Vocabulary Activity

Activity: Vocabulary Word Wall Workstation Activity


Objective: Build Vocabulary

Materials: Bulletin board, magazines, scissors, quart size zip lock bags, sentence strips

The teacher writes the targeted vocabulary words for the week on sentence strips and staples each word to the bulletin board. The back of the zip lock bag is stapled underneath the word. This allows students access to the content of the bags to view multiple examples of each word. During workstations, students look for magazine pictures to represent their vocabulary words. When workstation time is over, the teacher reviews the magazine pictures with the class and then places the pictures in the bags. The words stay up all year for students to reference and takes up the entire length of the bulletin board. Not all words from the core vocabulary list make the vocabulary wall! If students already “own” the word, instructional time is not spent on that word. The teacher judiciously chooses vocabulary words to teach each week based on the rationale of Isabel Beck. That is, selecting words to teach that appear frequently across a variety of domains and that can be worked with in a variety of ways. (Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing Words to Life, Robust Vocabulary Instruction, p 19. New York: Guilford.)

The growth of word knowledge is slow and incremental, requiring multiple exposures to words (Hirsch,
2003; Stahl, 2004). This does not mean simply repeating the word and a definition or synonym, but seeing the word in different contexts. How are words learned incrementally over multiple exposures? Every time we encounter a word in context, we remember something about the word. As we encounter a word repeatedly, more and more information accumulates about that word until we have a vague notion of what it means. As we get more information we are able to define that word. “Vocabulary knowledge seems to grow gradually moving from the first meaningful exposure to a word to a full and flexible knowledge” (Stahl, 1999).

Extensions

We try to use Academic Vocabulary whenever possible in instruction. One way to incorporate Academic Vocabulary into the Vocabulary Wall experience is to have students perform activities of the teacher’s choice from the following list. These can be done in Whole Group, Small Group, or Workstations, depending on student need and provide multiple exposures to words.

Alphabetical Order—Students alphabetize vocabulary wall words.

Antonyms and Synonyms—Students find antonyms or synonyms on vocabulary wall, or generate antonyms or synonyms of vocabulary wall words.

Blends—Students identify vocabulary wall words containing blends and isolate those blends. This can be modified to identifying targeted blends.

Characters—Students identify vocabulary wall words which could describe any characters in the weekly selection.

Context Clues—Students identify any vocabulary wall words that were used in context clues.

Dialogue—Students identify any vocabulary wall words used in dialogue in the weekly story.

Digraphs— Students identify vocabulary wall words containing digraphs and isolate those digraphs. This can be modified to identifying targeted digraphs.

Fluency—Students practice fluency by reading vocabulary wall words, trying to increase their rate each time as words become more familiar.

Graphic Organizer—Students generate a graphic organizer using vocabulary wall words appropriately.

Mental Images—Students create mental images using vocabulary wall words, and share with a partner the mental image they created. They then illustrate their mental image.

Parts of Speech—Students sort vocabulary wall words by parts of speech: noun, adjective, adverb, etc.

Plot—Students locate any vocabulary wall words used to identify the plot in the weekly passage.

Prediction—Students identify any vocabulary wall words used in making a prediction in the weekly selection.

Setting—Students identify and use any appropriate vocabulary wall words to describe the setting in the weekly selection.

Summary—Students choose appropriate vocabulary wall words to summarize weekly story.

Syllables—Students segment vocabulary wall words into syllables, identifying any prefixes or suffixes.