Sometimes I have to stop and think what I want to write about for this post, I have to find the post. Other times the post finds me. This week, I feel like this post has been following me around for several weeks. It started when we were looking at iReady data and I was noticing different themes across grades. Then the post idea popped up when I was driving the other day and listening to a great podcast, Cult of Pedagogy. And I feel like the post idea popped up again when we were planning the literacy related spirit days and during some of the discussions during Friday's PD. What is it that I feel like I need to write about? Vocabulary! We have talked a lot about phonics and phonemic awareness this year as we have been focusing on our foundational literacy skill instruction. And we have been thinking about and talking about our writing instruction. Vocabulary is not always an area that we focus on, so this week I have decided to put it front and center. Why do we need to think about vocabulary and how can we imbed vocabulary instruction throughout the day? The more words our students know and understand, the better they will understand the text they are reading in all content areas. Plus, not only does a solid vocabulary boost reading comprehension, it also helps them to become stronger writers. In true UDL fashion, I am going to share information about vocabulary instruction and activities in different ways and you can decide how you want to explore this topic this week. Here is the podcast that I listened to in case you want to listen: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/8-vocabulary-strategies/www.cultofpedagogy.com/8-vocabulary-strategies/ If you like listening to podcasts, I just found an entire podcast dedicated to vocabulary instruction. I have not listened to it yet, but maybe you want to listen and can share what you learn with the rest of us! It's called The Word Conscious Classroom. Here is a quick post with 20 different vocabulary activity ideas. If you like to do your own reading and research, let me send you down this rabbit hole of vocabulary and morphology research on the MA Literacy Site: https://www.doe.mass.edu/massliteracy/skilled-reading/language-comprehend/vocab-morphology.html Maybe you would prefer to watch this video clip that explains some different vocabulary activities: Here's an article written by a literacy specialist who I respect and have been able to collaborate with during different projects. This article is focused on using read alouds, specifically picture books, to help with vocabulary instruction and she includes several book titles. And here are two of my favorite books to use when getting kids excited about vocabulary and collecting words... Of course, another option for you is to simply talk with your team members about what you already are doing for vocabulary instruction, what you can learn from each other, what you could try out that's new, or how you can scale up your vocabulary instruction to imbed it in the different contents areas and squeeze components in at different times during the day. If you have awesome ideas or discover something interesting, please share it with us! I am thinking it would be great to plan a week where we are focusing on vocabulary as a school and we could host a vocabulary dress up day and give kids the chance to work together across grade levels, parade through classrooms, and just celebrate all kinds of words! Sound fun?! Let me know if you want to help us plan! I was gifted several new books so I am trying to work my way several in my currently reading pile. Almost done with Writing Radar and enjoying the writing tips for kids about finding stories and creating writing habits. I got two new beautiful picture books. One is called Once Upon a Story by two amazing authors, Grace Lin and Kate Messner. The other one is called This is a Story by John Schu. You might remember the book I read by this author at the beginning of the year called This is a School.
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