I absolutely love this chapter, because I think that vocabulary is such an important thing to have in a young person's life. Being an English major, I am exposed to words that even my own friends, who are college juniors like myself, don't know or have never heard of. It really irks me because it is no like I am using some foreign language that no one will be able to understand. These are words the by the time you enter college you should have some grasp on. This chapter really made me happy, because I think that most teachers either don't teach vocabulary or they do not teach it effectively.
The one part of the chapter that I enjoyed was the effective versus ineffective vocabulary instruction section. I liked that it had a list of things you should do, and things you should not do when teaching vocabulary. The top on the list of things not to do is "Have students look up lists of words in the dictionary and copy out definitions," (p. 32). I agree with this wholeheartedly because I believe that the students won't really learn the words just memorize the definitions and spew them back at the teacher when they ask. Vocabulary acquisition I think is best when the students are being active participants in reading the selection a teacher asks them to. Having students point out words they do not know, and using strategies like thinking aloud and marking the text will build the foundations the students need to acquire vocabulary they come in contact with.
I agree that vocabulary acquisition is done best when the students are active participants. When I was in middle school, I clearly remember copying words and looking them up in the dictionary. I hatded doing that because it was so boring and I never remembered the definitions.
ReplyDelete