It’s been a while since I’ve done a “Teaching Tuesday” post, but I’ve gotten some emails lately asking how I teach vocabulary, so I thought I’d share a little bit about that today. Quick and easy. Here we go…
In truth, I’m a total vocab newbie. In the past, I have fallen in the camp of people who believe that the best/only way to learn vocabulary is to READ so – largely because of that, but also because I just felt like I had so many other things to fill my curriculum with – I’ve never prioritized actual vocabulary lessons in my classroom. This year, however, while I still believe vocab is best learned in context, my students told me on last year’s end-of-year evaluations that they actually wanted more vocabulary study (I know, what kind of kids do I teach?!) and – more and more – I’m seeing the value in it for SATs etc. as well. So, here I am teaching straight vocabulary for the first time in my career….
Choosing my list of terms was the easy part. Based on what I heard from my students, and the fact that 100 seemed liked a reasonable number of words to cover in a year, I chose the SAT 100 put out by the Princeton Review (PDF Here). The list has 100 words (actually 104 if you want to be technical, which kind of drives my Type A personality crazy) that are organized in order of frequency on the SAT. I took the list and divided it into ten smaller lists of approximately 10 words each to cover throughout the year.
Once I decided to teach vocabulary, the next step was to figure out how. Naturally, I took to the internet and found some great resources. In the end, I adapted my lesson primarily from Eileen Simmons ideas in her article titled “Visualizing Vocabulary” (PDF Here). I like that she makes vocabulary more about learning language and owning words instead of just memorizing definitions. In addition to this though, I also really wanted to hold my students accountable for actually learning the words, so I decided to use Simmons “vocabulary cards” as a study method, but to still test students every two weeks (or so) on the words we have just learned + a few random choices from week’s before (to keep everything fresh in their minds). I also determined to quiz students on their ability to place new terms within the context of a sentence (which is how the SAT does it too) instead of simply having them match the term to its definition.
Here’s the hand out I made to explain the study and quiz method for my students:
(PDF Here)
I also provided them with a big list (from Sparknotes) of prefixes, suffixes, and root words since that seems to be an area they are most unfamiliar with. (PDF Here)
We are only on List 1, but so far, things are going well. We make 2 or 3 cards together (for now – I will eventually have them make them individually or with a partner instead) at the start of every class, and I will leave one or two class days for some simple review/ review games before the actual quiz. I also have students hole-punch their cards and keep them in their binders so that they can easily flip through them all year long (which is especially important since “old” words can show up on any future quiz at any time).
And, that about does it. It isn’t perfect, but it’s something…
Now it’s your turn. How do you teach vocabulary?!? Please share your ideas in the comments!!
E
Thanks for the post! I can’t say my way of teaching it is revolutionary, but essentially the students get a list of the words which we review as a class together. I have them put the words into sentences as homework or sometimes during class. The reason for this is because in real life they are going to be using these words in sentences and not spewing out a definition. We play a game ( writing stories in class as a group using the vocab and only seeing what the person in front of you has written…you get some funny stories!), frisbee vocabulary and trashketball (both games are really just having students call out the definition or word that I give them and allotting points). Then we finish with a quiz on a different date.
Can you please elaborate on the specific instructions for the story writing. Sound interesting. And the specific directions for thrasketball and frisbee vocab? Thank you.
What are the instructions/rules for frisbee vocabulary?
Great vocab ideas! Would you mind sharing one of your quizzes? I would love to see what your quiz looks like, as I am trying to make mine closer to what they will see on the SAT.
I have used the web site Quia for vocabulary practice as well. You can upload lists of words and create a variety of games as well as quizzes. When you upload the list of words, Quia generates flash cards, a word search, concentration, and matching games. I always disable the word search. Quia also has other kinds of games you can generate yourself, including a Jeopardy-like game, a game like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, hangman, and several others. These you have to input the questions/clues yourself, you can’t just upload a list. Additionally, you can create tests with all kinds of styles of questions. Quia automatically grades any of the objective-style questions for you.
For the games and activities, if the students have a user name and password, QUia will record the time spent actively working the game. If they go idle after a certain amount of time (I think 30 seconds to a minute), time recording stops. Sometimes it is not accurate, and sometimes the students forget to log in and then their time isn’t recorded. I use this feature for vocabulary…when we get a new list I assign a certain number of minutes on a specific activity. Then I record the minutes as a homework grade. I usually give them 3-5 school days to complete around 15 minutes of total time.
For an individual teacher, it’s something like $50 a year but highly worth it. You can search their users’ activities and quizzes to and if they user allows it, copy them to your own account, edit them, and use them for yourself.
Hey! Thank you so much for this information. I was looking for something like this. I’ve been playing with the tool, and before I forget, I just wanted to say thanks. I don’t know if you’ll get this reply, but I thought it was worth it 🙂
I love Quia!
Hello!
What grade do you do this for? Do you have lists for other grades? Thanks!
Love it, I can use this with high school kids.
I love this list and activity. Do you have an update on how this went for you? Do you have any quizzes or helpful hints now that you’ve completed a year (or more) of this vocab? Also, which grade do you teach?
Thank you so much! I love your blog!
Great post! Thanks for sharing. I am a first year teacher and I wanted to do this, but didn’t know how to really start. Your suggestion will be helpful for me for next school year.
I am already in planning mode for next school year. 🙂
Question: Do you still teach book/text related vocabulary with the SAT list?
Thanks!
I have 4th graders, however one thing that has helped them year after year is to create hand gestures for each word. On test days I see the kids in their seats, silently moving their arms, hands and fingers to remember their words.
I have students make illustrated flash cards for each word on our every-other-week list. (It’s amazing and hilarious what 8th-graders can come up with at the stick-man level with comic-strip “bubbles” for thought/dialogue.)
On the back of the illustration, they write the word and a brief definition. Typically, students pick their favorite one or two cards to be shown on the document camera; the rest of the class tries to guess the words.
Can we please get the grammar correct? Should be ‘fewer than 15 minutes a day’
Very nice! I might try this. The PDF of your suffixes list doesn’t seem te be working though, and I am very interested in that one too!
I love this list! I am going to be a first year teacher at a middle school in language arts, and I wanted to create a “big kid” word wall with words and definitions I can teach in mini lessons and have students incorporate into their writing. This list makes the most sense to use, and I love your ideas of having students break the word into its parts (teaching them how to identify unknown words they run into later!). I look forward to incorporating this into my editing rotations I have planned where students will be looking for words to “spice up” by exchanging them with higher level vocabulary in their writing.