want to improve on vocab instruction

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Home : 2006 : May : 27

want to improve on vocab instruction
By BetsyC

Do you ever question the purpose of routine things you do with your students? For the past year I have really struggled to justify the way I'm teaching vocabulary to my third graders. The only answer I can come up with is
that I teach it this way because it was how I was told to teach vocabulary when I first started six years ago. We do the same thing every single week. Every Monday students have a new basal story to read, so they also have six or seven new words to learn. The first thing they do is define their words which takes a lot of valuable class time, especially at the beginning of the year. Every

Friday they take a vocabulary test which consists of matching the words to their definitions, fill in the blanks, and a few "write your own sentence with three vocabulary words." Most students make A's on their tests each week. While I do see the importance of students learning to locate words in a glossary and learn the meanings of new words, I just don't feel that I'm doing justice to my students by teaching vocab this way. If they are making an A every week I personally feel the grade simply becomes a fluff grade that they are not being challenged. I don't want to continue teaching in a particular way just because it's the way it's always been done and it's the way everyone else in my grade level is teaching it. I want to challenge my students to learn as much as they can and I want their learning to be meaningful. A few years ago I changed the way I teach spelling by going to a more "individualized" approach. I have seen my students excell in spelling over the last two years in ways that I never saw when I taught spelling in a traditional manner. They have such a broader knowledge of words at the end of the year and make exceptional scores on the state test in the spelling subskill. My students also love spelling and they get excited every week when I say, "It's time for your spelling pretest." I just know that I can do something to improve on my vocab instruction as well but am unsure on just what that something is. I am blessed to work under a very supportive administration who allow teachers to embrace their own teaching styles, so that is not a worry.

Like I said earlier, this is something I've been thinking about for over a year. One thing that I have toyed with in my mind is to give each student a small spiral notepad to keep at their seats in which to record words they may come across and not know their meanings and/or pronounciations. I'm just not sure how I would test students on their vocabulary in order to get a grade each week. (For spelling my students buddy test each other since their lists are different.) I guess what I'm really trying to do is differentiate so that the whole class isn't spending a set amount of class time defining the same words that they may already know the meanings of. I would like them to be able to work on a personalized list during independent time. This could be during guided reading, independent reading, and/or conferencing time that I hope to implement this fall. I'm not against having a few words in common, just looking for ways to branch out and differentiate to a degree. I'm anxious to receive posts from others who may want to try something new and from those who have already found something that works for them.

I'm goint to be gone for a few days so I'l check back on Monday evening when I get home. Now I've got to get busy packing before my husband gets home and realizes that I haven't prepared the first thing for our trip!;)