One of the biggest difficulties that my school faces is our students' limited vocabulary knowledge. Across grade levels we see that our students continue to struggle in vocabulary portions of standardized tests and their lack of vocabulary knowledge also effects their reading comprehension. In an effort to help build my students' vocabulary and to provide them with the 15 interactions that research says are necessary for students to internalize word meaning I worked with my LLT to develop a differentiated group of vocabulary activities.
How it works:
Each week my class creates a list of 8 to 12 vocabulary words that pertain to our current week's instruction. These words can be teacher created, pulled directly from curriculum, student created or a combination of the three. The students have a list of 20 vocabulary activities that range from alphabetizing the words to creating a crossword puzzle, to drawing a picture to define a word or creating flash cards. The students' then choose 15 of th 20 projects to complete before our vocabulary test on Friday.
The benefits:
I like this set of projects for many reasons but mainly because it differentiates for all different intelligences and it allows all of my students, regardless of their academic performance level to find projects that they complete and feel successful doing. It has helped raise vocabulary knowledge and it has also become a part of the routine that my students enjoy. Plus, its a great independent center project which frees up some time for me to meet individually with students. you can also use some of the activities to help build basic language skills with struggling readers such as syllabication and identifying nouns, verbs, etc.
I don't currently have a scanned copy of the project sheet but I will add it along with exemplars of student work so that you don't have to come up with your own 20 projects!
**I use this with my fourth grade class but it could easily be extended up through middle school or down to the third grade level.
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2 comments:
This is definitely a strategy that I would use because I love vocabulary games and projects. I'm looking for vocab activity, and this came right at the perfect moment. I hope this blog help more people than just myself.
DR
Can you please post the activities? I was searching for ways to differentiate vocab and this fits in perfectly with the other things I do for Reading... I do a very similar menu of items for all the reading/writing activities for the week, but I am looking for new and MORE vocabulary ideas! If you can't post here, can you pls email me at chriseagar@hotmail.com. THANKS!
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