Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Vocabulary mini lesson

The lesson I had in mind involved the students reading a chapter or two and keeping a list of words they had trouble with or thought their peers would struggle with. As they encountered word they would simple jot down the word and the page number that it was found on. At the end of their reading they would be asked to each choose one word from their list to focus on. Once they had their word picked they would be asked to go back and try to think of a couple possible meanings based on the surrounding text. Once they had their definitions written down they could move on to look their word up in the dictionary or if it was a non English word they could look it up on the internet (ex. kira-kira). At this point they would be asked to write down the definition they found and come together as a class in front of the word wall. Once the whole group was settled the teacher would ask them to share their findings. Each student would go through and share their word (with help if necessary), the definition or two that they thought up for the word, how they come to those definitions based on on what they saw in the surrounding text, and then the dictionary or internet definition they had looked up for the word. Then the class would go on to talk about why that particular word was difficult and ways that they could use to help remember it and possibly other words like it in the future. As the class finished with words the words and their definitions would be tacked on the word wall. After all the class is done sharing their words the teacher should have a chance to put up and talk about any other words she or he thought should on the word wall. Once the all word were on the wall the class could go through and read them together before moving on.
In this lesson I am assuming the class has done other activities of this nature. They have worked on getting clues about word meaning through the surrounding text. They have had experience looking up word in the dictionary and online. And they are familiar with word wall lessons in general.

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