
3. What does the word bring to a text or situation? What role does
the word play in communicating the meaning of the context in
which it is used?
A word’s meaning might be necessary for understanding a text. Or understanding
its meaning might allow an enriched insight about the situation
being presented, such as in the case of Hatshepsut’s seizing power
and her expedition traveling in sleek ships.
Choosing Words to Teach 29
Keep in mind that there is no formula for selecting age-appropriate
vocabulary words despite lists that identify “fifth-grade words” or
“seventh-grade words.” As long as the word can be explained in known
words and can apply to what students might talk or write about, it is an
appropriate word to teach.
■ Your Turn ■
We invite you to use what you have learned in this chapter to
make some decisions about which words you will teach.
1. Select a text that your students will be reading. It can be a
story, or an excerpt from a chapter book or novel, or a social
studies textbook.
2. List all the words that are likely to be unfamiliar to students.
3. Analyze the word list:
■ Which words can be categorized as Tier Two words?
■ Which of the Tier Two words are most necessary for comprehension?
■ Are there other words needed for comprehension? Which
ones?
4. On the basis of your analysis, which words will you teach?
■ Which will need only brief attention?
■ Which will you give more elaborate attention to?