I found Tierney and Readance’s chapter to be extremely
helpful. I found the seven vocabulary
strategies they outlined to be very promising. They mention how to utilize each
strategy and when it should be implemented which is greatly appreciated and
makes it easier to use. However, I especially liked that they had comments and
cautions about each strategy. That way a teacher would know what they need to
lookout for during the activity and how they should structure the strategies to
ensure student learning and efficiency.
I really liked the Contextual redefinition vocabulary
strategy. Teachers read the text and select unfamiliar words, the teacher
writes a sentence “so that the students have appropriate clues to each word’s
meaning (pg 312.) This way students can try and determine the vocabulary
definition by themselves which would promote a deeper connection to the
definition than if a teacher just gave them the information. Students need to provide definitions to the
words and then try to come to a consensus with their peers on what they believe
the definition is. The teacher then provides the word in the appropriate
context so that students can see how the word is used. This allows students to
mentally change their definition of the vocabulary word. The last stage of the
contextual redefinition vocabulary strategy is for a student, or students, to
verify their hypothesized definitions.
Overall, I thought this chapter had a lot of good strategies
for teachers to use. I could use any of these in my science classes. Vocabulary
is something that is important to all subjects in education and students need
the skills to determine what words mean. In my experience by the time students
reach 9th grade often students still lack the skills to deduce the
definitions of words. We have a word wall that is split into academic
vocabulary words and subject vocabulary words. Often we give them the
definitions or ask questions to try and get them to figure out the definitions.
I think I may try some of the strategies listed in this chapter to use on the
word wall for words students do not know.
I find it interesting that you focused on the same activity in your blog as I did. I think it is very difficult to come up with vocabulary activities that encourage students to create knowledge, especially when they are first learning. Each subject has it's own lexicon and is similar to learning a new language. This type of interaction helps me make connections between types of learning and the similarities in practices among content areas.
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