As part of my doctoral work, I have been taking a class on
reading instruction. I have learned lots – why didn’t anybody tell me this a
decade ago! – and I have made some changes to my instructional strategies and
sequence based on what I’ve learned.
Today I’m going to write about vocabulary instruction. This
is something that I never really did before. You can rap my knuckles now; I was
bad. I assumed that by reading lots of high quality children’s literature my
students would be exposed to plenty of vocabulary and that was enough. Of
course, it wasn’t. But who has time to teach vocabulary every day. Do you know
how much I have to fit in?
I’ll tell you now, I can and do fit in vocabulary
instruction every day. It’s less than 5 minutes but my students have shown
fabulous comprehension and retention. For older students, it may be longer
because you would choose more words per week. Keep it simple and the time will
fly.
I use Marzano’s Six Steps of vocabulary instruction. You can
read about them in depth in this flip book put out by my state education
department: http://education.ky.gov/curriculum/conpro/engla/Documents/MarzanosSixStepsFlipBookVocab.pdf
The good news is you can complete the steps in any order, so
my instructional sequence is a little different. And that’s ok.
Before Instruction:
I choose two vocabulary words from one of our texts for the
week. I usually read between 8-10 books during shared reading, writing, and
read aloud. So I choose words from one of those books and schedule it for
Friday. Then I prep my slides. I use SMART Notebook but Powerpoint or Prezi or
anything similar would work just as well.
Monday: I introduce the first word and give a kindergarten
friendly definition. For example, my word one week was gracefully. Gracefully
means moving in a beautiful way. My slide for the day has a set of four
pictures that show the meaning of the word. In this case, they were pictures of
dancers, a fish, and a deer. As a class we decide on a movement to represent
the word gracefully. We chose raising our arms to one side in a dance-type
move. I ask students to share with a partner an example of something that moves
gracefully. The four pictures are still up on the board so they can look there
if they need an idea of what to say. Some students use the exact pictures on
the board, some students use something that is similar, some students use their
own unique idea. We review the word, movement, and definition one time quickly.
That’s it, about 3 minutes total.
Tuesday: I ask students to tell me the word, movement, and
definition. They repeat those three things with their partner. My slide for the
day is a sorting activity: four pictures that show gracefully (the same four
from the day before) and four that do not. Students sort the pictures on a
two-column chart. Then they draw a picture of the word on their vocabulary
notebook – it’s an extra page stuck at the back of their monthly writer’s notebook,
nothing fancy – and I dictate the spelling of the word for them to write under
their picture. I set a timer for 1 minute while they draw their pictures to
help keep us on schedule. I’m not asking for Rembrandts, just a sketch. This
one is slightly longer, about 5 minutes.
Wednesday: A repeat of Monday with the second word.
Thursday: A repeat of Tuesday with the second word.
Friday: This is game day. I have saved pictures from
previous vocabulary work, and I add in three each of this week’s words. They are
in random order. I show the picture and everybody does the movement and then
tells me the word. I call it Vocabulary Charades, but it’s not charades at all.
I’ll take suggestions for a better name in the comments. We’ve accumulated
enough vocabulary words now that I have two different sets of pictures so that
it doesn’t get too long. I alternate weekly. As I accumulate more and more
words I will need to choose to fade some of them out or split into even more
sets. It hasn’t happened yet, so I’m not sure what I’ll do yet. Friday takes
3-5 minutes depending on the length of the set.
Variations: On short weeks, or when there’s an assembly or
something that throws our schedule off, I will combine Monday and Tuesday into
one day. It is not at all difficult and still takes less than 10 minutes.
For first grade, I would do exactly the same setup but
combine the two days and add a word on game day. That way you could get five
words a week in less than 10 minutes most days, 15 minutes on game day.
For second grade, I would do the same as first except have
them write a sentence instead of draw a picture in their notebooks.
I don’t feel qualified to give variations for third grade
and higher. Feel free to leave your recommendations and suggestions in the
comments.
How do I know it works? I have two stories to tell you. We
started vocabulary instruction in February of this year. The very first week,
one of our words was leafy. Last week (three months after instruction), I was
reading a text with the word leafy. I honestly didn’t even think about it, I
was just reading. In the middle of the text, several students start waving
their hands around. I stop to look, what are they doing? They were doing the
movement we had made for the word leafy. They heard it in the story and
immediately connected to our work from three months earlier! Story two makes me
giggle. Not the first week of instruction, but early on, we learned the word quarrelsome.
A month or so ago, two of my girls got into an argument. One girl turned to the
other, said “You are so quarrelsome!” stuck her tongue out at her, and walked
away. Choosing to use the word correctly in context shows a solid understanding
of vocabulary, although in this case a lack of problem solving skills.
Do you teach vocabulary? How long does it take you a day?
What are your top tips and tricks?
