Vocabulary In The Classroom
It may seem like an overwhelming task to implement effective vocabulary instruction in your classroom. You may be asking yourself: Where do I start? Here are some guidelines to help you get a better understanding of what successful vocabulary instruction involves (National Reading Panel, 2000):
- Guideline One: Create a word-rich environment were students are engaged with language and words throughout the day
- Guideline Two: Foster independent “word learners”
- Guideline Three: Model strategies that teach vocabulary, but also how to learn new words.
- Guideline Four: Support students by providing explicit teaching of important content and concept vocabulary
- Guideline Five: Use vocabulary assessments that align with objectives.
The professional development office of DC Public Schools created this document to supplies teachers with word games and activities that they can use in their classroom. It is filled with great ideas to introduce academic vocabulary from resources such as Bringing Words to Life by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan and Creating Strategic Readers: Techniques for Developing Competency in Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension by Valerie Ellery. These activities can be used with a wide range of learners including: ELL learners, students with special needs, and gifted and talented students.
Here is an example of one of the activities:
"Show how you would look if..."
Using the vocabulary words, ask children to "show how...":
Here is an example of one of the activities:
"Show how you would look if..."
Using the vocabulary words, ask children to "show how...":
- Show how you would look if you were exhausted.
- Show how people in commercials look when they are advertising a product.
- Show where you would look if you were looking at a skyscraper.
This website will supply you with several activities that you can print in order to create sight word vocabulary centers in your K-2 classroom. Each activity comes with clear directions as well as the activity pieces you will need.
Teaching Vocabulary through Context Clues
The document above describes the different types of context clues that readers can use to figure out the meaning of an unknown word. Context clues include direct clues such as synonyms, antonyms, examples or definitions. There are also indirect clues in the surrounding sentences that help the reader to infer the meaning of a word. This document gives teachers examples that they could use with their students when introducing them to the concept of context clues. Teaching students these strategies for discovering the meaning to unknown words will effectively improve their vocabulary development (Allington, 2006).
More Teacher Resources:
Here are some more great resources to help you learn more about vocabulary instruction...
Parent Resources:
This article from readingroackets.org helps parents identify if their child is struggling with vocabulary. It also gives them suggestions for what they can be doing at home to help build their child's word knowledge.
This website created by PBS allows students to choose from many games that support vocabulary development. This would be a great website to recommend for parents to use with the kids at home. Kids will be having a blast without realizing their learning a thing!
Parents of ELL Learners
One of the struggles with developing vocabulary in ELL learners is the fact that they are sometimes not exposed to English at home. This causes an issue because so much of our vocabulary development occurs through listening to and engaging in conversation. Here are some great websites to help support ELL parents at home:
This is a great article that you can share with parents of your ELL learners. It can also be printed in Spanish, for Spanish speaking parents. It provides parents with different activities they can do with their child at home.