Part 1: Strategy 1

In my health class, incidental learning often happens during open discussions. For example, while we were talking about nutrition and daily habits, one student casually mentioned skipping breakfast because she’s “never hungry in the morning.” Instead of moving on, I used that as an opportunity for a quick mini-lesson on blood sugar regulation and energy levels. We talked about how skipping meals can affect focus, mood, and performance in school, and brainstormed quick, healthy breakfast options that fit busy mornings. Moments like that are some of my favorite parts of teaching health. They’re unplanned but incredibly relevant, and I am always willing to detour from the main activity to address these questions. My top priority in health is connecting the curriculum to the students personal lives, and this is one of the best ways to do it. When students make personal connections to the content in real time, those lessons tend to stick much more than anything I could have planned.

Hearing about this strategy made so much sense to me because it's the way that I learned a lot of my vocabulary and it's how I'm teaching my daughter words. I do a lot of explicit instruction of vocabulary when it comes to articles and texts, but I love that this episode talks about the importance of vocabulary through speech as well. 

Hearing this conversation inspired me to try to substitute for more interesting words in my conversations with students during downtime during the school day (I'm thinking specifically of all of the wonderful words that mean the same as "confused" like befuddled and perplexed). 

Additionally, I have a classroom routine on Tuesdays where students practice speaking in expanded, complex, and compound sentences about an image. Students have to be able to speak with a lot of detail on our English exam, the NYSESLAT. I always scribe the students' oral sentences and we check them out to see which type of sentence they are and why. However, I think that if I provided my own sentence afterwards, it could be another way to show additional vocabulary that the students did not come up with on their own. 

I love the simplicity of this strategy and it got the gears going in my brain as to the ways that I can incorporate it. 

I think it's really important to maximize incidental learning opportunities in the high school classroom because there's usually a focus on content language acquisition, but it's unclear what everyday vocabulary terms students lack. I use a lot of primary sources from earlier in history, but one of the things that I can do is use some of the words or phrases that are less commonly used in everyday speech when interacting with the students. One way that I might elicit more informal conversations with students is asking them about things happening outside of school. From playing a sport to playing an instrument, there are vocabulary terms that students can learn about things that they’re interested in.

Incidental learning can be a great tool in the classroom because it allows students to learn more vocabulary through experiences, observations, or random moments. Dr. Peery's ideas make these vocabulary lessons more engaging and memorable. I need to look for opportunities to capitalize on these moments by turning them into a bridge for instruction. 
Vocabulary supports student reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the number one thing you need as a learner. Without proper reading comprehension, it slows down student learning. It slows down test taking. All of the Regents tests are going toward a more rigorous reading comprehension style of test.  I need to intentionally add more vocabulary strategies into my lessons.

I was so glad to see informal conversations listed as a great way to teach new vocabulary. In order to find out what type of books a student may be interested in reading, I am constantly engaging in informal conversations. We will discuss what they like to do in their free time, what they watch on T.V., video games and current events as well as past books read. During these conversations, I talk in my normal conversational manner which often includes words that the kids do not normally use or hear. In turn, I often learn some new slang that is common in their conversational manner. I always ask them to explain what a word means and if needed when it would make sense for me to use that word, they are comfortable asking me about some of the words I use as well. Since the new words I introduce are common in my conversation they become repeat words for the kids and hopefully part of their concrete vocabulary.

As a Kindergarten teacher, I wholeheartedly agree with the emphasis on growing students' vocabulary. Even at 5 years old, there can be a wide gap between students' level of word knowledge. Over the past 6 years, I have also worked with the ENL cohort at my grade level. I prioritize building language in the classroom, and over the past few years I have become even more interested in learning strategies for growing vocabulary. 
   For the first strategy, Angela Peery suggest ways that teachers can use informal conversations for incidental learning. Although the conversations are informal, she argues that teachers can purposefully plan for these occasions. You can decide on targeted vocabulary prior to conversations with students, and find ways to embed these words into conversations. This is one strategy that I have used in my classroom, and I continue to find ways to get better at it. For example, my students line up at the door each morning, and I have a small conversation with each one at the start of the day. If my current theme is community helpers, I might plan to show each student a picture of my cat at the Vet. As they enter, I might engage each one of them in a dialogue using terms such as veterinarian, healthy, stethoscope, whiskers, paws...etc. For the students who do not have as much language, I would plan on spending a little bit longer on our conversation, exposing them to new vocabulary in a meaningful way. Incidental learning is a powerful strategy for boosting vocabulary for all students. 

I agree informal conversations are very important for children to develop vocabulary.  I like the idea of using synonyms so students can hear different ways to use a certain word.   I also like having a word wall or a list posted in the room to add words to as they learn them.  

I capitalize on incidental learning at the beginning and end of the class period while waiting with my students at the door. This is often conversation about something they mentioned during the lesson that did not directly relate to the lesson, but was interesting to the student. Another topic I tend to gravitate towards is fun facts I learned on NPR or an article I read that seemed interesting. In both of these types conversations, I try to add the language that I have heard from professionals into the content of what students are saying. This blend helps elevate our conversation together. 

I have used incidental learning to help develop an opportunity for explicit instruction after hearing about some drama my high schoolers were navigating through. Their choices helped me to realize how uninformed they were for the choices possible in a certain situation. This conversation at the door led me into a mini-unit on friendship and decision making. The language we developed together helped them to better assist with discussing and executing choices that led to stronger interpersonal skills. 

This focused on the idea that there are often a lot of missed opportunities to teach vocabulary. If teachers (and parents) are more intentional about teaching vocabulary, children will benefit immensely. Pre-readers will be more prepared to be readers. A vast vocabulary supports reading comprehension and writing. Knowledge of vocabulary will help comprehension across the curriculum. Helping children develop a strong vocabulary, gives them tools in their tool kit that will help them in all subject areas. Angela Peery talked about 8 ways to grow student's vocabularies. As a first grade teacher, the strategies that I plan on using are "Informal Conversations" and the "Tip Chart." Informal Conversations focus on including interesting words in conversations with the students. If you do that regularly, the words will begin to stick with them. I liked the idea of using a Tip chart to increase vocabulary knowledge. I could see using this in a variety of subjects...science, literacy, math... In the first column, you write the word. In the second column, a kid-friendly definition is written. A graphic of the word is drawn in the third column. I will definitely be using these tools in the classroom.

Informal conversations are very important for children to develop vocabulary.  I like the idea of using synonyms so children can hear different ways to use a certain word.   The more  tools a child has in their tool kit the better reader and writer they will become.  Children also need to have conversations with one another.