Value your Vocabulary

    While reading the different articles for vocabulary, I kept referring back to a story that one of my teachers told my class this past semester. One of her Roane County interns was in a second grade class and asked them to describe the beach, draw a picture, and write sentences under it. The children described a concrete black top, river, and trees. Their definition of a beach was much different than what the teacher had in mind. In that county, there is an area where families would go play and hang out on the weekends. They called this place "the beach."I thought this was a pretty good example of how diverse peoples vocabulary is. It goes back to the question from our reading, "what does it mean to know a word?" Whether it is right or wrong, it is important for teachers to allow his or her students to discover meaning of words through context clues, visual exercises, research, and reading. Students learn from indirect instruction, rather than direct teaching of vocabulary words. I wish my teachers had a better understanding of this when I was in grade school, middle, and high school. At my school, we had a vocabulary book where we filled in sentences, and wrote paragraphs using the vocabulary words. At the end of the week we had a quiz over all fifteen vocabulary words. If someone were to ask me to define those words the next week it was highly unlikely that I could be capable of doing that. Cunningham and Allington give great tips on how to incorporate meaning behind words through discovery. Drawing pictures of words, alphabet books, and letting the child discover words they want to discuss is a great way to promote critical thinking and comprehension as well.
     While using manipulative and visual objects are helpful, it is important for us to use our technological resources as well. Online vocabulary games are a great way to get students engaged. I thought a great activity that we did in class was coming up with enough words as possible with the letters provided. It is so important for teachers to be word conscious teachers. This requires that we develop an awareness of the times when vocabulary instruction and discovery can be used in the classroom. How were you taught vocabulary as a child?