Day 6: Vocabulary and Decoding

Day 6: Vocabulary (and Decoding) 

Today we had a big focus on vocabulary and the positive impact it has on our learners in class and also in their lives. Vocabulary is something that is used in all areas of our lives, we think in words, we talk in words, we listen in words and we write in words. Giving our students enough exposure to more than just the Tier 1 words is vital. However, this needs to be explicit and intentional and not left to chance. When students are exposed to new words, they tend to map the word as a mental placeholder, and only with repeated exposure does the word become extended mapped (kept in the brain) with an understanding and can use it productively. 

There are four main focuses that we need for systematic planning and teaching: 

• Word Consciousness - encouraging the student's interest and awareness of the words they are learning. Doing this in fun and engaging ways. 
• Deliberate, robust teaching of words. This is where we give them explicit instruction to help them use the vocabulary knowledge across a range of contexts. 
• Skills for cracking unfamiliar words - using our spelling skills and our knowledge about syllables to help us. 
• Morphology (incl. its importance in subject disciplines) - understanding the smallest chunks within words that make sense. Understanding prefixes and suffixes. 

Today's lesson encouraged us to do more than the typical "find the word's definition, write it in your own words, and put it in a sentence." Instead, today encouraged us to look at ways that we can make it fun and engaging to help recall and understand the word. 

There were a couple of ways that we could do this. 

1st is to ensure that they know the ways to break down and decode the word, using the syllables and knowing these were one way. Another was using morphology, finding the smallest chunks of the word that make sense, etc.  These are things that even apply to us as adults. 

We had a range of activities that we were exposed to, all easy ones to use on their devices. It encourages discussion which is such a powerful tool. I really liked the Which Would You ...? It was an activity that uses their new vocab in a fun and engaging way. It will be great for them to have these meaningful discussions. 

I also liked the Spotlight Sheet as this gives us teachers a quick formative assessment of what the children know and how we can mold our teaching around this. 

I am looking forward to using these vocabulary activities in my class as these will be more engaging and fun to use for the students. 

Day Five: Planning a Reading Programme

 

Another Friday, another great learning day. It was reassuring to see what was instructed about Planning a Reading Programme are things I do already. Fitting everything into the timetable is something that is complicated enough as it is, so my take away is that things need to be concise and focus on quality over quantity. With the time we have, we want to make sure we are giving them the best learning opportunities to succeed and grow as readers and writers. 

It was great to see the apps that they suggested were ones that I am familiar with and have used regularly. 

In my class, we like to be competitive so the use of Literacy Planet is a great way to focus on the key aspects of phonics, spelling, grammar, comprehension and sight words. This is something that I have just set up to introduce into the class next week as it gives them key learning opportunities in a way that will engage them. 

Epic is another great resource to be used in the classroom. This is an app that has hundreds of book options. These range from non-fiction, fiction, read to, audio, videos and graphic novels (these are a huge hit for my year 7/8s). I really liked the idea today to get them to choose a text that is based on the theme or topic we are focusing on. For example, when they are doing D.E.A.R they are encouraged to find a book that has a science fiction setting or a text about the sun as they are the topics that they could be reading about for the week. 

On a side note, Anna shared a great idea where you use Epic to find the author's purpose of the text by using the book covers. I have now designed an activity that my students will use next week where they have to use the skill of skimming and scanning to complete it. 

Having high expectation activities and finding ways for students to self manage was something that stood out to me today. Ensuring that the activities meet the following are crucial. 

In my class, my students are year 7/8 so they are close to going to high school where they will need to be able to manage themselves, complete work to a high standard and learn. Exploring the different ways that we can plan and show this to the children as allowing them to have visibility is crucial. I find allowing the children to choose what order they get work done or giving them a set order works best for my learners. 

Incorporating more reading to write and writing to read was an interesting concept and I really enjoyed the opening sentence activity we did and I look forward to doing this with one of my learner groups.