Vocabulary Explorations

     
      The chapter in the book, Classrooms That Work, is filled with numerous vocabulary and word study ideas. I am going to take several of these activities and use them with my own class some day. I really liked how the book mentioned that mindless definition copying is worthless for students. As a student myself, I never remembered what I wrote, just like the book mentioned, I always picked the shortest way to write it and move on to the next word. I love the idea of a vocabulary work book or dictionary; students can take notebook and label the pages on the tops A-Z. When they come across an interesting word they can add it to the book along with site words and words from the word wall we add as a class. This helps children in creating a personal reference throughout the whole year. I also love the idea of the 20 questions game for students with new terms and past words they need to be reminded of. It is a fun way to get the whole class involved and engaged in vocabulary learning.
     Blachowicz and Fishers article explains that there are endless vocabulary lessons and ideas available for teachers. It is important to narrow those ideas into best practices and most engaging for each individual class. This article also emphasizes the importance of independent reading. It says that 5th grade students who get 10 minutes of independent reading a day increase their word exposure by 622,000 when compared to the average. This is a crazy thought. Teacher are so pressed for time throughout the day, but I know I can make 10 minutes especially when the results are so significantly beneficial.
     Lane's article on creating a Vocabulary Rich Classroom was a great example for ways to implement these ideas into a classroom. I loved they way the student jobs in the kindergarten class transformed as their vocabulary strengthen throughout the year. "Zookeeper" was already a much better name than "pet person" but then it went deeper and became "Animal Nutrition Specialists" What amazing words to use with 5 and 6 year olds! This article advised teachers to be conscious with their words and deliberate in speech. I think that this is so important because students are listening and modeling everything that they see and hear from adult figures in their lives. Another great word of advice is to be so cautious not to "dumb" down words for kids. They are smarter that adults give credit and if young kids are exposed to words they don’t understand, it opens up doors to build vocabulary. I think that all adults, not just teachers, need to mindful of this when interacting with kids.
     Lastly, the Hart and Risley article resent some really interesting points on vocabulary development. A study was done with children from the three different socioeconomic statuses: low, middle, and high. Studies showed that experience exposure is strongly related to vocabulary words and 98% of the words in a child's vocabulary where the words in the parents vocabulary. I think that this is so important for educators to realize. If a classroom of students are from low SES, then their vocabulary will be so limited, due to experiences. This also applies to a class in the city and covering mountains. Students will not know much about the topic because of lack of experience, no matter the SES. In looking at the parent and kid vocabulary connections, if a child in class uses curse words when frustrated or upset, it is so important to realize that the child may only have those words to express their feelings. This comes from parents. Teachers should help children learn appropriate words to express emotions like, "I am so upset when. . . “or "I do not like when you . . . ."  These are great thoughts to keep in mind when fostering students’ vocabulary skills and increasing their mastery.