Cooperative Learning
Vocabulary instruction for students with learning disabilities requires more purposeful, varied, and repeated exposures to vocabulary strategies to ensure their success. If a student has a learning disability or no prior knowledge of a word, teachers should present concepts in a very concrete manner and limited to words that are most needed to understand the reading. It is more important for the students to understand the meaning of what they are reading, rather than new vocabulary that does not directly relate to the text.
An effective way to determine unfamiliar words for your students is to develop a word inventory. The students indicate what words they know, somewhat know, and words they do not know at all. A fun way to do this is to jot down ten words and have the students indicate the words they are familiar with a smiley face :), words they somewhat know with a slant face =/, and words they do not know at all with a sad face :(. The unfamiliar words should be used in graphic organizers, semantic maps, and other ways to assist the student with understanding and accelerate the process of learning new vocabulary words. At the end of the vocabulary unit, students should be able to know the meaning of the unfamiliar words, use them in a sentence, give a antonym and a synonym for the word, and be able to provide a simile or metaphor using the word, and/or indicate the meaning of the word through the use of a picture. etc... the possibilities are endless!
I personally love graphic organizers! :)
I also like asking my students to draw a picture comic strip using a key vocabulary word- they illustrate that they comprehend the meaning without using any words.
http://www.flocabulary.com/ is fun too! turn the key words into a rap or a poem :)
However, these strategies are not just for student with learning disabilities. They are for all students. After all, the idea is to give meaning to unfamiliar words so that students can have a clear idea what they are reading. :) Vocabulary can and should be Incorporated into each part in the P.A.R. framework.
No comments:
Post a Comment