Expanding Vocabulary has been a place I have been the most stumped while implementing The Daily Five and CAFE. This year my Teachers as Learners Group, called TALK, decided to study Comprehension From the Ground Up by Sharon Taberski. This book was great for expanding my knowledge on helping kids improve their comprehension skills with strategies. My favorite thing I learned from this book was a way to work on vocabulary. I have been keeping a big chart and adding words to it but it just wasn't becoming part of our day and I did not notice kids using the words in their conversations. Sharon's idea is to put Teir 2 words on a sentence strip and then go on a word hunt.
This has worked like a charm. During our Daily Five rounds students are challenged to find words in their personal reading bags. During our transitions they bring the book back to the rug and read the sentence that contains the word to the class. Then we add a tally mark. If a student uses the word in conversation we also add a tally mark. When we have found or used the word 15-20 times we retire the word to our word wall. We keep noticing them but we don't tally them anymore.
How do you increase vocabulary in your rooms?
I love this idea! Would be perfect for my first graders, too!
ReplyDeleteGreat Lori, I just placed my end of the year order and found this caterpillar at really good stuff. I am going to use this same concept with word families at the beginning of the year.
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