Chapter three in our textbook was a great review on the importance of vocabulary. Vocabulary is essential to our students reading comprehension. I found the research on struggling first year college students very interesting that "vocabulary knowledge was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension than cognitive ability." It really made me ask myself what is happening from elementary to secondary instruction with vocabulary?
As soon as I began to read about the social and academic vocabularies, and English language learners I immediately thought about the presentation we had at the professional development seminar last Friday. It is amazing to me that there are some teachers who automatically assume that just because a child can talk to his friends or say that he wants pizza for lunch in English, that they should be able to fully participate in the classroom. I understood many of the words the ladies were using in their spanish lesson on apples, but it was still difficult and frustrating. So I can only imagine how frustrated our ELL students are in our classrooms.
I think it is a good idea to think of vocabulary in the three categories the textbook suggested. I feel like general vocabulary is where many teachers focus and perhaps if teachers made a slight shift toward more specialized and technical vocabulary, there would be greater improvement on the secondary level and above. Many of the strategies such as word walls and connecting concepts that we have learned about in previous classes were mentioned in this chapter. One strategy that I found interesting and cannot really remember talking about is the expanded vocabulary word list. I think this is a great idea to use with older students and the "said is dead" was a really catchy phrase. I would also like to use the "shades of meaning" strategy with my students. I think it would be a neat way to incorporate art into vocabulary instruction. I also liked the "Quiz Me" cards. I think having students ask adults around the school to quiz them on their vocabulary would be a great way for students to practice using their words and would also benefit students who may not have help at home. This chapter had a lot of great ideas on how to teach vocabulary in our classrooms.
