I've been thinking about the vocabulary issue ever since it was posed. I did my master's thesis on vocabulary, and the strategy I did worked well - although we tried this with 2nd and 5th graders. I did try it later with my 7th graders, but it does take a lot of time. Of course, my thinking has changed a little about vocabulary, especially for older students.
Using a graphic organizer where the student lists the word and then has a space for examples, non-examples or a sentence, and a space for a picture works very well. It has to be examples that the students come up with too. For my masters thesis, I then had them create skits for the words and at the end of the week they performed while the other students guessed the word. It worked well. Older grades, of course, do not have the luxury of the time this takes. So, I think that teaching vocabulary in context is the best way to teach vocabulary. Students do not retain lists of words that they have to memorize the definition. But if we can teach them strategies to figure out words they do not know in a piece of text, they will be able to take this skill and apply it when we are not around. Of course I also think it is important to teach roots/affixes. Again, not through lists, but doing a Root (or prefix/suffix) of the day where you put the root and an example, the students come up with the definition and then think of more examples of words using that particular root. This way, they will have word part knowledge along with strategies for figuring out words, and they will be more successful. On Jan 22, 2008 6:20 PM, Bill IVEY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "A list for improving literacy with focus on middle grades." > <[email protected]> on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 2:51 PM -0500 > wrote: > >Hi, I have been shadowing your group for awhile and found your > >discussions interesting and useful. I am a reading consultant in a > >middle school. > >We are constantly talking about acquisition of vocabulary. Much of the > >conversation revolves around finding words and the assessment. The > >process for learning the words is somehow lost. I'd like to interject > >that we all don't learn words in the same way. Some students can look a > >word up and retain the definition. Some students can learn it from > >context. Some students can draw a picture incorporating the meaning of > >the word and some students can learn words through mnemonics. Vocabulary > >Cartoons by New Monic Books is really fun and gives the students a > >creative way to grow their vocabulary. I also have found Words Count by > >Scott C. Greenwood and Words, Words, Words by Janet Allen to be great > >resources. When the kids find a way to learn the words then the whole > >process becomes more engaging and actually fun. > > Hi! > > That's a good point, Susan. That came up, albeit peripherally, in class > today when we came up with the idea that the kids might make up their own > vocabulary quizzes (out of the list of accepted formats we agreed upon) as > a way to study. Sometimes I think I should also come up with a list of > possible activities the kids could do to help themselves learn the lists > they generate. Your ideas are all great. What other ideas are out there? > > My kids, by the way,came up with the following ideas for assessments: > - traditional "word-definition- sentence" quizzes > - crosswords matching definition to word > - writing a story incorporating the words > - writing antonyms > - combining formats > > We talked a bit about recall vs. recognition, and rejected word searches > as being a bit too much "recognition" and not enough "recall." For a day > when 60% of them were either out sick or visited the nurse and barely made > it through the day, it was a pretty good discussion. > > 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 > -- - Heather "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." --Clarence Day "While the rhetoric is highly effective, remarkably little good evidence exists that there's any educational substance behind the accountability and testing movement." —Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds "When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding. When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding. " —Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate _______________________________________________ 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
