In our data collection and analysis we find that vocabulary is often an area where students need improvement. Vocabulary impacts every other content area; Math, Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, STEM. Words can change everything. This year, many grade levels have focused on vocabulary instruction.
Good resources for ideas to increase vocabulary and support students with word study are:
- 101 Strategies to Make Academic Vocabulary Stick by Marilee Sprenger
- Vocabularians Integrate Word Study in the Middle Grades by Brenda J. Overturf
- Word Nerds by Margot Holmes Smith and Leslie H. Montogomery
I've seen some great lessons this month in ELA classrooms that motivate and encourage students to learn words and use them! Quizlet appears to have be a great resource to create a friendly competition with words. I loved seeing students create and then use this program to learn literary terms. Here are some additional ideas I found on Choice Literacy:
- Vocabrity: Fun with Words for Middle School Students by Katie Doherty You can download the template for the vocabulary dictionary pages by clicking here.
You can download directions to Vocabrity displayed on the classroom wall by clicking here. - Free Rice: Tools for Web-Based Vocabulary Learning by Mary Lee Hahn A multiple choice vocabulary test is fun when it is a game on the computer that gives you harder words when you get one right and easier words when you miss one. It is a game that donates rice to the world's hungry every time you get a definition right. It's called Free Rice, and if you haven't played yet, go now and give it a try. www.freerice.com
- Max Brand describes how word observations can work as powerful mini-lessons in elementary classrooms: Word observations help children learn about the visual nature of words, connect phonemic knowledge to words, develop a vocabulary to think about and discuss words, and notice spelling patterns.
- Maria Caplin is discouraged at the low level of transfer of new vocabulary in her fifth graders' writing, so she makes some changes in her classroom: "My goal for word work is consistent from year to year: to scaffold vocabulary instruction so that students understand. It is not about learning words in isolation, but understanding the meaning of the words. If we understand the structure of text, then perhaps our mathematical equation would be words + sentences + paragraph = meaning."
I hope you find some of these links to resources valuable as you continue to enhance student vocabulary and encourage the power of words!