6. Submit a Log

Students were able to use the Vocabulary LINCing Routine to analyze unfamiliar vocabulary with a new thematic unit and short story vocabulary. Students liked the  LINCing story and the fact that the definition was provided. A challenge for students was finding the  reminding word for the indicated vocabulary term. I had to cue students and offer help with the reminding word. Next time I will brainstorm reminding words and offer a word bank for students to choose from.  

Students had a hard time with this concept.  We basically had to do it with the students.  

My co-teaching partner and I initially thought the Vocabulary LINCing Routine would confuse some of our 2nd graders.  When we introduced the model we really stressed the importance of making a connection to the new vocabulary words so we could easily remember them.  During our introduction, we constructed a paper chain link to use as a constant visual and reminder for our students to link all of the table components together.   

Overall, the students have been able to utilize the LINCS Table and are able to remember the information easily.  We feel they have been successful because they have made connections to the terms and information was broken down into sections that all linked together.  One of the challenges, especially in the beginning, was students coming up with LINCing stories that actually linked to the definition.  A lot of the students were stuck on just using the reminding word in the LINCing story.  We had to go back and reteach the LINCing story component focusing on how to incorporate important parts of the definition into the LINCing story.  We also added some additional instructions to the top of our LINCS Table to help students remember the correct order of the components and the expectations.   

As a second grade teacher I have found this to be most effective in small group instruction. I love how it helps to add a personal touch to vocabulary meanings by students coming up with their own reminding word, story, and sentence. It does require a lot of repetition to understand how the process works. My students have used the four-square model for vocabulary previously which lead to some confusion. I found it to be challenging for some of my students because there isn’t one “correct answer” needed to complete the table. Some students want/need that reassurance that their answer is correct and have trouble with the concept that the reminding word for “Johnny” may be different than the reminding word that “Susie” chooses.  

I am a second grade collaborative teacher.  Vocabulary is such an important part of our daily instruction.  I have used various forms of 4-squares and other vocabulary strategies to teach vocabulary. This has been my first rodeo with vocabulary lincing.  While I see the overall benefits and the success of the strategy, there is many challenges that I was faced with while implementing the routine.

First of all, the routine works much better in small group instruction compared to a whole group setting.  When I tried to implement the procedure during whole group, it was a disaster.  Many of the kids struggled to keep up, as well as understand, even though I was providing guided instruction.  Once we started implementing in small group, it went much smoother with less confusion.

The other challenge that I found was the age level that I work with.  While they are familiar with vocabulary words and looking up definitions, they had a hard time coming up with a reminding word.  The more we done, the easier it seemed to get.  Also, I have many perfectionists in my classroom this year.  Some of the students had a hard time not having a concrete correct answer.  They felt like their answer was never good enough and wanted to change it even though they were doing it correctly.

Our students struggled with this concept. We tried it several times with them working in groups but then decided to do it as a whole group lesson.  It worked better.  I think the more we do it the better they will get at completing. 

In my personal opinion this is a hard concept to use in math.  I can see how it would be more useful in other subjects.  Its hard to do it in math. 

I realize that vocabulary is a big deal in all areas.  I agree it is in math also.  It was just hard to get the students motivated to use it.

Sarina Marine
LINCing Routine Log  

Date
11/8               Water Cycle Vocabulary – evaporation, condensation, precipitation
12/6               Rotation vs. Revolution (day/night and seasons)
12/11            Product and Quotient
1/31               Geometry – polygon, quadrilateral
2/6                 Animal Adaptations – adaptation, camouflage
2/23               Traditional Literature Genres – traditional literature

I REALLY like the Vocab Lincing routine, I have used the frayer model in the past and was super frustrated with kids just Googling and not THINKING about a new vocab term.  In the frayer model, where kids should be creating a sentence to help them think of the word, they were all copying sentences that they didn't understand.  
Most of the kids are doing great with the LINCing routine.  I have a handful SUPER smart kids who do not find learning new vocabulary challenging.  They have been good about it, but once in a while a tinsy bit of the  "why would you do this many steps to learn a new word" attitude slips out. Of course, this attitude comes out with a few other things we do and it isn't particular to the LINCing routine.  I think it is difficult for kids who learn things easily to see the reason why others break things down into steps.  
One hiccup that I have run into with the LINCing routine with only a FEW students is a poor choice in reminding words.  Since the kids know the routine well now, they are not selecting a reminding word that reminds them of the new word, they are picking a reminding word that is EASY to work in a sentence! OR....they are putting way too much thought in the reminding word trying to figure out how it can be used in a sentence of mean the same as the new word.  I have put up the cue card about what the reminding word is and shown a few models again to help. For those who were struggling, I don't think they were seeing the connection with the reminding word to "jog" your brain to think of and remember the new word. It wasn't in the workbook or online, but with my "at risk" group, they seemed to really be struggling with the reminding word's purpose, so we came up with a reminding word challenge game. (I teach these kiddos in an elective Extended English class where I can reinforce things that we are doing in their English class)  Basically, your team gets points by getting another team to win the race of matching a group of reminding words to the new words.  I used note cards and wrote out 20 tricky new words (one on each card). On 20 blank note cards, working in a group, the students picked a good "reminding word" that they all agreed met the "remind word" cue card requirements and wrote each one on a card. The groups shuffled the 40 cards together and then traded with another group. Being sure to start at the same time, the group members would try to match the reminding words with the new words. They liked the game and are picking better reminding words.  I tried to stress the connection that if another person could match your reminding word to the new word, then it must be easy to do, so your own brain will do it automatically (your own brain needs to do this automatically in order for the steps to help). 

For the most part, this activity went very well. Students were engaged, and some had previously completed LINCs routines in other classes for vocabulary and knew what to expect. Students also remembered completing a similar activity earlier in the year using dry erase boards. Using this as a review of properties worked well, and it greatly benefited students to have their study guide folders out as a reference. Many of them did not readily remember the properties, and had missed them on a benchmark given the week prior. Part of the challenge of this activity was the LINCing word. Students had a hard time with this part, especially in choosing a word that sounded like the term and that they could write a LINCing story about. As the day went on, I did additional examples with the classes in order to demonstrate the skill further. Next time, I may have some LINCing word options written down for students who cannot think of a word on their own.

I enjoyed using the video to review and instruct the class with the fraction vocabulary words.  It was a nice graphic organizer to use for my students.  They were able to observe and follow the boxes.  Having the designated spaces really allowed them to better organize their thinking and thoughts.  As well, the spaces gave them a limit to how much they could use to fill the box.  A big challenge is being able to get the permission to videotape students.  We selected groups but had to adjust them because of permissions.  The second was finding enough room to have the recording.  With two teachers, support and 21 students things can fill up rather quickly.  Finding a good time, where the team was quiet and able to focus was difficult and we worked to find our space.

One thing after talking with my group for this lesson would be to adjust the LINCing table to better fit they way they think.  Having the definition at the end was difficult for them.  They told me they struggled jumping all over the place with the definition at the end of the table, they would have rather it flowed in a more sequential order.  Some of the class seem to like it, while others would prefer it in a different order.  So finding a way for me to be able to accurately show their learning, and adjusting the table to meet their needs.

The last thing is being thoughtful in what words can lend themselves better to the LINCing table than others.  Sometimes definitions we use don't work as well for the table, while others work really well for it.  Using words they had to been previously exposed to allowed us to have better and more powerful conversations about what we were learning.