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.
