Vocabulary Lessons, Educational Leadership
Blachowitz, C.L.Z. & Fisher P.
Vocabulary is such a HUGE concept in our daily lives. Our homes, schools, and teachers all have helped to expand our vocabulary. According to this article, research has shown that many preschoolers receive little support for vocabulary growth in their lives. As an educator, you can help give the child the growth and development that they need and might not be receiving from home. An example in the article of ways to help with vocabulary is a "world wall," just like we have in our own reading education classroom. Another helpful strategy for expanding vocabulary was choosing a wide range of books for your students to read. By having your students read different types of books, they will then gain more vocabulary. After your students have read these books, have them participate in a book club or guided reading circle.
What are some activities that you did in grade school for Vocabulary? Will you use these same activities in your classroom, why or why not?
I enjoyed reading your reflection because I read a different article for this week, but it tied in many similarities as your article spoke about. I read eVoc Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary, and it also focused on providing an array of reading options for the students so that they can pick out something that intrigues their interest. With this idea students are also able to share with their peers about the books that they read, which I think is a terrific idea for building literacy. I think it is also important to remember that not all children are going to come into the school system with a vast knowledge of language and vocabulary. There are going to be strong and weak readers alike that the teacher must focus on.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in grade school the only thing I remember about learning vocabulary was the boring task of copying definitions from a dictionary. It sucked and I learned pretty much nothing. I think that the methods that you provided to learn vocabulary are a lot more interesting for students, and will really expand their vocabularies while still being entertaining. I plan on definitely using methods such as you mentioned or other ones in the text like real-world examples and special word days. There will be no monotone copying in my classroom!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in grade school we actually had duties (which was mentioned in another article) that changed from week to week. One week you could be line leader and the next you'd be the paper person. I do remember though, that when the year started we'd use simple words to describes our jobs such as paper person or weather girl/boy. Throughout the year our teacher taught us some different words we could use for our job titles and she also used new vocabulary to describe our duties for those jobs. Another thing she did was to read really difficult books to our class. When she got to a hard word we would practice saying it and then our homework was to go home and find a way to use that word with our family. It was pretty cool and my family was usually pretty impressed that I could use the word correctly.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely be using these techniques with my students as well as the ones your have mentioned here. I feel like there are tons of ways for students to learn new vocab and we shouldn't just stick with copying definitions down like Elizabeth had to.