Vocabulary Instruction

o        Forming Child Friendly Definitions---Teaching students to use the dictionaries---Teaching Forms of a Word (For example if the word is consultant- one who consults—you should look up the base word or root word to find out what consult means. You should model this process with your children… many times… Teach your students how to be “Dictionary Detectives.”

·         Use child-friendly dictionaries (Scholastic)

·         Teach structural analysis: prefix, root word, suffix

o        Word Wizard Notebook--- where students write down their vocabulary words each week, their “child-friendly” definitions, “4 or more” sentence for each word, and any artistic representation or connection.

o        Artistically Representing the Words- students choose 1 word each week to artistically represent and put up on Word Wizard Wall---Divide Wall by parts of speech---reward students for using Word Wizard Words in oral and written language; use money jar.

o        Vocabulary Activities may be represented orally, on the board, overhead, activity sheet, etc. and through a teacher created activity sheet given at the end of a week as a form of end-of-week assessment.

o        Word Graveyard

TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING WORDS:

·         Graphic organizers

·         Dramatizing

·         Exploring Word Histories

·         Word of the Day

·         Labeling

·         Feature Comparison and Structural Analysis

·         Reference Books: encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus

·         Predicting

·         Word Sorts

·         Wide Reading

·         Reading to students

·         Speaking and writing

HOW TO LEARN NEW WORDS: Morphemic Analysis, Contextual Analysis, Dictionary Usage