Teaching Vocabulary- Chapter 6
Teaching vocabulary is essential in reading comprehsnion. As educators, we can not assume that students understand what exactly they are reading. Simply said, if readers do not know the meanings of most words in a passage, they will be unable to understand the passage.
According to the text, there are two types of vocabulary. Content-specific vocabulary and academic vocabulary. Context specific vocabulary relates to the terms that are critical, yet specific, to a particular discipline or unity of study. Academic vocabulary is a set of terms often found among expository texts and formal presentations or speeches but which is not unique to any content or academic discipline.I would refer to academic vocabulary as "sight words". Words that students see often but may not necessary know the meaning of. Both types are very important in reading comprehension. Reading, writing, and vocabulary- need it all!
A way to prevent vocabulary and school failure is to ask students to brainstorm about targeted vocabulary concepts and write possible definitions. Students can also apply what they know about a vocabulary concept by being exposed to the word in different contexts. This is called contextual knowledge. Research supports practices that help students connect new vocabulary to known vocabulary and concepts. Teachers should engage students to find synonyms, antonyms, and connotations of words for additional clarification.I also would encourage students to draw a picture of what the words mean to help them to retain the meaning (vocabulary illustration) or make a comic strip using the word to show me that they understand the meaning behind the word.
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. Semantic maps or manipulating word parts may accelerate the process of learning new vocabulary words. Some strategies to use when teaching vocabulary in preparation for reading are: word inventories, graphic organizers, semantic maps, word maps for the keyword metaphor, concept map,
Because teachers can not "protect" students from words by teaching every difficult term, they must help students understand words that clarify the text. As an educator, I stress the importance of using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in a text. They usually find out the the definition of the unfamiliar word is in the sentence. :)
I enjoyed learning about the Dissect approach to vocabulary.
D- iscover the word's context
I-solate the prefix
S-eperate the suffix
E-xamine the stem or root word
C-heck with someone
T-ry the dictionary
Some additional strategies to use when teaching vocabulary in all three areas of the P.A.R framework are: semantic feature analysis, post graphic organizers, and categorization, word analogies, magic squares, vocabulary illustration, word bubble, word bingo,
I also enjoyed reading about the vocabulary study system TOAST- I will definitely use this strategy in my classroom.
Test, organize, anchor, say, test.
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