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.
