5 Ways to Increase Your Students' Vocabularies

5 Ways to Increase Your Students' Vocabularies

Hey, y'all. According to the Science of Reading, one of the biggest predictors of students' reading success is their vocabulary. The more words students know, the more likely they are to be able to read them and understand the text. But what if you've got some students that haven't been exposed to a lot of higher-level words before entering your classroom? Or even some more common words? What can you do to support them? Here are 5 ways I help support my students with strengthening their vocabularies. 

1. Vocabulary games with spelling words

I am currently teaching first grade, which means we are working on adding to our vocabularies every single day. Almost every week, especially in the second half of the year, there are spelling words that the kids might not know the meaning of. Or, they may know one or two meanings of the word when a word has several different meanings.

So, rather just telling them what the word means each time we come across it, we'll play games to go with our phonics instruction. I may say, "Write the word that means 'a baby bear'," and they would write "cub." Or, "This word means the opposite of 'front,'" and they would write "back." Students write their answers on a dry erase board and, on the count of 3, everyone turns their boards around. It's a quick and easy way for me to check their understanding and their spelling. 

For more experienced readers, you could also write the word and its meaning on index cards and have students match them. Make it a game by giving each student one card (either a word or a definition) and they find their partner match. Extend the use of these cards by playing Memory with them in small groups. 

2. Read vocabulary rich books

My favorite way to bring new words into my students' orbit is by reading high quality picture books--books with rich vocabularies and engaging story lines. 

One Word From Sophia, and its sequel Two Problems for Sophia, are great introductions in how adding new words to your repertoire can make you feel more worldly. Sophia learns that saying less, and being more succinct, helps her case in acquiring a giraffe for a pet. 

The kids absolutely love these books and it makes acquiring new vocabulary into something like a game. Books like The Word Collector are also great for getting kids to romanticize learning new words.  

With older students, we dissected some popular songs with advanced vocabularies (not Gwen Stefani's Holla Back Girl, more like Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero) to gain more meaning from the text. Once the kids understood what they were actually singing, they had a new appreciation for the writing. 

3. Display vocabulary cards

...and actually refer back to them. 

Our school's reading curriculum comes with vocabulary cards that match the stories included in the set. Some of these word cards are helpful while others, not so much. But using these cards, as well as the vocabulary cards in our notebooks help students refer back to them throughout the story or the unit. 

In our classroom, we display the content area cards throughout the unit. If we're studying plants, we'll talk about each vocabulary term, share the card with a word, definition, and picture on it, and then display it in the classroom throughout the unit. 

Displayed vocabulary cards make for great options for write the room activities and handwriting practice as well. 

4. Use vocabulary notebooks

In each new unit I teach, there are always some new vocabulary terms that students may not know. So we use our vocabulary notebooks to keep track of new words and to keep them all in one place throughout the unit.

Each set of notebooks has different options for differentiating depending on the level of support your students might need. At the beginning of first grade, I may have my students trace the definition and color the picture for time's sake and to get them into routine. But towards the end of the year students, are writing in their own definitions and drawing pictures to match. This helps them take ownership of their vocabulary notebooks, and makes the learning "stick." 

Students are also encouraged to refer back to their vocabulary notebooks to help with their spelling during content area writing or if they forget what the term means. They hold onto their books until that unit is over, then either take them home or add them to their book boxes. 

5. Play vocabulary games with content words

Quiz-Quiz-Trade with vocabulary words by having the new word on the front of an index card and the definition on the back. Play music, and like musical chairs, when the music stops, students have to find a partner. The partners quiz each other on the word and definition, then trade cards. When the music starts up again, they find a new partner and repeat. 

Need them to sit down? Give students index cards with the word and definition on the same side. In pairs or groups of 3, one student reads the definition and the other(s) guess the word. The student with the most words guessed correctly wins. 

Other ideas include vocabulary charades or Pictionary, Jeopardy style games (this comes with some prep work), 

Overall, the best way to increase students' vocabularies to use a large vocabulary yourself. If a kindergartener can say Tyrannosaurus Rex, they can say photosynthesis, and so can your big kids. You can use words like "protagonist" and "antagonist" in reading (not just the "good guys" and the "bad guys"), or "addend" and "sum" in math. 

When we use big words, our students will too. My daughter has been telling my other daughter, "That's not appropriate," since she was 2 years old. Words stick when we use them and encourage our students to do the same. 

 

I hope this helps and gives you some new ideas for your own classroom. I don't do all of these things everyday, but doing a couple each week and mixing things up keeps students engaged and growing. Thanks for hanging out with me. Have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon. 

Stay cozy,