|
|
<< back to Parenting/Family Issues SIGNIFICANT! REMARKABLE! STUPENDOUS! One of the greatest gifts we can give our children in their education is to help them develop a large, rich vocabulary, along with the skills for using those words. It is impossible to overemphasize the power of words. They literally have changed the course of world history. Not only is the relationship between word knowledge and comprehension unquestionable, a large and rich vocabulary is consistently indicative of a well-educated individual. At Middlefork School, there is a commitment to this premise and to fostering awareness of and fascination for the power of words, among our youngest students. In fact, in the words of a first grader, learning new words is important “because you can use inspiring words to make interesting sentences!” Middlefork School’s vocabulary program How to get young children to become excited about words Teachers use different strategies Another second grade teacher challenges her students to select new words from their own reading. A student encountering a new and interesting word is encouraged to write it on a slip of paper, along with the definition, the source, and a sentence containing the word. Each week children who have submitted words in this manner have opportunities to teach their words to their classmates. All words are written on the board and students vote for the class word they decide to “own” that week. As in the other second grade class, that word is posted on a white board in the hall outside the classroom for the school to view and learn. One Middlefork third grade teacher combines both approaches described above and adds another level of challenge, one that could easily be replicated at home with similar results. Any encounter with an “owned word” translates to a marble being dropped in a jar, and once full, the jar is traded for a class celebration. Third graders have enjoyed popcorn and popsicle parties, they have earned time outdoors, and they have brought favorite stuffed animals to school to celebrate their rich, growing vocabularies. Even kindergarten students enjoy getting in the vocabulary game. With listening comprehension skills that far outpace their reading skills, kindergarten students are intensely curious about the meanings of unfamiliar words they hear. When students ask questions about words that fall within Beck’s Tier 2 framework (words that represent concepts students already understand and that are common among mature language users), the teacher provides student-friendly definitions and multiple opportunities to interact with the words. In one kindergarten class, the teacher is certain that students understand the meanings of new words when they connect them to their own everyday experiences or use them in a different context, as the following scenario illustrates. Students had learned the meaning of cantankerous, a terrific substitute for the common five-year-old’s understanding of grumpy or cranky. After working with the word for a couple of weeks in class, one little boy, intently listening to a new story, looked at his teacher and exclaimed, “Now that is so UNcantankerous!” And he was right; the character in the story was as far from uncooperative as a character could be! Noting, appreciating, and playing with rich vocabulary words is not limited to Middlefork classrooms. As described earlier, once a class decides that it “owns” or really knows a word, it is written on a white board posted outside their classroom door and displayed on the school’s growing vocabulary bulletin board. This encourages interaction with the “owned” words across classrooms and among students and adults throughout the building. Upon visiting a classroom, the principal or another adult can easily inject these words into conversation with students. During the first year of the program, student “owned” words were added to a growing VocabuPILLAR, a centipede of words that crawled the length of the school’s main hallway. The following year, the words were displayed in word bubbles emanating from the mouths of VocabuLARRY, VocabuMARY, VocabuHARRY and the rest of the Middlefork VocabuKIDS. This past school year, the growing list of words wound through the hallway aboard the Middlefork VocabuCOASTER. In addition, weekly Principals’ Challenges are posed to students through the Learning Center, involving them in word sorts and creative writing activities, using the “owned” words posted in the hall. Finally, in the spring, students and staff celebrate their growing vocabularies by creating word costumes for the school’s annual Vocabulary Parade. In these ways, the excitement and curiosity surrounding learning new words permeates the entire building, and multiple exposures to words outside of the classroom walls are fostered. Families can help children increase their vocabularies at home, too The opportunity to increase the breadth and depth of a young child’s vocabulary is not exclusive to school. First, adults should not regularly simplify their vocabularies in the presence of children. A grandparent can just as easily be delighted to see a child as he or she can be happy; a problem could be described as perplexing as easily as it could confusing. Families can also engage in entertaining activities and challenges to promote rich vocabularies, similar to those described in this article, and the payoff can be inspiring. Storybooks are a powerful source of new words. Parents and children can select a word or two from a story together and set a goal for usage outside the context of the story. Such children’s classics as Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey include the Tier 2 terms enormous, delighted, and beckoned, while The Mitten by Jan Brett uses commotion, investigate, and admire. Children can also be challenged to listen and read for richer ways of describing things than the typical good, nice, or hard. In fact, during the first year of the Middlefork program, the word “good” was outlawed. Over the course of several weeks, students contributed to a list of 100 words to use in place of the term “good”. Upon completion of the Good to Great list, the entire school celebrated, and “stupendous” had replaced “good” as the most common adjective heard in the halls. The following anecdote illustrates the simple but powerful effect of explicitly teaching Tier 2 words to young children. A third grade class was preparing individual vocabulary bingo boards by writing favorite words “owned” by their grade level in the boxes on the bingo card. One of the word choices from a different class was melancholy, so the children in this particular class needed some instruction on the word’s meaning before they could use it. Using a series of examples and non-examples, the teacher explained things that would and would not make her feel melancholy, and then she asked the students if they could think of a synonym for melancholy. Within seconds, nearly a dozen hands shot up, but one students’ reaction captured her attention above the others. J was a fine student, but not an enthusiastic reader, one who sometimes struggled at that developmental juncture of learning to read and reading to learn. “What do you think melancholy means?” the teacher asked J. Fully expecting a response of “sad,” imagine her delight and pride when he replied, “Melancholy means downhearted!” For J., downhearted had replaced sad as the common way to describe such a feeling, and THAT made his teacher feel jubilant. References: Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. Bringing words to Life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guildford Press. Mary Frances Greene, Ed. D., is the principal of Middlefork School in Northfield, IL. She is also an Advisory Board member of the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. This article was originally published in the Fall-Winter 2008-09 issue of Early Childhood |
    |
