Vocabulary Development (all grades)

Rationale:  Children need motivating ways to learn and retain new vocabulary at their own level.  These activities ensure that students explore ideas at a level that builds on their own prior knowledge and motivates them to learn independently.

Benchmarks:  Language Arts/Reading

DI Strategy:  Anchor activity; Tiered Assignment

Differentiate What?  Readiness and Interest

Differentiate How?  Content, Process and Product

Resources needed:
Prepared copies of vocabulary strategies (see those included)
Vocabulary logs or notebooks for students to record strategies

Teacher preparation:  The teacher models a variety of research-based vocabulary strategies.  Teachers may use the templates included with this activity or students may make their own.

Explanation of activity:  This can be used as a daily Anchor Activity.  Students select words from the novel they are currently reading.  The novel could be an Accelerated Reader book, a literature circle novel, or a novel the whole class is studying.  Students need to understand that when they complete a given assignment, they must automatically move to an anchor activity and work on that activity with care and concentration.  The following choices will be given from research-based vocabulary strategies:
a.  Frayer Model
b.  Using Sentence Stems to Describe a Word
c.  Writing Your Own Definition

Duration:  Approximately 20-30 minutes per day

Teacher's Role:  The teacher will be free during this activity to work with individual students or small groups.

Editor's Note:  For more detailed information on the Vocabulary Project, see <http://www.tandl.leon.k12.fl.us/lang/Voc_Project_00_01.pdf>

Madeleine Rehder and Joy Glass
Kate Sullivan Elementary
 
 

NAME___________________________    DATE ____________
 

FRAYER MODEL
 
 

Definition (in own words)                                     Draw a picture
 
 
 
 
 

Examples (from own life)                                     Non-examples (from own life)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Name________________________________   Date______________
 
 
 
 

 USING SENTENCE  STEMS TO DESCRIBE A WORD
 
 
 

HOW CAN I DESCRIBE THIS WORD?
It’s kind of like a _______________________________________________.
It looks like a __________________________________________________.
It’s when you __________________________________________________.
It’s where you go to ____________________________________________.
It smells like __________________________________________________.
You use it when you ____________________________________________.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Name_________________________________  Date____________________

WRITING YOUR OWN DEFINITION
 
 

DEFINITION   WORD   CHART

Word:

Things I know about the word:

General category this word might belong in:

Examples or other related words:

My definition: