Topic:  Vocabulary Development and Instruction in the

Content Areas

(General)

Lori Huff

 

 

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” – George Washington Carver

 

 

It is essential for students to expand and understand their use of vocabulary words. As teachers, we use many different techniques and strategies to increase our student’s vocabulary.  The following is a list of web sites that teachers, parents, and students can use to facilitate the use of vocabulary words and increasing their knowledge and learning.  These web sites expand the information found in chapter six of: Brozo, W.G., and Simpson, M.L. (1999).  Readers, teachers, learners:  Expanding literacy across the content areas (3rd Edition). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.

 

Teaching Vocabulary Techniques

 

This site provides techniques to help students understand vocabulary words such as teaching new terms in context of a meaningful subject-matter, facilitate paraphrasing of new term’s definition, making background knowledge connections to a new term, create multiple formats for which students can elaborate on the meaning of new terms, etc.  This site also offers ideas and suggestions on the ABCs of LD/ADD, For Teachers, Kidzone, Audio clips, and much more.  This site can be found/located at

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/teaching_techniques/ellis_clarifying.html

 

Eat Your Words

This site is called Literacy 101: A Fusion Cruisine Approach.  This site is filled with a lot of information they call for a well-balanced literacy program.  This site is in three sections.  Section 1, Chapter 1: The Basic Ingredients. Chapter 2: Procedures, and Chapter 3: Special seasoning, etc.  When I went to this site, I clicked on chapter one of section one.  There is a menu about halfway down the page and click on vocabulary.  At first nothing was n the screen.  I had to use the bottom scroll bar and drag the bar to the far right and there was the information.  This site can be found/located at http://library.thinkquest.org/50066/data/vocab.html

                    Word Knowledge

This web page talks about a common relationship between vocabulary and comprehension.  This web page explains teacher’s dilemmas, instructional techniques, content area reading, teaching vocabulary, and language arts.  This web page can be found/located at http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed412506.html

 

                                     Getting Ready 

 

This site helps students to increase their vocabulary and comprehension.  This site also is a helpful tool to prepare students for the SAT and ACT test.  This site is geared for high elementary, junior high-middle and high school-college prep.  This site is also helpful for students in English as Second Language (ESL) classes.  This site is filled with puzzles, creative activities, and games.  Some examples are filled-in-the blank, word find, crosswords, etc.  This site can be found/located at http://www.vocabulary.com

 

                                Information Overload


I love this web site!!!  At first, I did not think there was too much at this site.  I scrolled down to the bottom and clicked on site index.  There is a lot of information!!  This site is user friendly.  The site is not only for teachers and students, but for parents as well.  This site offers ideas for teaching high frequency words, teaching vocabulary, and choosing vocabulary words to aid comprehension, and ideas for teaching vocabulary.  This site also provides a section on teacher development.  There are assessments, balanced literacy, literacy development series, and much more.  This site is found/located at http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/frequent.html

Bibliography

Allen, J. (1999). Words, words, words: Teaching vocabulary in grades 4-12. Stenhouse.

Bear, D. (1999). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. Prentice Hall. 2nd Edition.

Blachowicz, C., & Fisher, P. (2001). Teaching vocabulary in all classrooms. Prentice Hall. 2nd Edition.

Brantley, C., & Johnson, C. (1997). Word smart II: More straight-a vocabulary. Princeton Review.

Burchers, S., et al. (2000). Vocabulary cartoons II: Building an educated vocabulary with sight and sound memory aids. New Monic Books.

Elster, C. (2000). Verbal advantages: 10 steps to an impressive vocabulary. Random House.

Fawcett, G., Pryor, E., Roskos, K., Padak, N., Hendershort, J., Moss, B., Henry, J., & Peck, J. (2001). Teaching word recognition, spelling, and vocabulary. (B.W. Church, Ed.). International Reading Association.

Ganske, K. (2000). Word journeys. Guilford Publications Inc.

Gulotta, C. (1997). 500 SAT words, and how to remember them forever. Mostly Bright Ideas.

Lewis, N. (1995). Word power made easy. Pocket books.

McWhorter, K. (2001) Vocabulary simplified. Prentice Hall

Robinson, A. (2001). Word smart: Building an educated vocabulary. Princeton Review. 3rd Edition.