Hi Beverlee, I had saved this post to respond to at a later time but never intended to wait a month, as it turns out, to do so. However, given a recent conversation on the Daily5 listserv it is more appropriate that I am responding now. There has been a thread on word walls over the last few days on the Daily 5 listserv. One teacher, specifically, has been describing how she does picture word walls with her students. The teacher chooses 15 words a week from a current reading selection (seems a lot to me) and over a period of 2 - 3 days (seems a long time to spend on somewhat isolated vocabulary instruction) illustrates the meanings of the words while the kids copy her illustrations or create their own as a memory piece for the meaning of the word. The teacher's illustration, I think, goes on the word wall and the children have a vocabulary folder or notebook into which they insert their week's word pictures. Although, on face value this seems like a worthwhile way to remember vocabulary it seems that an inordinate amount of isolated time is being spent on words to the detriment of the same amount of time being used to read independently. All of the reviews of the research that I've read say that extensive reading is what produces high levels of vocabulary knowledge. I think illustrating words is a good strategy to use but it seems that in the example I've described it is being overused. I think teachers tend to do this sometimes by taking a good idea and turning it into a bad idea by overusing it or making everybody do the same thing regardless of how useful it is to individual learners. I use big words with my students and then they start using those big words back because we employ them in meaningful contexts with interesting books and focused lessons. In a previous post I wrote about teaching my students about what a miscue was and then they started pointing out their miscues and mine (a favorite activity as it turned out!) when they were reading on their own or when I was doing a read aloud. Elisa Elisa Waingort Grade 2 Spanish Bilingual Dalhousie Elementary Calgary, Canada
What I didn't include in Elisa's response was her description of vocabulary acquisition: usage, scaffolding, usage, scaffolding... and that's what I've seen through the years with both immersion kids and ELL/LEP kids. I just haven't seen any evidence that big words on worksheets/workbooks transfer. I've seen plenty of evidence that USING big words transfers. And I'd guess that Elisa would agree that using big words along with concrete experiences pays the biggest dividends. My guess is that the next-most-profitable would be using big words with symbolic experience (following the math metaphor here), such as when reading a picture book, would be the next-more-effective. The least effective would be defining words with more abstract words. Some of the vocabulary programs sold today seem to me to be a way to make us (educators) and the public "feel better" that we're actually doing something in regard to vocabulary acquisition and are "bridging the gap" between the haves and have nots. Also, we can believe our students are "accountable" for vocabulary acquisition when we use these programs. Translation: we have a grade for a grade book. The heartbreaking agony of this whole topic of vocabulary acquisition to me is that when someone like Elisa talks about usage/scaffolding, we see a rich language environment with lots of experiences, and know that's what works. But with the current pandemic of testing, testing, testing, that's the part of our curriculum we cut out!! We take away (and I'm not faulting any of us) the very thing which does teach enable children to acquire language, including vocabulary. And, to make it all the more frustrating, sad-to-the-bone to me is that our professional newbies are seeing education as it is today and extrapolating that that's all it can (or should) be. Dry, "efficient," droning. For years I have used big words when reading aloud and helped kids get the meaning by explaining them right along with what's in the actual text. Other times, I've just kept reading in anticipation of the story doing its work. Make sense?Elisa
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