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2/01/12

EVERY DAY A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

I've learned that some teachers are using Word Web Vocabulary with only their top students. That's somewhat disappointing because in my own classrooms, I found the students in my lowest groups derived the most benefit from this program's approach to teaching vocabulary.

Their success always came when they made a connection themselves from a word in the classroom to their own world. They might have seen a web word in a headline (a real pearl!) or when passing by one of the many acronyms, such as ATM, TGIF or SUNOCO in a car.

For you teachers who are not able to use Word Web with your entire class, please consider making the Real World Word part of all your students' weekly work. They are quite likely to benefit from this exposure when they succeed in locating these words.

One valuable source of these Real World Words® are the flyers - drugstore and grocery - that appear in most Sunday newspapers. Many of the advertised products' names derive from Greek and Latin. Here are some examples.

Benefiber®: root bene- for well, good, as in bene(fit) + fiber.
Dynavite®: power + vitamin
Nicoderm, a skin patch to control smoking: nico(tine) + skin
Pyrex®: pyre means fire in Greek; pyrex is able to withstand heat better than any other glass product
Quattro® razor, a razor with four (quattro) blades.
teleflora®: (send) flowers (from a) distance

See how well students do in understanding the fundamental meaning of these products' names.  Hold classroom discussions about them. Remember, Word Web Vocabulary stresses comprehension rather than memorization.

Do you remind students to use their vocabulary words when fulfilling other writing assignments? They should!
 
That's my Word this time. 

Ellie

elinormiller@seepub.com

 

 

Word Web Vocabulary - recommended on Heidi Hayes-Jacobs' website - Moving vocabulary from the edge of language arts to its center

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