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ASCD Special Report: Differentiated Instruction & Technology (Part I)
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Differentiation with Vocabulary
Differentiation with Vocabulary
As
a former Latin teacher, I love teaching vocabulary in my Humanities
classroom. Words are powerful,
words are interesting, and words can be wildly entertaining. I want my students
to maintain and utilize an academic vocabulary in order to help them in high
school, college, and beyond. My goal is that my students remember the words
well beyond next week’s quiz.
I
use Jane Bell Kiester’s The Chortling Bard as my grammar and vocabulary
warm-up to start each class. Specifically, I use the warm-ups from her version
of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The vocabulary is rich and a
good mix of words. Many of my students perform well on assessments, but I want
all the students to perform well and also retain the information after the
assessment. I’ve been varying the
processing activities and differentiating groups based on previous scores of
vocabulary assessments and word choice in their writing. Here is a sampling of
what I’ve been doing:
|
Activities for not yet proficient
students
|
Activities for on-target students
|
Activities for TAG/highly capable
Students
|
|
1. Making flash cards
2. Quizzing with a partner
3. Drawing/ graphic representation of words
4. Practice with assessments from previous years
5. Small group check-in with teacher
|
1. Writing pseudo-assessments: true or false,
fill-in-the-blank, matching, synonym and antonyms (I sometimes use their
questions on the assessments)
2. Exploring the parts of speech with vocabulary
3. Small group vocabulary charades
|
1. Writing linear arrays[1]
2. Writing analogies
3. Writing stories with vocabulary words
4. Compare/
contrast words
5. Word families
6. Etymologies
|
For
whole group instruction, I use vocabulary graphic organizers[2],
class discussion with emphasis on root words and prefixes/suffixes and visual
representations of vocabulary words.
Often I’ll type the vocabulary list into Google Images search and we’ll
discuss why a particular image came up. Caveat:
do not do this “live” in front of students. Even with the usual school safety
settings in place, I’ve seen some unseemly images! Making your own vocabulary
puzzles is another great idea- I use crossword puzzles because they are
self-checking[3]. If you have
a small class and/or enthusiastic class, you can do whole class charades with
vocabulary. I’ve used “Mad Libs” as a practice activity for vocabulary, and
students love it.
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