Chapter 7: Mastering the Art of Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary is essential in reading comprehension that is why it is important to have effective vocabulary instruction. Students need to know what it means to know a word. Are they able to just tell the definition? Are they able to use that word in a sentence? Can they categorize the words? There has been many situations in my class where students know the definition of the word, but they are unable to use it in a sentence. To me, this means they don't really have a grasp of what the word means. I really liked the idea of the nonsense passage. It is crazy how our brains can use the context clues around these nonsense words to be able to understand the passage and words. I think my students would really enjoy the nonsense passages. Students learn new words in a variety of ways. They can learn through direct instruction, experiences, and reading are just a few ways students learn new words. The more students read the more words they will know. I remember seeing a chart of the comparison of students who read over the summer compared to students who don't read. The students who read over the summer had an abundance of vocabulary compared to the ones who didn't read. One area I struggle with is choosing appropriate vocabulary words that will benefit my students. Our district is creating units using commoncore.org. I am working with a team of teachers to create several reading units. One area we had a hard time with was vocabulary. How do we pick out words that will be meaningful and useful? Vocabulary is essential in every content area; science, social studies, math, etc. Science is an area where my students struggle so much with vocabulary. I like the lesson by using a fill-in-the blanks activity using passage from the book. This will give them enough background knowledge to get a deeper understanding of the word. My goal as an elementary teacher is to have students that are rich with vocabulary!