“The Vocabulary Rich Classroom” provided some great examples
of how teachers can encourage vocabulary knowledge. Students need to be exposed
to words that they don’t know in order to develop comprehension. I really liked
the activities that Ms. Barker and Ms. Rivas used in their classrooms. They
were both great examples of how to get students to actively practice
vocabulary. I thought that the way Ms. Barker changed the vocabulary she used
with her kindergarteners to include more difficult words as the school year
went on was a really awesome technique to promote incidental learning. Ms. Riva’s
classroom descriptions activity during the morning meeting greeting was also a
good way to challenge students to search for more difficult words. I especially
think that this activity is great because the descriptions of their classmates
help the students understand the meaning of words that they can associate with
their classmates.
While reading this article, I thought about how my aunt
always tells my little cousin to “use his words” when he wants something. Just
like my little cousin, the only way that students can develop vocabulary
knowledge is to use their words. Teachers can help students accomplish this goal
by giving them tasks like the one’s mentioned in this article.
- Can you think of another activity that students could do in order to increase their vocabularies?
I think a fun activity you could do with students is to put a bunch of new/difficult words on pieces of paper into a hat and have each student choose a piece of paper. The students would then have about 5 minutes to look up the word and some synonyms so that they have a basic understanding of it. They could then either draw or act our their word for the rest of the class. I think this would be a lot of fun for all the students and would really get them engaged in learning new words as well as socializing with their peers.
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