Whole class vocabulary activities to make those words STICK

Hello, hello! Anna Geiger here with Episode 77 of the Triple R Teaching podcast. Today we're talking vocabulary. We're going to talk about what it looks like when you're introducing vocabulary in the context of your whole class read alouds, and then we'll talk about some simple, easy activities that you can do during the rest of the week to help students embrace these words and really make them part of their own vocabulary.

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I really think it's important to teach new words in the context of a read aloud or text that students are reading, rather than refer to a list of tier two vocabulary words for grade one or whatever grade you teach. I think it makes much more sense to teach in context, because as much as we might like to have one, there is no list of words for first grade, second grade, third grade, etc., it just doesn't exist.

What we're really going for is to teach those tier two words. Tier two words means words that are words you're going to hear - perhaps in conversation, or you're going to read, but they may not be words you're familiar with. These are high utility words, but they're not basic words. They're a little more advanced, but they're also not technical.

A tier three word would be a word like "baleen" if you're studying whales. Those words certainly have their value, but typically when you're teaching vocabulary from a read aloud, unless it's a very specific nonfiction text, you're going to be teaching those tier two words.

很酷的事情是，这些单词实际上不必在书中。有时，当您教幼儿园或一年级时，您想大声朗读一本非常好的书，并有很多好消息要讨论，但是书中没有任何高级词汇。您可以选择与内容相关的单词。

例如，几个月前，我大声朗读我的小家伙，我们正在读一本书，托米·迪帕拉（Tomie DePaola）撰写的《艺术课》。我相信这是一个关于作者年轻时和他在学校艺术课的经历的真实故事，但是没有高级词汇，所以我将“兴奋”，“沮丧”和“失望”的单词放在粘稠的笔记上，我们用这些来标记他在书的不同部分中的感觉。首先，我讨论了单词的含义，然后我们将它们的定义应用于文本，最后我们回去看书的不同部分时，当他感觉到这些情绪时。

So your first step then after you've chosen your read aloud is to pick your vocabulary words and consider related words if there are no specific words in the text you want to teach. Before you do the reading, introduce the words, talk about them a bit. It's up to you how much in detail you want to go about their meanings, if you're going to be using words whose meanings can be figured out using context, you may want to wait.

You might say, "One of the words we're going to be learning about today is 'damp.' Keep your ears open for that word, I'm not going to tell you what it means. When we get to it I want you to think about what it could mean based on the context." Then as you read you'll stop briefly to talk about each of these words, and when you're finished reading you'll discuss them again.

So that first step is to choose the words based on the read aloud you're reading and introduce them.

但是，当然，这可能还不够。在整个一周（也许全年）中进行审查活动也是一件好事。

One that I like to do that's very, very simple is Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. I ask a question or maybe make a statement using one of the words, and if students agree, they put a thumb up, if they disagree, they put a thumb down.

For example, let's say the word is "delighted." I might say, "I was delighted when I found out that we were having mashed potatoes for supper." Now, everyone can have a different opinion, right? Actually my little guy can't stand mashed potatoes, he can't stand potatoes of any kind which I think is really odd, but it's been like that since he was a baby. I always make him have a tiny bit of one, which is always too much. Regardless, he would put his thumb down for that sentence.

您可以只有一些示例预先编写并准备就绪，以便大声完成阅读时，可能是您的评论活动，或者您可以将其放在剪贴板上，并在第二天做几个剪贴板上几分钟。

Something else to do is to have a simple discussion using the word. Let's say the word is "cautiously." You could say, "If you're walking through a dark cave, you need to do it cautiously. What are some other things that you should do cautiously?"

我想做的另一个活动是填写空白。假设您有三个单词大声朗读，我认为这是一个不错的数字。您可以有一组三个句子，每个句子都需要一个空白，这将是这三个词之一。我喜欢这三个句子相互联系，以讲述一个故事。我做了多组，也许是三套句子，所以这是我们要填写空白的九个示例。如果您愿意，您可以将这些句子放在董事会上，并在卡片上说单词，学生使用粘性钉或一些东西将它们放在他们的位置上，或者您可以将其放在屏幕上，让他们移动这个词，或者您可以只是口头。尽管我认为为孩子们展示句子真的很好，但确实有帮助。

Something else you can do is have your students complete a semantic gradient activity. A semantic gradient is a list of words in order by degree, and it's somewhat subjective, there's not always one exact answer.

例如,让我们说你教的学生the word "dart." As in you "dart" somewhere, as in a synonym for "walk" or "run." You could put a whole bunch of other words that are related to that on little index cards and have students work together in groups to put them in order from slowest to fastest. So there might be words like "crawl," "meander," "stroll," "walk," "jog," "dart," "run," "sprint." See what I mean?

When they work together with that they really have to think about the meanings of the words and the benefit of doing it in a group is that some students may not know some of the words but others may. Semantic gradients can be useful, it won't work with every word, but that's just something to keep in mind.

你也可以让学生扮演这个词如果possible. I was recently reading aloud "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my youngest two, they're in kindergarten and second grade. We were reading the chapter where the grandpa in the 1800s had to walk solemnly to church. He could not smile. He could not laugh. He could hardly even talk. I had my kids show me what that would look like to walk solemnly. We acted out what it would be like to sit solemnly in church and stare right at the preacher and not turn or anything. This, I think, really helped them solidify the words. So acting out is another good one.

Finally, this is something I heard about somewhere, I can't remember, it was a particular blog years ago and they called the vocabulary words they had taught brain words. Whenever students heard the word in a different read aloud or a different context or maybe even in conversation in class, they would tap their brain as a signal to say hey, we know that word! That just promotes awareness around the words that you've already taught.

好了。这些都是一些想法帮助your students really master the new vocabulary that you're teaching them. You can get the show notes, including the transcript, so you have all of these at your fingertips at themeasuredmom.com/episode77. I'll also include some links to some of my favorite books for vocabulary activities.

Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again next week!