Review of Wordsift

Today's post will be about Wordsift, which is a useful tool to help learners with increasing their vocabulary bank.

What is Wordsift?

Wordsift is a web-based site that allows word clouds to be created from any text. This helps students and teachers to identify the most commonly used words in the text. The bigger the font in the word cloud, the more common the word in the text. Below is an example of the word cloud from Martin Luther King Jr's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. As can be seen by the size of the word, "freedom" appears most frequently in the text. 

Hovering over each word tells you how many times it appears in the text.

Clicking on it will enable you to see the word used in context within the text.

The other interesting feature is that it has WordNet embedded in the site. This allows for exposure to related words and phrases.

Hovering over each node in the diagram will give the definition of the word which shows how it is related to the other word(s) that branch out from the main word. The example provided is also useful for learners.

The other useful thing about Wordsift is that it calculates the readability level of the text, among other things, if you click on the "Text View" button at the top of the page.

From the screenshot, you can see that it provides quite a bit of statistical information about the text - like word count and lexical density - on top of the Readability Index and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.

A note of caution about interpreting the different readability indexes - the numbers may not correspond to the actual readability of the text and is only a guide. A text that has a low Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level only means that it contains shorter sentences and words that have fewer syllables. It does not measure the pragmatics of the text. Hence, a text with a low Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score can still be dealing with a topic that is not easily understood by students even though the words and sentences are short, thus making it difficult for students to comprehend.

Uses

Wordsift is especially useful for teachers when helping students comprehend a text on a particular topic or revolving around a certain theme. It does not work quite as well as with narrative text types, since words are unlikely to be repeated.

The visual representation of the text in the form of a word cloud helps students to see the gist of the text immediately, since the higher frequency words appear larger than other words, indicating what the text is about. This could then be used to activate students' schemata, which will help them with processing the text.

Words in the word cloud can also be sorted in alphabetical order or frequency, which can help teachers narrow the focus of what to look at.

The WordNet part will allow teachers to introduce new words and phrases that are related to certain words in the text. This could be the lead-in to another activity that is related to the topic.

Wordsift can even be used as a tool to encourage learner autonomy since students can input their own text and ascertain what words are most frequent. They can also look at the WordNet section, and discover new word associations or revise what they already know.

Advantages

The site is user-friendly and is a quick and simple way of helping learners figure out the main idea of the text in a way that is visually appealing as there is colour. The WordNet part also helps teachers extend students' learning beyond what is found in the text.

Disadvantages

The WordNet part is still a work in progress and hence, there may be some inaccuracies or might not contain as much information. However, the concept behind it is still innovative and useful for learners.

One major drawback is that if the teacher or student does not have the text in soft copy, it will have to be converted before it can be put into WordSift and that takes time.

In Singapore's Context

As the site is easily accessible, Singapore teachers will find it useful and be able to integrate it easily into the lesson. Wordsift is definitely useful in helping students break down the text and understand it better. The WordNet section is also a powerful tool to help students create word associations and expand their vocabulary.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, WordSift is valuable as a resource for teachers and students to see a text being represented in a different manner, enabling students to see it from a different perspective and gain greater understanding of what they are reading.