Jarrod

So, as a new English teacher, my biggest challenge has been tackling the "vocab" piece. Specifically, I would love some direction or ideas on helping students grasp the meaning of vocab terms in an organized way. I do not have as much difficulty teaching Social Studies vocab, because it seems to be taught in context. However, the vocab words in the vocab work books (access, incinerate, verbose, etc.) do not come with a context in which to teach them, and this makes learning these words more of an abstract exercise. I've worked on teaching context clues within a particular sentence, and have taught how to get hints about which word would fit in a sentence based on whether the word is a noun, verb or adjective, but I would love some ideas on what else I could do.

Thanks,

Jarrod

Could you give them extra "points" for using the vocabulary in their writing assignments? Maybe teachers across curriculum could help - The only word I remember from my vocabulary list is pecuniary and that is because I took Latin. Anyway, what if my Social Studies teacher knew that was a vocabulary word because I highlighted it and could tell my English teacher. Then I could I get "something" - like a physics card or an extra point somewhere. Just a thought. - pam

Jarrod, The vocabulary program is definitely a disconnected list of words. No rhyme or reason. I think the most important piece is helping kids to actually use the words. I'm surprised by how many can spit out a definition but not be able to properly use it in a sentence. It goes back to not grasping the parts of speech. I do the book exercises for each unit, have students create triple entry journals, etc... But I do not believe it is helping them "apply" the terms to their speaking and writing vocabularies. Do our students even know what an adjective is? How it is used? Bottom line: I have the same concerns about vocabulary as you. Is part of the vocabulary program teaching the parts of speech????

Jim Aylward

Jarrod, What do the vocab quizzes look like? Are they matching? Could the quizzes be made completely of fill in the blank type questions? Learning (and teaching) vocabulary is tough, and if a student sees a word once on a vocab quiz then it is unlikely that they will remember it. Maybe you could have them write short stories (very short, like half a page) about something that they are interested in using a certain number of vocab words. And not just words from the latest quiz, but have a compiled list starting at the beginning of the year so that they are (hopefully) using words over and over. Just a thought!

Kristen P.