Exemplary Practices in Vocabulary Instruction Vignettes
Mrs.
Marie Raymond has an experience rich environment that creates the necessary
foundation for vocabulary development.
She has a print rich environment that not only stimulates vocabulary
development but also is the junction where vocabulary and mind meet. She has bookshelves filled with books
representing an array of genres. Walls
are covered with records of word explorations, and books are littered with
adhesive notes sporting words and ideas that students and teachers find
intriguing. She facilitates discussions
where the students share, explore and refine their thinking about concepts
using new vocabulary.
The following classroom vignettes are illustrative of how Mrs. Marie Raymond uses exemplary vocabulary strategies in her fourth grade classroom.
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Word Map
Today Mrs. Raymond is modeling how to use a word map to her students using vocabulary words that are from the novel, “A Jar of Dreams” by Yoshiko Uchida.
Everyone has finished pair reading chapter five and are currently re-reading pages where the given vocabulary words are to guess the meaning from context. After the students find all the given vocabulary words and write their guesses down, Mrs. Raymond calls the class back together to discuss their findings.
“ Now we are going to look at each word, discuss what we thought the meaning was and then look it up in the dictionary to see if we were correct. Once we have the correct definition we will write it in the center of the web that I gave you.” Mrs. Raymond points to her web that is on an overhead projector for all the students to see.
“Let's begin by writing our first vocabulary word in the bubble under New Word. What is our first vocabulary word, Ben?”
“forlorn”, replies Ben.
“Very good and what did you and your partner think that forlorn means, Sara?” Mrs. Raymond asks as she writes the word forlorn onto her web.
“We thought that it meant cute.”
“Okay, Let's read the page that forlorn is on and see if her meaning fits.” Mrs. Raymond and the students open up their novels to the appropriate page. The class silently reads the page to replace the word forlorn with the word cute to see if it makes sense.
“What do you think, Latisha, does cute make sense?” Mrs. Raymond asks when everyone is finished reading.
“No, because if you read on in the second paragraph it says he's homely.”
“Excellent, glad to see that you saw that you're reading on. It's important to remember that the meaning of some of these words are not going to be found right within the same sentence. If they're describing him as homely in the next paragraph it is doubtful that forlorn means cute. Where did the boy find this dog? ” Mrs. Raymond asked.
“ On the street” Josh answered.
“Right, so we know that he's homeless. This also gives us a clue as to how he may look and feel.” Mrs. Raymond hinted.
“We thought it meant mean looking and I think that makes sense because the dog is probably mad that he doesn't have a home.” replied James.
“We think that it means sickly and he probably would be sickly without a home.” Brenda said
“Those are all possible answers. Okay, let's look it up to see if we're right. Remember to use your guide words to help you find what page it would be on.” Mrs. Raymond said as she and the students opened their dictionaries to find the word forlorn.
“It means sad and lonely.” Jackie said after locating the word in the dictionary.
“Hey, that's like our old vocabulary word melancholy.” Remarked Sam.
“Super remembering, Sam, make sure everyone puts that old vocabulary word in the bubble under old vocabulary. Let's review our old vocabulary words in our notebook to see if there are any other old words that are related.” Mrs. Raymond said as she wrote the word melancholy onto her web and then proceeded to open her notebook.
“How about the word dismal?” Larry asked.
“What do you think , Danielle, is Larry right?” Mrs. Raymond looked at Danielle.
“I think so cause dismal means gloomy and depressing which would be sad like forlorn means.” Danielle replied.
“ I remember that on “Hey Arnold” Stinky said he was melancholy, forlorn and dismal because he lost his girlfriend.” Lisa said making a connection to a television show that she had seen at home.
“ Nice to see that you're not only finding vocabulary words in books, magazines and papers but that you're also noticing these words being used on T.V. Let's add dismal to the old vocabulary oval with melancholy. Has any one else found more words that are related? No, okay make sure that you have also put the definition of forlorn- sad or lonely- in the bubble under definition. Now we need to come up with a synonym for forlorn. You could actually use melancholy , forlorn or dismal as a synonym but I would like you to come up with a different word. Think about what Danielle said about the word dismal.” Mrs. Raymond suggested.
“Oh, I know. How about gloomy or depressing.” Ricky replied.
“Great” Mrs. Raymond said writing the word gloomy onto her map.
“The next step to do in this map is a visual for the word. You need to draw something that will help you bring the word forlorn to mind. It could be someone looking sad or lonely or something that makes you sad. I'm going to draw a picture of my cat because I have lost him. Remember the purpose of this is for you to have a mental image in your head that you can personally connect to the word forlorn. My cat is not a personal connection for you.” Mrs. Raymond said as started drawing her picture on her web and the students became busy drawing their pictures.
“ Now that we are finished making our visuals let's go to the next bubble that says to write something, someone or an expression that you could associate with forlorn. An example would be that Lisa could write the character Stinky from “Hey Arnold” because he used that word to describe himself. I'm going to write Eeyore because he is a forlorn looking and gloomy character in ‘Winnie the Pooh'. This is something you may want to discuss with your neighbor because I'm sure that you may be able to generate a whole list of things.” Mrs. Raymond wrote her association on her map as the students discussed and wrote their association down.
“The final two parts to this web are writing the sentence from the book that the word is in, ‘Two years ago, he adopted this forlorn looking Bassett Hound that followed him home from school one day.' Notice that this sentence didn't give us a great clue as to the meaning of the word. We had to read on in order to figure it out. I'd like the sentences that you're going to make in the last section to give the reader a better clue as to what the word means.” Mrs. Raymond said as she wrote down the sentence from the book on her map. The students wrote the sentences from the book and created their own sentences. Mrs. Raymond had a few of the students share their sentences with the class. One of the sentences that a student read included two old vocabulary words: “The forlorn boy was troubled immensely by the scuffle that he had with his best friend” . Mrs. Raymond remarked how impressed she was with the use of the old vocabulary word. When the second map was done for the next vocabulary word Mrs. Raymond was pleasantly surprised to discover several more students using old vocabulary words within their sentences. The map is entered into the students' vocabulary section in their notebook and also added to the word wall when appropriate (see below).
Word Wall
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Mrs. Raymond uses the word wall to help her students develop connections between vocabulary words and to give repeated exposure to the words.
After students have pair read the chapter that they are currently reading in “Ralph S. Mouse” by Beverly Cleary Mrs. Raymond has students read out loud the given vocabulary that is written on the board. When a student has difficulty decoding a word Mrs. Raymond assists the student with identifying familiar spelling patterns, meaningful sub units or applying syllable rules when appropriate.
“Jenny, please say the last vocabulary word for us”
“in.. indention” Jenny replied.
“Great try you have the first part right- in and the last part tion correct. See if you can find three little words in this big word.”
“Oh yeah! In-dig-nation.” Jenny said triumphantly.
“Super- see how looking for little words can sometimes help us figure out how to say the big word. Now that we have identified the seven vocabulary words go back with your reading partner to re-read and discuss what the words could possibly mean. Write your guesses down on a sticky note and stick it to the page that you found the word on. When we are done we will come back together as a group to discuss our guesses.” Mrs. Raymond directed the students.
When the students reconvened as a group Mrs. Raymond randomly assigned seven students (that have not had a turn yet) a word to be responsible for when it came time to looking it up in the dictionary. They were also directed to write their word on a half sheet of paper so that the word may be added to the ever growing word wall in their room. Mrs. Raymond then proceeds with the word web activity that was described above
for vocabulary words that seemed to give students the most difficulty.
“Let's take a look at the words that we have and see if we can make any connections between them to make new categories or to add them to our current categories on our word wall. Mrs. Raymond randomly clipped the vocabulary words that the students had written on separate half sheets to a clothes line so that all the students could view them.
“I see two that you could put together” Sally pointed to the words.
“ Which two?” Mrs. Raymond asked
“bewilder and flustered” Sally replied.
“What is your connection for those two words?” Mrs. Raymond questioned.
“Well, both have to do with being confused.” Sally responded.
“Wouldn't muddle fit with that group, too?” Josh asked.
“Yes, Josh your right. What should we name this category?” Mrs. Raymond asked the class. The class agreed upon the category of confusion for the new addition to the word wall. Mrs. Raymond chose a student to write down the new category to hang it above the new words. She then called on four different students to hang the new words on the wall. The other words that didn't yet fit into a category were hung in the miscellaneous category with other words that had yet to be put into a category.
“During the week we will start reading with 10 – 15 minute activities to go over our new vocabulary and review our old vocabulary words. Some of the activities will include word bingo ( each student has a card with the words on it and the teacher has definitions written on cards to call) , guess the word ( students describe a word by drawing or giving examples for the word- such as you would describe Eyore with this word- other students guess the word), and what word fits into my sentence (students make up sentences that have a missing word for other students to fill in with a vocabulary word).”
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