Vocabulary

Jaymee Libetti, Ryan Murphy

 What is it?

● Vocabulary is learning and figuring out the meanings of words.

● In order to teach vocabulary effectively, teachers need to be teaching vocabulary
words that the students will use and remember.
● These eight suggestions will make teaching vocabulary much easier on the teachers
and the students.
8 Ideas

1) Word Study
2) Context Clues
3) Word Parts
4) Word Hunts
5) Logographic Cues
6) Graphic Organizers
7) Read Aloud
8) Right Questions
 Word Study
● Teachers learn their students’ vocabulary words (twenty words) two weeks before they are
given to the students.
● Teachers would then use these words in conversation with other teachers or while teaching.
● In those two weeks, the teachers would notice that the students would mimic the words they
were hearing in class.
● After four weeks, the teachers realized that twenty words was too much for students to
remember.
● In the end the teachers decided that 8 words a week was a reasonable number for the students
to learn.
● Students will learn better when they do not have an overwhelming amount of words to learn.
 Context Clues
● Context clues are tools for students to use to discover more information about what they
read.
● Teacher have to be careful when they teach context clues because it requires a lot of
practice.
● Context clues might not be a helpful tool for struggling readers because they may not
make the same connections as excelling readers do.
● Helpful tips:
○ Defining/explaining clues
○ Restate/synonym clues
○ Contrast/antonym clues
○ Gist clues
Word Parts
● For struggling readers, only teaching the context
will confuse them. If they are already having
trouble reading, they may not understand the
context or the meaning of words.
● Roots and Affixes: Teach students the prefixes, roots,
and suffixes of the words. Dependent readers work
well with learning prefixes, roots, and suffixes a little
at a time.
● Vocabulary Trees: This is an alternative to giving
students a list of vocabulary words to memorize. It
allows them to learn each part of the word.
 Word Hunts
● Allow students to explore words they
do not know or ones they find
interesting.
 Word Hunts
● Word Collection:
○ Students collect words they find interesting, have trouble understanding, etc.
○ Teacher gives them a bookmark to put the words they found
○ Use class time to go over those words.

● Word Across Contexts:

○ Look for words that do not have the same meaning and come up with their
own questions.
 Logographic Cues

● Tools for remembering words

● Logographic cards
○ On one side, write the word
○ On the other side, write the
definition with a picture
 Graphic Organizers

● Visual tool
● Build word knowledge
● Organize information
● See relationships in various aspects
○ Definition
○ Synonyms and antonyms
○ Examples
○ Pictures
 Read Aloud
“The single most important activity for
building knowledge required for eventual
success in reading” (Becoming a Nation of
Readers, 1985).
● Helps to
○ Build background knowledge
○ Improve listening
comprehension and vocabulary
○ Improve understanding of
sentence structure, usage, and
ability to visualize text
○ Create an interest in reading!
 Read aloud every day!

1) Read an entire text, portion at a time

2) Discuss with students afterwards
3) Preview and vary material
4) Paired reading or readers theater

● Afterwards, sustained silent reading

 Sustained Silent Reading

Should the teacher be reading silently with the students?

 Right Questions

● Figure out what the student doesn’t know about a word before teaching what they
need to know
● Questions to ask:
○ Has the student heard or used the word?
○ Does the student know how to use the word?
○ Does the student know what words he doesn’t understand while reading?
○ Does connecting the word to a larger context help the student understand it?
○ Can the student use the context as a clue to figure out a word’s meaning?
Executive Function 6.6-6.11
1. Planning
2. Organization
3. Time Management
4. Goal-Directed
Persistence
5. Flexibility
6. Metacognition
 Planning
● Environmental Modifications: For students that are younger, the teacher can make
planners for them, using scoring rubrics, breaking up bigger projects, and provide the
students with a template to follow for assignments that might be bigger.
● Teaching: In order to teach children students to use planning, teachers should walk them
through process, but eventually give the planning over to the students.
● Key to Success
○ Detailed plan
○ Realistic plan
○ Check in
 Organization
● Environmental Modifications:Younger students needs systems in order to stay
organized. This can include providing material for them to clean up after
themselves, teaching them to organize their backpack and school work, and their
desk.
● Teaching: An important aspect of teaching organization is showing younger
students how sort everything into the proper category. Teachers should give those
younger students organization schemes to stay organized.
● Key to Success:
○ Develop a system
○ Create time to be organized
○ Monitor
 Time Management
● Environmental Modifications:
Provide students with a set schedule
to follow daily, give realistic time
limits on activities, and use items like
clocks and alarms.
● Teaching: Start with teaching
younger students time and time
urgency
● Key to Success:
○ Practice with time urgency
○ First work, then play
 Goal-Directed Persistence

● Capacity to:
○ Have a goal
○ Follow through to the completion of the goal
○ Not be put off by or distracted by competing interests
● Environmental Modifications: give goals and prompt to stay on task
● Teaching: “coaching process”
● Keys to Success:
1) If goal is in distant future, make shorter-term objectives
2) Keep the student’s time in mind
 Flexibility

● Ability to revise plans in the face of

obstacle, setback, new info, or
mistakes, or an ability to changing
conditions
● Environmental Modifications:
Reduce “newness” and help reframe
situation
● Teaching the Skill: Coping strategies
● Key to Success: Small doses
 Metacognition

● Ability to stand back and take a bird’s eye view of oneself in a situation
● Observe how you problem solve
○ How am I doing? How did I do?
● Environmental Modifications: Questions to prompt thought, building error
monitoring, and scoring rubrics
● Teaching the Skill: Use a set of himself/herself questions when faced with a
problem, or have students work through steps
● Key to Success: Make student an active participant
 Bibliography

http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/jan18/vol60/num01/Why-Every-
Class-Needs-Read-Alouds.aspx

https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/parent-child/teach-kids-to-manage-time.html

https://www.standoutbooks.com/.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/