Module 3 Reading Reflection - Vocabulary

Module 3 Reading Reflection

My wordle can be found here:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3220640/Vocabulary_Instruction

Important Concepts:

1. Word Consciousness: the chapter defines and elaborates on the importance of word consciousness, and how it should be a deliberate goal in teaching vocabulary. Students who are word conscious are aware of words, know lots of them, and know what they mean. They are also interested in words, find them intriguing, and are on the lookout for new and interesting words (p. 159).

2. Spontaneous Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary: As opposed to deliberate instruction, there are many ways to teach vocabulary every day in a less time-consuming way. This appeals to word consciousness also. Some strategies I liked were "word of the day" activities, word play, sensory webs for encouraging adept diction, teaching homophones and homographs, idioms, cliches and puns, and many more (p. 147-149).

3. Intensive and Expressive Instruction: This is more deliberate, and much more time-consuming (p. 150). Teachers must involve students in original investigations. But when students research words on their own, it becomes more meaningful to them. This section focuses on investigating words in written text and spoken language. It offers great ways to help students of all ages discover words in each area (p. 153).

Implementation:

I used the idea of analyzing vocabulary using cartoons. Students opened up the newspaper to the comics section. They found colorful adjectives and used the thesaurus to find multiple meanings of the words. Then, they made their own comics by drawing cartoons and writing the new words in the balloons, being mindful to use them correctly. They had fun with this, and it taught them to use new words correctly.

Using Strategies in the Classroom:

I used the "Words You Know" activity from WORDS WORDS WORDS on the following link: http://teacher.scholastic.com/reading/bestpractices/vocabulary/word_flash.htm

The students each listed the words they didn't know from the list, words they are familiar with and words they knew in the appropriate categories. However, I used words we were studying in English for that week. It was a very useful and effective strategy to help the students and myself find out what words they knew, they were just familiar with, and they did not know.