Readings: The Vocabulary Window

University of Chicago psychologist Janellen Huttenlocher has found that the frequency with which normal parents speak to and around their child during the child's second year significantly affects the size of the child's vocabulary for the rest of his or her life. The more words a child hears during this sensitive period, whether it's "cat" or "existentialism," the stronger the basic language connections.

From "A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain. John J. Ratey, M.D. 2001.

Game: Erase The Face (AKA 'Hangman')

All Ages

10-20 minutes

Best for individual students or small groups.

Hangman has been a go-to activity in any class I've led. I used it with middle schoolers and middle-aged housewives in Japan, it was invaluable in my one-on-one tutoring sessions with struggling sixth graders, and my current groups of seven and eight year olds can't get enough of it.

Come to think of it, I don't know anyone who isn't at least a little fond of Hangman. Heck, the US's longest-running game show is basically Hangman with a wheel.

I only have one problem: I think there might be something slightly wrong about drawing an execution scene step-by-step in front of groups of children. Read this guide to setting up the game from Wikipedia and tell me it doesn't creep you out a bit:

The exact nature of the diagram differs; some players draw the gallows before play and draw parts of the man's body (traditionally the head, then the torso, then the left arm, then the right arm, then the left leg, then the right leg). Some players begin with no diagram at all, and drawing the individual elements of the gallows as part of the game, effectively giving the guessing players more chances. The amount of detail on the man can also vary, affecting the number of chances. Many players include a face on the head, either all at once or one feature at a time.

In my classroom, I've replaced the body and gallows with an obnoxious smiley face. My kids literally beg me to play this game. I can put it on the agenda every and guarantee myself at least twenty minutes, of

happy, focused students. Here's how we play. (January '10 Update: Click Here for Erase the Face CrossWord Edition)

Materials

All you need is a writing utensil and surface. Since I'm working with small groups of students, I use my whiteboard. This could easily be done with paper and pencil, of course.

Directions

Draw a face on the board. Clumsy artists are welcome. Include as many facial features as you like; the more you include, the more guesses your students have.

I like to write the entire alphabet on the board. This way, the students have an easy letter bank to choose

from. I found that some students took forever to search their brains for a letter. This speeds up the process.

Technically, when the face is gone before the word has been solved, the game is over. But I never beat my students at this game; I will draw it out while they guess more letters. It's fun to watch them figure it out, and it gives them more practice.

When I erase part of the face, I ask my younger students to pretend like they are erasing theirs as well. Much giggling ensues.

Benefits

I think this game has a lot going for it. It is a great way to reinforce vocabulary. I use it in conjunction with my "Word Wall," which has the 100 most frequently-used words Velcroed to it. My students have spent hours studying this board as a result. You could do this for new vocabulary from a textbook or a story just as easily.

Furthermore, I think that this game teaches some essential word-solving skills. The students really want to know what that word is, and as they try to figure it out they are compelled to imagine what sounds and letter would fit with the ones already guessed. It's kind of like sounding out words in reverse.

As the year has gone on, students have become increasingly capable of running this game by themselves. They take turns picking a word, drawing a face, and eliciting guesses from their classmates. I can pull students out for one-on-one time or just sit back and enjoy the show.

Game: Alphabet Words

10-15 minutes

I found "Alphabet Words" in Peggy Kaye's fantastic Games For Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read. It is incredibly simple to implement and I have been pleasantly surprised by how much my students enjoy it.

Directions
Simply write each letter of the alphabet on the board and tell your student(s) that the goal of this game is to think of a word for every letter. When you have them all, invite the students to repeat the words after you to review. That's it. The final product will look something like this:


This was the result of our Dictionary Alphabet Words game. As you can see, students come up with some strange words. Since this was a group of first and second graders, we were not striving for comprehension of words such as "helenistic." Simply compelling the students to look through the dictionary and spell new words is enough for me.

This game can be done in small groups or with an individual student. With a group, I assign each student a letter, which maintains a bit of order and gives them time to think. With five students, for example, the first will have A and the last will have E. Once we've filled in those blanks, I assign F through J.

Variations
It is easy to think of variations for this game. The first time I used it, we just thought of any old word for each letter. A week later, I included it in my "Introduction to Dictionaries" lesson. With a dictionary in hand, students had to find an interesting word for each letter. I was delighted by the way this game motivated them to dig into their dictionaries and by how excited they were by the strange words they found.

Kaye recommends the use of categories for this game. For example, you might set out to find an animal name or a food that begins with each letter. This might also be useful as a review for a particular subject or book for older kids. For example, challenging your students to think of alphabet words related to Charlotte's Web or American History might help them review the material and provide cues for recall later on.

Benefits
This is a great way to build vocabulary. It also can help with phonemic awareness and strengthen skill with specific letter sounds. As I mentioned, it could also be a way to review material and build comprehension. Additionally, as mentioned, I have used it to introduce students to their dictionaries.

Cross Words: Rime

rime

[rahym] noun 1. Frost. "An opaque coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of supercooled water droplets on impact with an object." (Dictionary.com). verb 1. to cover with rime.

Etymology: Etymonline.com doesn't tell us much, but my trusty Webster's New World College Dictionary (4th Ed.) traces the word back to OE hrinan, meaning "to touch." Cool.

(Photo by Flickr user scottshephard, who is also my dad.)

New Feature: Cross Words

I have become addicted to crossword puzzles. I am supposed to be doing classwork, planning a wedding, and paying attention to my fiance, but the only thing that seems to interest me these days is putting letters in little boxes.

In order to justify this behavior, I thought I should highlight crossword puzzles' vocabulary-building power. So, I am starting a new series called Cross Words. These will be posts highlighting words that I learned while attempting to solve these infernal little puzzles. They will include links to dictionary.com and etymonline.com, two essential vocabulary-building websites.

Entry #1, jape, can be found below. Enjoy!

(Photo by Flickr user Jessie Whittle. Thanks, Jessie!)

Cross Words: Jape

jape

[jeyp] verb 1. to joke; jest 2. to play tricks. 3. to make fun of, mock (now rare). noun 1. a joke or jest. (Dictionary.com page)

Etymology: Possibly from O.Fr japer, meaning "to howl."

(Photo By Flickr user patries71, CC)

Web Resource: Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos

"Vocabulary" is a term that can cause students to tune out immediately. My memories of vocabulary building in school involve worksheets, flashcards, and bold words with definitions at the end of the chapter. Most students fail to see the intrinsic value of new words, and building vocabulary becomes an exercise in failure for students and teachers alike.

Word Ahead Vocabulary Videos is a site that might be able to help. Opened to the public in January of 2009, the site features short videos with definitions, illustrations, and context for some six hundred words. You can use the widget above to see some examples of what the site offers.

Most of the videos seem to be aimed at high school-aged students, such as those trying to bone up for the SAT. (Click here for a complete word list.) Most videos are made by the folks at Word Ahead, though they also allow users to contribute by uploading their own videos.

Putting vocabulary words into videos will not make learning new words exciting for all students, but it might help, and it certainly beats worksheets. Word Ahead is a relatively new site, and thus should be expanding the ways teachers and students can interact with the videos. Stay tuned!

Words I Learned While Exploring Word Ahead:
Heterodoxy
Zoophagous
Lumen
Acidulous

Brainstorming with Wordle

Here's another installment in what is becoming a series on the use of word clouds in the classroom.

I was delivering a practice lesson to a class of graduate students in secondary education about push and pull factors in Geography. Basically, a push factor is something that makes you want to leave a place and a pull factor is something that attracts you to someplace else.

After our warm-up and my initial introduction to the concepts, I thought it might be useful to ask my students to contribute examples. Since I have become obsessed with Wordle.net, I thought I'd try to use as a way for the class to visualize the results of our brainstorming. Here are the results:





In a Wordle graphic, a word gets bigger the more times it appears in the text you enter. So for push factors, I started by typing in "push" and "factors" many times to make them much larger than the other words. Then, I just typed in the students' examples as they shouted them out.

The result is a word cloud that depicts our brainstorming session. This can be used as a guide for further in-class discussion or for later review by the students. If I had a class website, I could put the word clouds up for test prep.

I have begun to use Wordle.net with all kinds of students, and they are uniformly fascinated by the results. When brainstorming is used in class, the results are typically either scribbled on the board or left to drift out the window. The students in this class were presented with an eye-catching, reusable picture of our discussion moments after it happened.

Here's a link to the results of my experimentation with Wordle.net. Let me know if you find new ways to use it in the classroom!

Schott's Vocab Blog - New York Times

Lovers of words, especially newly-coined words, will love Schott's Vocab on the New York Times website. Ben Schott is an author living in London. He calls his blog a "repository of unconsidered lexicographical trifles. "

Schott's entry on the word "amortality" is a good example. Think about what it might mean before you check.

If you like this kind of thing, you'll enjoy Erin McKean's TED talk about the future of dictionaries.

If you're talking about dictionaries to students and getting blank stares in return, try talking about some of the word that are being added to dictionaries. People tend to find this stuff interesting. Here's a link to a good search for "added to the dictionary." Bling bling: in or out? Pick a side!

Strategy: Word Sort

This is a simple vocabulary strategy that can be used in any subject and at any grade level.

Gives students a list of vocabulary words. Provide three or four basic categories and ask students to place each word in one of them.

People like to find patterns in assortments of things; it's a basic part of how our minds work. As such, this activity is intrinsically rewarding. It is also a great way to help students solidify their understanding of important concepts.

Florida Online Reading and Professional Development featured word sorts as their Reading Strategy of the Month. Their page offers a few examples of how this strategy can be put to use.

Web Resource: Big Ideas in Beginning Reading

Associated with the University of Oregon, Big Ideas in Beginning Reading is a great site for those who would teach young readers.

These are the Big Ideas:

• Phonemic Awareness
• Alphabetic Principle
• Fluency With Text
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension

For each of these, the site provides definitions, teaching strategies, and videos of the strategies being used with young children.

Strategy: 100 Favorite Words

This is a simple idea that can be implemented in any type of classroom. Challenge students to make a list of their 100 favorite words. It can be completed over the course of a quarter or a whole year, and students can be encouraged to include words they learned in your class.

100 Favorite Words is a simple way to incorporate literacy into any subject matter and to build vocabulary. In addition, it can encourage students to further explore key concepts. A student of history might add emancipation, defenestration, or inalienable to their list, for example.

If this sounds like fun to you, check out this list of people's favorite words. And this one.