A really small thing that I do that seems to pay off is to choose a word (significant is this week's) that they must include in their writing and speaking--they find places to include it in their warm-up we do every day or in their writer's notebooks or essays--reading journals---I'll remind them to make sure they find the right context---for example today one of the kids was talking about the article we were annotating and it gave me the opportunity to say, " What was significant about that?" and then I encouraged him to use significant in his answer--the more comfortable they become with the word the more often they'll use it---the problem with vocab is the transfer into every day writing and speaking. Then once they do use them, l of a sudden, they start to notice them in their reading too. I usually move to 2 or 3 words a week as the year progresses, and try to choose words that are the most useful to them to express higher level thinking (despite, while, impact, influence, etc)
>>> "Bill IVEY" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/13/2006 1:37 PM >>> Hi! I understand that the explicit teaching of vocabulary needs repetition and reinforcement through a variety of pathways to really help kids learn the words. However, that means that to teach vocabulary "right" takes a lot of time. I'm wondering what creative ideas might be out there for teaching vocabulary in a student-friendly way which don't eat up valuable class time. It may also be pertinent to mention that my students are currently creating individualized lists. Thank you!! Take care, Bill _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
