Class of April 10^th – Makeup Blog

While listening to last week’s recording, I found many useful strategies in teaching vocabulary in my classroom. The first presentation on Vocabulary Rich Classrooms I found very interesting. I liked that the group of presenters informed us that we need to use sophisticated language with our students to ‘add significant breadth to students vocabularies’.  Using sophisticated words will help students develop and grow more sophisticated vocabularies. We also need to be scaffolding our vocabulary terms as well. I enjoyed how the group gave the example of scaffolding by changing ‘weather watcher’ to ‘meteorologists’.  The Marzano’s 6 Steps strategy would be very beneficial for all students. The activity sheets that go along with this strategy would support the understanding of the key vocabulary terms being taught. I think the aspects of drawing a picture, writing their own meaning, discussing the opposite meaning, and using the word in a sentence gives the students the opportunity to gain a stronger comprehension of the word.

Marzono’s 6 Steps

1. Give a description, explanation or example (don't tell definition)

2. Have students restate and write the description in their own words

3. Students draw pictures, symbol or graphics that it represents

4. Regularly use the term in classroom activities

5. Ask students to use the word when talking to each other

6.  Regularly play games with academic vocabulary

The fly swatter game would be a fun and exciting for students. Having students come up to the board and ‘swat’ the word when the definition is read is an interactive approach to having students demonstrate their understanding of the vocabulary word.

The second group of presenters discussed the importance of close reading and creating dependent questions. The students need to show evidence from the text to support their claims from the books they are reading. Text dependent questions need to be asked by using the text and using their background knowledge, and not by looking outside the context of the book. I enjoyed the example the group showed on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Showing us text-dependent and non-text-dependent questions made it clear on what specific type of questions we should be asking our students to draw evidence from a text.  When the group was showing us the activity about figurative language, I liked how they would have the students find the figurative language used in the reading, label them and then change it to make their own figurative language terms to replace the original terms. This would allow the students to demonstrate their understanding, along with taking ownership of the activity. In my fourth grade classroom last year we completed something similar to the first part of the activity. With my class, I used the song ‘Fireworks’ by Katy Perry. The students were able to listen to the song (which they loved) and find the figurative language terms used within the song. I set the purpose for my students to find those figurative language terms. Below you will find the activity pages, which can also be found at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Firework-by-Katy-Perry-Song-Lyrics-Poetry-Terms-Figurative-Language-111909

As Dr. Manderino was discussing teacher questions it made me think of the questions I ask my students and the questions I have them ask. In my first grade classroom we are continually asking questions about the text. We ask questions before, during, and after the reading. In fourth grade last year, I had my students ask green, yellow, and red light questions. The green light questions are those questions that could be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, yellow light questions could be answered by information found in the text, and red light questions would make the students infer the text.  These different levels of questions showed the students the different type of questions they could be asking as they read. Here is the activity sheet I used with this strategy.