An article titled, “The Shakespeare in All of Us: A Monumental, Multitudinous, Premeditated Approach to Vocabulary Instruction” written by Jennifer Savino states, “Words embody power, words embrace action, and words enable us to speak, read, and write with clarity, confidence, and charm” (p. 445). I believe that this quote very accurately describes the vitality of vocabulary. Vocabulary is a skill without which communication would not exist. In order for our students to be fully functioning members of society one day, they must have a wonderful vocabulary and know how to utilize it. This, however, will not happen by accident. While children may be able to learn a plethora of words simply through exposure such as hearing and reading, it is still …show more content…
Research that I conducted in preparation for the in-class discussion says that “children learned 8-12 new root words per week” (Graves et. al, 2013, p. 337). This means that we are stuffing our students full of words that they do not have a deep understanding of and in turn, do not remember for an extended amount of time. Instead of this, we should carefully select the words we teach. Basic research on designing effective vocabulary instruction tells us that when selecting words, we should keep three things in mind: quality over quantity, high utility, and balanced strategies. The first meaning that instead of teaching our students a plethora of words, we should teach a few words and be sure that the quality of which they know them is high. Second, we should be sure to choose words that have high utility so that our students are able to use them often in their daily encounters. Finally, we must plan a variety of types of strategies, rather than simply dictionaries and tests (Kelley et. al, 2012, p. 6). There are many ways to do this, including the genre approach, the tier approach, and the SWIT approach. While all are effective methods, I personally believe that the best approach is the SWIT approach. This approach involves four different types of words: essential words, valuable words, accessible words, and imported words. Using these four types of words, it begins to become more clear exactly which words our students will benefit from. The question then becomes, what exactly are those four types of words? Essential words are the words that are completely necessary in order to understand the text. Without knowledge of these words, the text will be meaningless. Valuable words are the words that are very broad with a high utility. Especially for young children, valuable words are those that appear often throughout the text. Accessible words are those words with high frequency that
Math is a complex subject to understand. I want to provide students with as much peer discussion and hands-on activities time. This will allow students to problem solve, explore different outcomes and learn from each other. Learning the vocabulary word will help students explain their concerns, unclarified issues and help them to
Students will use vocabulary builders to help them become familiar with new vocabulary related to the topics being covered in the Chemistry
From the Glass Castle, Jeannette’s mother read picture books with Jeannette and her siblings in their early childhood. This activity established good reading habits for Jeannette and her siblings. When she was older, after dinner, her father read the dictionary with the kids, looked up the words they did not know, and discussed the definitions (Walls 56). Because of the reading habits her parents gave her, every time Jeannette did not understand a word, she looked up the word in the dictionary. The routine of reading dictionary after dinner and the habit of looking up an unknown word in the dictionary helped Jeannette build up her vocabulary. With abundant vocabulary and excellent reading skills, Jeannette did not have problem with her college admission test. Studies show that having good reading habits not only increase the volume of children’s vocabulary but also help them perform well on their exams. In the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Policy Information Center 's report, The Family: America 's Smallest School, the author points out the importance of reading to children:
...y and Vocabulary Development During the Early School Years: A Longitudinal Study. Developmental Psychology. American Psychological Association Inc.
I will be teaching five first graders, three of them receive Tier 3 Title Intervention and the other two do not receive any intervention. I will start off by doing a pre-assessment, where I will keep a running record while the students read Get Wet! By: Ellen Torres to me. I will be taking note on what sight words he or she knows and if they are able to decode the decodable words in the story. From there, I will implement the FISH strategy with the help of the word families. Word families work well for the FISH strategy because the students are able to point out the rime and onset within the word more easily. I also know the first graders have been working on word families in their classroom so it will not be completely new for them.
In this article the evidence used from the first argument was from a study conducted by Biemiller and Slonim (2001) and Biemiller (2005). The average student knows about 8,000 words in 4th grade. The data that they showed explains that if a child is in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade and they know 8,000 meanings then most of those meaning are of the same words. Concerning ELL Learners this is very important if we can know the specific words and meaning students should know and practice then this could be very helpful to ELL learners. We can focus on the words that they will use often and to be more structured with our language teaching of ELL students. The data shows that these words being learned in a similar way (200). Andrew Biemiller determined that there are around 1600 words that should be labeled as high priority. These words will most likely be in books in 1st or 2nd grade so if they don’t have the meaning then it will become a struggle to understand what they are reading (202). It is important to say that many times some students might now how to read the word fluently but they might not understand the
The power of words is immeasurable. Words help people to voice their opinions and express their thoughts and feelings. Our everyday lives are shaped by communication and in general language. A persons language can often influence success and happiness. America is viewed as a melting pot for numerous different people and their respective languages. Language is so vital in our society that a person of diverse ethnic background can face many tribulations throughout their everyday life.
To obtain a complete understanding of the word knowledge of students who are learning English, it is important their reading abilities (WTW, 2012). There are many ways to assess the reading abilities for ELL’s. For example, spelling inventories help explore the literacy knowledge of an ELL; however, the test should be first administered in their primary or first language. According to Words their way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling instruction, “a spelling inventory in students’ spoken language can indicate their literacy levels in the primary language, and more specifically, show which orthographic features they already understand” (WTW, 2014). Bilingual learners rely on knowledge of their primary language to spell words in a second language (WTW, 2014). Teachers can also assess ELL’s reading comprehension through sequencing activity (Ada, 1990). For example, teachers can have ELL’s write individual sentences from the text on separate sheets of drawing paper; then read or have the students read each sentence and illustrate it (Ada, 1990). Teachers can also informally test students’ ability to sequence material from a story by printing sentences from a section of the story on paper strips, mix the strips; have students put them in order (Ada, 1990). According to Spanish-Language Children’s Literature in the Classroom, teachers should “read to newcomers every day” (Ada, 1990). Appropriate reading material for beginning English Language Learners (ELL) should include numerous illustrations that help clarify the text, story plots that are action-based, little text on each page, text that contains repetitive, predictable phrases, high-frequency vocabulary and useful words, text that employs simple sentence structures (Ada, 1990). When you read to beginning ESL students, be sure to make language comprehensible to them (Ada,
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
At the beginning of each unit a vocabulary list is given out, and as the vocabulary is gone over within the lessons emphasis will be placed as to where the students may find the terms on the vocabulary list.
...ns. I know the students will have to hear how that word is used several times before remembering it, whether it’s heard at home or school. Even though these are 1st graders, I would introduce the dictionary to them and explain that it contains meanings of words in it. I would chose two vocabulary words a week for them to learn out of the book I would read to them for that week. I would also provide them with worksheets and have them to write short sentences with the words to help them learn the meaning of the word.
My host teacher is very efficient in implementing vocabulary in her kindergarten class learning. The kindergarteners are eager to learn, and are always asking what words mean, just by looking at their sentences during my time observing in the classroom their vocabulary has developed. Whenever my host teacher is reading a story to the students, she makes sure to address new words, and guides them to understand the meaning of the word. She never gives them the definition, she encourages the students to infer what the words mean, through context clues, such as rereading the sentence and trying to find words that will help explain the meaning, or by telling them to look at the illustrations for clues about the words meaning. She takes her time
In the content area in Language Arts, students will develop the reading skills necessary for word recognition, comprehension, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation of print and non-print text activating prior knowledge, processing and acquiring new vocabulary, organizing information, understanding visual representations, self-monitoring, and reflecting. This can be accomplished by implementing pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading strategies into the lesson plan. Fifth grade students will read and write a variety of texts with greater scope and depth. In addition, they will analyze and evaluate information and ideas by revisiting and refining concepts about the language arts benchmark and will become more refined and independent learners.
I can’t say I learned too much from this vocabulary practice. I sat in my desk, looking at the clock mounted on the wall, listening to a random letters and words, with no other connotation, explanation, or implication of them, occasionally checking to see how far along the line we had gotten so that I would be able to answer promptly when it was my turn. For my teacher, however, vocabulary practice time seemed like the best part of the school day, next to her lunch break. She really didn’t choose to put much effort into the practices at all. The students didn’t protest, of course. It was an easy part of the day for us too. The vocabulary quizzes, did make up a big part of our grade in the class, as the vocabulary practices did take up a great deal of class time.
Good reading skills are very important in learning languages. Reading improves spelling because as students learn to sound out letters and words, spelling comes easier. It helps to expand the vocabulary, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read. Students learn new words as they read and put them in their mind for later use. . They also unconsciously absorb the information about things like how to structure the sentences, how words are used in different contexts, and it gives a better understanding of the word usage and definitions than the cold facts of a dictionary. It improves a person’s vocabulary and knowledge without the person even knowing it. Even if students do not understand every word, they will hear new sounds, words and phrases which they can then try out, copying what they have heard. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments and detect implications. Reading texts also provide good models for English writing. Krashen (2004) found that reading is extremely important in learning English, since it is the only way to “become a good reader, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar” and the only way to “become a good speller”.