Teaching Academic Vocabulary - An Actual Teacher’s Experience
I have a bone to pick with the phrase “research shows.” Whenever I see this phrase, it always brings me back to a quote popularized by Mark Twain - "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I think of this quote every time I’m forced to watch a rehearsed video during PD depicting a class of ten kids having an engaging conversation about a vocabulary word. That’s great, but what about the real world?
In the many years I have been teaching, I’ve tried applying the techniques of academic researchers. Currently, my school is enamored with a popular model of vocabulary instruction which shall not be named. The thing is, it doesn’t work in the classroom. After many years of teaching, and much trial and error, I developed a system of vocabulary instruction that is successful for my students.
Choose 6-10 high utility vocabulary words. I usually choose words that are used across the curricula. For example, my Thanksgiving Past and Present Unit focuses on words students will encounter in classes and on tests such as crops, harvest(noun and verb forms), and settler.
Help students make a connection to new vocabulary. I front-load unit vocabulary by having students engage in an interactive vocabulary presentation. This is low-stakes and gets students using the words.
Provide a Word Study Guide. This gives students more opportunity to use the focus vocabulary in groups and independently.
Provide plenty of vocabulary retention activities such as crosswords, categorizing, finding synonyms & antonyms, creating word webs, etc.
Teaching Number words? Get this Vocabulary Retention Activity in my Free Resource Library.
