Quick and easy ways to infuse your entire day with vocabulary instruction
- Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5, 6–8
Editor's note: Reading First, the national initiative established to help every child in America to become a successful reader, is shaping some of the curriculum decisions in many, if not most, schools across the country. Reading First legislation supports research-based practices in five key areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. In this feature, one of three Reading First articles originally published in our November/December 2003 issue, Instructor offers powerful, research-based practices that we hope will help every child in your classroom to read and to succeed.
Are you carefully selecting key vocabulary and pre-teaching word meanings and pronunciation right before your students read a story? That's great. Keep it up...but don't stop there. Teaching vocabulary when you teach reading is a given, but vocabulary instruction can also occur when you teach science, social studies, math, health, and writing. And you can fit it into your day at other times, too.
Intentionally teaching new words all day long is important because word knowledge aids your students' learning in every subject, as well as their comprehension and fluency in oral reading. In fact, some experts believe that 70 to 80 percent of comprehension is related to vocabulary knowledge and as much as 80 percent of fluency is connected to vocabulary knowledge.
Vocabulary instruction is especially important for students who haven't had the benefit of oral-language interactions and background experiences that build vocabulary naturally. Because new knowledge is most easily learned when students connect it to what they already know, background information and concepts are key to learning new words. Direct and intentional vocabulary teaching builds concepts your students may have missed or only partially learned.
These concepts, and the vocabulary that labels them, are basic for word learning, comprehension, thinking, talking, writing, and success in every subject-and on standardized tests, too. Here are teacher-tested ideas to help you teach vocabulary during every subject-and in between subjects-all day long!
Mystery Word of the Day
Each day as an entry task, choose a new word (seasonal or related to a unit you are studying) and write it in a sentence on the blackboard. Include context that helps to imply the meaning of the word (e.g., The fall apple harvest brings lots of pickers to the orchard. ?) When students arrive each morning, have them read the sentence and talk with a buddy about the word's meaning or look it up in a dictionary, then write the sentence, word, and its definition in a Vocabulary Notebook. Have students label two to three pages for each letter of the alphabet (using fewer pages for letters such as X, Q, and Z), number pages consecutively, and make a table of contents for easy scanning.
Reinforce Menu Words
On Monday morning, put the week's lunch menu on a transparency. Each day after that, as you take lunch count, have a student use the overhead projector, transparency, and pointer to lead the class in a choral reading of the menu. You'll be surprised at how many new words students can pick up with this little add-on to your regular vocabulary teaching!
Pre-Teach Reading Vocabulary
As you introduce a story for silent reading to groups of students, teach three to five words you think they don't know but absolutely need to know to understand the story. Print the words in sentences using the blackboard, an overhead transparency, or chart paper. Define words and, to build on students' background knowledge, help them supply related words, synonyms, or antonyms. This connects what students already know to the new words and helps ensure learning. Use a colored marker to underline roots and affixes, as well as to list other words students know that look like, sound like, or have similar meanings to the new words. Have students use the new words in sentences. You'll address several of the multiple intelligences with this strategy.
Put a list of recently introduced words from the story on the blackboard or on chart paper; e.g, distraught, failure, frown, difficult. Have students play the game I'm Thinking of.... ? Begin by saying I'm thinking of a word that means the same as upset or troubled. ? Call on a student and have him respond with a complete sentence, such as Are you thinking of distraught? Answer, Yes, I am thinking of distraught, ? as you check off or erase the word. The I'm Thinking of... ? game allows for meaningful repetition and practice.
Problem-Solving Words in Math
Scan the problems your students will solve this morning and select a key problem-solving word or phrase from each; e.g., greater than, estimate, shorter, equal to. As you read each problem together and before students solve it, pre-teach these problem-solving words. Give examples and draw a picture on the blackboard to show what each term means. (For greater than, draw one glass of water fuller than another; for estimate, draw a stick person with a cartoon bubble that says I guess... ?). Remember the old saying, A picture is worth a thousand words! ?
Line Up With Adjectives
When it's time to line up for music, gym, or art, have students take their places in line by saying an adjective that begins with the same letter as their name; e.g., Winston: wise, Susan: sincere. This is a great way to build descriptive language!
Collaborate in Music
Plan ahead with your music teacher. Ask him or her to sing songs with students that correlate with a cur-rent science or social studies unit. Content-related song lyrics expose students to words and concepts relevant to what you are teaching, and reinforce these words in a meaningful context.
Tools for Writing Workshop
Encourage your students to use interesting and descriptive words by giving them the resources to do it! Equip your classroom with several age-appropriate thesauruses and dictionaries. On the computer(s) in your classroom, bookmark a student dictionary such as those linked to www.surfnetkids.com/dictionary.htm. During Author Share time, as students read their writing to the class, praise unusual or powerful word use. Add their words to your Word Wall and have students add a word or two a day to their Vocabulary Notebooks. This is a great way to recognize each student's word use and stretch everyone's vocabulary!
Line Up With ABCs
To get in line for lunch, have the first student say a word that begins with A, a second student say a word that begins with B, and so on until all students are in line. Encourage the use of unusual words and/or new words recently learned. This strategy develops fluency (students must think on their feet) and creativity.
Eat Lunch and Learn
Eat lunch with an ESL student. Have the student teach you, in his or her first language, the names of the foods you are eating, and in turn teach him or her the English words. Do the same with color words, number words, and the names of things in the cafeteria. Time for one-on-one conversations like this help you get to know the child, build his or her confidence, and develop both of your vocabularies.
Think Aloud as You Read Aloud
When you come to a difficult word, show students how you figure out its meaning from context. For example, I know that descend means to come down from a higher place because there are some clues in the sentence that tell me this. In the sentence 'The monkey descended from the top of the tree,' the phrase 'from the top of' gives me a picture of the monkey coming down the tree. ? Also show students how you associate a new word with words you already know to help figure out meaning. For example, That word pacifist reminds me of Pacific and pacifier, and these words are related to peaceful, so a pacifist is probably someone who believes in peace. ? Thinking aloud gives students a window into your strategies.
Choose a word that contains several consonants and at least two vowels, such as government, and have students shake it up ? to form new words; for example, greet. First, pair students to provide a supportive model for those who struggle with word learning. Have pairs put each letter of the word on a separate card and then rearrange cards to make smaller words. Have students take turns manipulating letters to form words and writing them on a list.
Web-a-Word ? in Social Studies
Introduce a new word like telephoto and begin to teach meanings of Greek and Latin roots; e.g., tele- (far), duct- (lead), spect- (watch). First, write the prefix, suffix, or root you intend to teach (and its meaning) on the blackboard or on a piece of chart paper. Then have students supply words they can think of that contain the target affix or root and write them on the web. Show students how to figure out the meanings of these words by using the meaning of the affix or root; e.g., teleconference: to talk or confer from afar. The technical vocabulary of science and social studies is often multisyllabic and contains Greek and Latin roots that require intentional teaching.
Transitions With $100 Words
Add to your class list of $100 Words ? by selecting a new word daily from the dictionary that students can use in their writing. These should be exciting, standout vocabulary words that are figuratively worth $100. ? Start the list on chart paper with the letter A and add a word a day until you have a word for letters A-Z. Revisit the list daily when you have a spare minute or two, asking students to recall word meanings and pronunciation.
Review in Science
Divide your class into groups of four or five students each. Give each group a set of 3" x 5" index cards with the same 12 to 15 key words printed on them from the unit you are studying. Have groups arrange words in a web or structure to show the relationship among the words; e.g., erupt, ash, dormant, lava, ooze, magma, mantle, crust, inner core, outer core, fault line, tectonic plate. Encourage groups to organize words in ways that make sense to them and then explain these arrangements to the class. You may want to have students write each word's meaning on the back of each card. This builds vocabulary and helps give kids a bigger picture of what you are studying.
As students put away projects and books and clean up the room for the day before going to art or gym, play Tag. Begin by identifying a cate-gory of words, such as nutrition. Then, say a word and ask a student to tag onto your word by saying another word that begins with the last letter of your word. For example, you say tomato, a student might say onion, and so on.
Ask students to write on a sticky note one new word they learned that day and use it in a sentence. As they exit for the day, ask students to give you their new word exit pass. ? Congratulations! You've made vocabulary a round-the-clock teaching enterprise in your classroom and stretched your students' vocabularies immeasurably!