vocabulary

I really enjoyed reading the articles about vocabulary this week because they caused me to reminisce on my own experiences with vocabulary as a student. All I can remember about learning vocabulary was doing the vocabulary workshop textbook worksheets every single day. We had to define the words, use them in sentences, find synonyms and antonyms and use them in matching questions. The worksheets in our vocabulary workbooks were dreadful and boring. I remember always memorizing the words to pass the vocabulary tests and then never using them or understanding them again. The article "Vocabulary Lessons" makes a great argument about the importance of teaching vocabulary in a meaningful way. I like how they discussed using a word wall that the students actually created. When the students come across a new word in their readings, they get to write it down and stick it on the word wall themselves. The STAR method (select, teach, activate, and revisit) for providing explicit instruction is also a great thing for teachers to use. Teaching students how to utilize a dictionary is also a good point that was mentioned in the article. I know several students are too intimidated by using a dictionary because it is so huge and they don't even know how to use one. By teaching them, teachers can help students to gain independence. As we have read in several other articles during this class, exposing students to a wide range of literature is crucial. The article discusses how crucial it is in terms of vocabulary development.

Did any of you all have to do boring vocabulary worksheets all throughout Elementary school? Or, did you all have memorable experiences with learning new words like some of the strategies taught in these articles?


This bulletin board is specifically for math word vocabulary but I loved the idea of how easily accessible it is to students in the classroom.