My first thought is do students get much time to talk to one another and use the new words they are learning. Some teachers put the new vocab on their bulletin board near the bottom, and everytime Kids use it they move it towards the top. Lots of turn and talk about the concepts, helps. Are the kids getting practice to read at their indepent levels, besides guided reading at their instructional levels? Otherwise you are utilizing outstanding practices already.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 9:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [MOSAIC] vocabulary Hi everyone. Vocabulary help, please! InCT, as part of our state mastery test, our gr. 3-5 students take aDRP (Degrees of Reading Power)/cloze assessment. They also have a 2part rdg. comp. test with multiple choice and open -ended responses. Students have made gains on the comp. tests, but the DRP resultsare disheartening, even for those who hit 'mastery' on the comp.portion of the test --- and as we dug deeper it became clearer thatperhaps thebiggest challenge was vocabulary. We have a 90 minute language arts block, folks areusing good literature in book clubs, guided reading and independentreading. For the most part, our students enjoy reading and lookforward to independent reading. But still that vocabulary is notgrowing -- even words like "seek" we found students weren't connectingto "hide and seek" - not using context clues, or experience clues. How do we raise the children's awareness ofattending to vocabulary? We do use Isabel Beck's strategies Bringing Words to Life (which Ilove) . We do read aloud'sfrom quality literature and cull Tier 2 vocabulary for discussion andfocus. But it's not enough, and some folks feel it's too "hit andmiss." I hesitate to consider Wordly Wise type vocabulary lists, andlean more towards perhaps enticing the students with the idea of Greekor Latin morphology. As you can see, I could really use your thoughts. We are a K-5 school, very small ELL population, about 600 students. Suggestions, please! Thanks so much. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
