Chapter 5: Vocabulary: Making Meaningful Connections

Vocabulary in content areas is essential in understanding the text being read. It can definitely be a road block when comprehending content text. This chapter has a lot of wonderful ideas to use in the classroom to help students with vocabulary. In my classroom, we work with analogies daily. Every morning there is an analogy on the board. Some days it is just working on comparing and contrasting words, but many times it is in context area. Students really enjoy these! As the year goes on my students have even been making their own analogies for students to figure out! I love how students start to take ownership. Also, in my classroom, I have a word wall that students can refer to. This is something that is done by the students and posted when we go over certain concepts. For example, when going over math terms like perimeter. Students will make a sign with the word, definition, and picture to be posted for them to refer to later. Another way I help students with vocabulary words is using context clues. I tell my students they are detectives, and it is their job to figure out what the word means. Many times the clues around the words will guide them to the definition. This is a concept that can be challenging for third grade. I model this through think alouds and then work deeper on this concept through small group instruction. The four corners vocabulary reminds me a lot of my Marzano vocabulary I do with my students. My students have four boxes: 1. guess the definition 2. the actual definition 3. non-examples 4. examples. This works very well in all concept areas. I like the many online resources for definitions the book referred to. Dictionaries are becoming obsolete. It is something I still believe is important. Students should know parts of a word, pronunciations, and different meanings for the word. This book has many great graphic organizers to use in the classroom for vocabulary. I am exited to tweak them a little for the elementary classroom!