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.