Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings, and an understanding of how that word fits into the world. Vocabulary knowledge is never complete, it is something that is constantly expanding and deepening across a lifetime. Schools should provide the beginnings of a love for words and language.

Image courtesy of fellow blogger: Bel's Fish Bowl.

According to Fisher and Frey (2008), vocabulary in secondary college balloons to over 88, 500 words. In contrast, day to day language and discussion demands 5000 to 7000 words. Based on these figures, it is unlikely that conversation alone would compensate for a limited command of the academic language (Fisher and Frey, 2008).
Strong word knowledge is vital as it assists with specific content learning, fluency and comprehension. However, with such apparent gaps in word knowledge, how do teachers go about breaching the gap?

Teaching singular words is laborious and often pointless and has proven to be an inefficient way to foster word knowledge (Fisher and Frey, 2008). It is not enough for students simply to be able to regurgitate dictionary meanings of words. Students must be able to understand context, morphology and hypothesise a word's meaning.

Teachers can develop vocabulary levels in a number of ways. By encouraging students to be actively involved in word learning and immersed in vocabulary, helping them to make personal connections about words and assisting them to consolidate meaning through multiple information sources (Fisher and Frey, 2008).
Teachers can also help students with vocabulary by actively engaging with vocabulary themselves. Take an interest in new words, share interesting words with your students, encourage students to talk about words, praise their success and new discoveries. Once again, a supportive and encouraging classroom is a classroom where students will take risks and make great discoveries, thus engaging in meaningful learning.

There are a number of simple activities that can be carried out to help students improve their vocabulary. The simplest of all is to encourage students to read widely. Through reading widely, from a range of reading materials, students will be exposed to more words than you could imagine; slang, foreign, technical or specialist words, the list could go on. Much of the vocabulary acquired is through incidental learning, through discussion, reading or exposure. Provide families with techniques to develop engaging, vocabulary rich conversations. Encourage students to record new or interesting words in a journal and make a time for students to share their word journals with the class.

Word walls can be a great way to expand student vocabulary, but they must be used correctly. It is not enough to simply display words on a poster in the corner. Be engaged with your word wall whether it includes 'simple' high frequency words (these words are often the cause of much heart ache for students, as often they have many spellings and meanings) or topic specific words. Talk with students about words on the word walls, encourage them to use the words, to discover more about them in their own time. The following links provide examples of word wall activities and displays.
Word Walls for Elementary, Middle and High Schools
Instructional Strategies Online- Word Walls
Mathematics Word Wall

The great thing about word walls is they are not limited to any subject, age level or ability. Words of any difficulty can be used, word walls can be used for prep children right through to year 12 students. Words from any subject area can be used. Depending on your area of study, you could use your word wall to display place names, character names, nouns, verbs, adjectives, 'other words for' (eg, other words to use instead of said), compound words, new mathematical terms, names of pieces of scientific equipment. Word walls truly are limitless.

Encourage students to gather resources to help them explore words. The internet has opened up a vast variety of dictionaries, thesauri and word lists. These provide endless opportunities for students to explore and experiment with words.
Learner's Dictionary
Australian Slang Dictionary
Rhymer- Rhyming Dictionary
My Inspirational Quotes

Many sites, such as Learner's Dictionary allow students to create profiles and save words and phrases in their own dictionaries. This can help students to be responsible for their own vocabulary. It also provides them with a platform to investigate words that are interesting to them.

Through using a number of direct and indirect instructional activities you can help your students to increase their vocaulary skills. Remember that a supportive, safe and encouraging classroom is one where students will take risks and further their learning.

Image from: magerempowerment.com