Instructional Strategies for Vocabulary Development
To aid students in using the appropriate academic discourse there should be an emphasis on teaching the language of the discipline to all students. Students should continually be building on prior knowledge of the discipline to grow in their vocabulary relates to the discipline. Knowing the language of the content area will empower students to formulate and defend their own positions in a manner consistent with the discipline.
Word Wall
Word Wall is a great vocabulary resource for every classroom. It can contain both words from your discipline as well as unit vocabulary or words that are commonly misspelled. It helps to have your WW organized alphabetically because it will help students to access words more efficiently. There are different activities you can do with your WW, such as those provided on the attached doc. Regardless of whether you choose to use your WW for activities or just have it as a resource for students, it is a great addition to a classroom!
presented by Jill
presented by Jill
word_wall.docx | |
File Size: | 79 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Vocabulary Self-Awareness Chart
For this particular language strategy, students are asked to self-assess their prior knowledge within a set of vocabulary words. For my lesson, I chose an article that my seventh grade class is currently reading and created a chart with selected vocabulary words that students may or may not know. Then, I ask the students to rate each vocabulary word with a plus, check, or minus—knows it well, has heard of the word but cannot give definition or example, does not know the word at all. Then, after each student has completed the chart, the hope is to have the student correct and completely fill the chart by the end of the unit or lesson, giving each word an example as well as a definition.
Presented by Marie
Presented by Marie
Word Sorts
You can do either "open" or "closed" word sorts to help your students think deeply about words and their relationship to one another.
A closed sort is easier as you give the students the categories and then they place the terms in the categories.
An open sort is more challenging because you give students words and they need to determine what categories could be created.
In class, I gave you an open sort and was envisioning that you would see "academic vocabulary" and "content vocabulary." I've attached the document I used in class.
Presented by Dr. Wilson
A closed sort is easier as you give the students the categories and then they place the terms in the categories.
An open sort is more challenging because you give students words and they need to determine what categories could be created.
In class, I gave you an open sort and was envisioning that you would see "academic vocabulary" and "content vocabulary." I've attached the document I used in class.
Presented by Dr. Wilson
Roots and Affixes
In many disciplines the academic language comes from language backgrounds other than English (Greek and Latin being the most common sources of other words for English). A majority of these words can be broken apart into understandable pieces: a prefix, a root word, and a suffix. One way to teach these three parts in by using a Root Word Tree
Presented by Kyle
Presented by Kyle
Guess the Meaning
This strategy I presented for teaching vocabulary is a great way for student access prior knowledge of terms.As the student goes through the process of defining a word they narrow down what the word could mean until they arrive at the dictionary definition. In having a three-step process to define a word students are more likely to remember the word for a longer period of time. Attached bellow is a 'Guess the Meaning' handout and a modifiable set of instructions.
guess_the_meaning.doc | |
File Size: | 32 kb |
File Type: | doc |