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| Increase your WORD POWER! Check out these many free resources. What does research tell us about vocabulary learning? From "eVoc Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary," by Bridget Dalton and Dana L. Grisham, The Reading Teacher, Feb. 2011: Studies confirm the high correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Teaching words, morphology, and word origins is an important component in any vocabulary learning program. Academic vocabulary must be taught, especially to ESL students. Explicit teaching however, is not enough. Research indicates that students with well-developed vocabulary learn many more words indirectly though reading than from direct instruction. Two strategies that encourage students to read widely and deeply are to provide an array of reading materials that capitalize on their interests and to set aside time for reading during the school day and at home. Converstions about their reading with adults and peers also strengthen students' word learning. These strategies are not new. What is new is the ability to apply these strategies using technology. Teach students to use a graphic organizer to learn new words: Word Blast Combine vocabulary learning with social service. Free Rice promotes engagement with words while contributing to the social good. Vocabulary Games  - Fun quizzes to help you learn SAT / GRE words, improve your vocabulary context skills, and learn computer or medical terminology. (Commercial site: Sheppard Software) Connect fun and learning with online games. Students can independently playing with words and word meanings engage students. The games are supplemented with themed word lists, test prep items and activities on prefixes and suffixes. Wordle is a free Web application that allows you to create a word cloud based on the frequency of words in a particular text. It can be used to activate prior knowledge or stimulate a pre-reading discussion. For some students the creative design aspect serves as the hook to engage them in reading. Wordsift is another free word cloud tool. Each word can be clicked on to show a collection of related images, a word map, and a listing of sentences from the test that present the word in different contexts. Ask Oxford - An authoritative source of guidance for those wishing to write or speak English correctly. The site includes English FAQs, dictionaries, quizzes, crosswords, quotes, language links, and more. For American English, choose 'US view' near the upper right-hand corner of the page. (Oxford University Press) Commonly Confused Words - Lists dozens of commonly confused word pairs, such as affect & effect, discreet & discrete, and flaunt & flout, with tips on how to use them correctly (Oxford University Press). Dictionaries: Farlex Free Dictionary  - 'English, Medical, Legal, Financial, and Computer Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Acronyms, Idioms Encyclopedia, a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one.' Merriam-Webster Online offers an online dictionary, thesaurus, Spanish - English dictionary, plus word games, puzzles, podcasts and other features. Merriam Webster also hosts Word Central for younger students, with games, daily buzzword, and 'Build Your Own Dictionary' feature. Your Dictionary includes a dictionary, thesaurus, grammar, and more, plus a directory of Specialty Dictionaries covering many subjects in business, arts, sciences, education, trades, sports and hobbies. All the above dictionaries provide pronunciation audio. Use the OneLook® Dictionary Search to search dozens of web-based dictionaries from one site. (All commercial sites) Sachem Central School District Middle School Assessment Vocabulary Academic Words of the Week 2010 - 2011: Words from 2009/2010
One of the characteristics of effective vocabulary instruction is a focus on terms that are important to the content presented in school. When all the teachers in a school focus on the same academic vocabulary, the school has a powerful comprehensive approach. This approach greatly enhances students’ chances of learning the academic content presented in subject matter classes. -Robert Marzano Building Academic Vocabulary ASCD Sachem Central School District (Sagamore, Samoset, Seneca, Sequoya) Middle School Assessment Vocabulary: In order to address the vocabulary concerns experienced by students when taking assessments and comprehending complex questions across all disciplines, the middle school ELA chairs perused the recent New York State Assessments in English, Math, Science and Social Studies in order to discover potential vocabulary that may be contributing to inadequate comprehension by our students. Further, we consulted a national source entitled Building Academic Vocabulary for additional input and words that impede reading comprehension by students across the country. Some words may be identifiable as likely to appear on an English assessment while other words may appear on Social Studies, Science, and Math assessments. The 115 words below represent most of that list. | |
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