Teaching Vocabulary is Important

From the desk of Carol C…

Vocabulary…something I’ve always taught because I knew my students needed to know the meanings of words in all areas of our studies.  They had to know the vocabulary to understand the concepts they were to learn.  However, I didn’t look at the larger picture.  I didn’t think how vocabulary affects children’s ability to learn to read and how it plays a large role in their academic success as they travel through elementary, middle and high school, and life after high school.

Vocabulary is one of 5 components deemed necessary for children to learn to read.  Children can learn to decode words and become fluent readers yet still not understand what the words on the page mean.  So to understand what they read they must know the vocabulary words and their meanings.

We all know teaching vocabulary is not just for students learning to read. Vocabulary needs to  be taught at all grade levels and in all subjects.  The number of words a student understands affects how well he can connect new ideas to his background knowledge, understand subtleties in a piece of writing, and evaluate the validity of what he reads.  This correlation between understanding vocabulary and comprehending text grows stronger each year, especially when students reach middle and high school.

For a time in my teaching career I used materials which provided a new list of words every week.  Most of the words were difficult.  It was hard to find the time to teach each one word and its meaning as they were random words and not connected to anything I was teaching.  Now some of you may have found success with this method of adding to students’ vocabulary.  I didn’t.  My students may have remembered the words for a week or two but then the words were gone.

What I did find helpful was to use a graphic organizer to help my students learn  vocabulary words important to comprehending the lesson.  Graphic organizers help students see the connections between words and thereby help them understand their meanings on a higher level.   This method of teaching vocabulary gave my students more opportunities to connect to the main idea and use words in other contexts.

One graphic organizer is the Frayer Model.  I’ve used this before and thought it was effective. The other organizer below is designed to increase one’s vocabulary.

 

VOCABULARY WORD	EXTENSIONS
stammer	falter, stutter, hesitate, hem, haw
perseverance	determination, drive, tenacity
detest	dislike, abhor, loathe, hate
crucial	urgent, serious, important

 

A strong vocabulary is essential to academic success.  We, as educators, need to work to increase each child’s body of words.  Being able to communicate effectively depends on being able to read and write words so your message is clear to others.

“Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, standing in a dictionary; how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to choose and combine them.”    Nathaniel Hawthorne

Vocabulary Development and Concept Graphic Organizers

http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/GO/vocab_dev.htm

Graphic Organizers

http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/graphic_organizers.htm