5.7 Demonstrate research based instructional practices for developing both academic and domain specific vocabulary
Vocabulary plays an extremely important part of the reading process. If a child does not have good vocabulary skills there comprehension will be affected also. You cannot read a story and fully understand it if you do not know what most of the words mean. We develop students’ vocabulary in many different ways. Each week we have different vocabulary words that are used in the stories that we read in the book. We try to incorporate those words in any conversation possible, and it is amazing to me how we are able to do that. The students are already conditioned to hearing their vocabulary word used in other conversations and when they hear it they immediately say “Hey! That’s one of our vocabulary words”, then we stop and talk about it for a quick minute. Using that practice any chance you get helps that student remember those words and their meaning better. We also have different games that we play throughout the week to help them practice their words. One of my students’ favorite is “The Fly Swatting” game. I type their vocabulary words on different flies then print them out two copies of them. I divide the board in half and put one set of each word on both sides. I then divide the class in half and give two students fly swatters. When I say a definition they are to look for the fly that has that word on the wing and SWAT it! They have a blast with this game and I have witnessed myself that it is helping students to develop their vocabulary skills. I have attached a picture of the words on the board a video of some of the students playing the game.