Want to guarantee that students are learning rich vocabulary all day, everyday—and, by doing this, improving their reading and writing? In this lively, research-based book, based on successful classroom practice, the authors offer dozens of strategies, mini-lessons, units , and activities that increase students' exposure to and appreciation of sophisticated language.
A sampling of the vocabulary-focused strategies and tools include:
• Using daily read alouds and think alouds during shared reading to gather powerful language from literature
• Organizing literature circles with one student serving as the “word hunter”
• Engaging in whole class and small group lively games such as gift of words bingo and ricochet
• Using mentor texts as models for writing class books
• Appointing all students to be “word catchers” and “word coaches” for each other
• Establishing a classroom community where it is considered normal to ask about word meanings and experimenting with language
• Collecting and displaying words in the “Bank of Powerful Language”
• Offering rubrics for word learning assessment
In addition, the authors offer lively ways to enhance word consciousness by linking reading and writing through step-by-step units on poetry, memoir, stories, and research writing. For use with Grades 4-8.
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Judith A. Scott is associate professor of education at UC Santa Cruz where she is also the Director of Doctoral Programs in the Education Department and chair of the Ph.D. specialization in language, literacy, and culture. She studies vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary instruction, and teacher education within the context of language, literacy, and culture. As a testament to her exemplary work with schools, Judith received the 2006 John Chorlton Manning Public School Service Award from the International Reading Association. Her current work, funded by the United States Department of Education National Center for Education Research, focuses on the development of vocabulary through writing and ways to promote word consciousness in classrooms, particularly with students traditionally underserved by schools. She has been a member of the executive committee of the Vocabulary Special Interest Group within the American Educational Research Association for several years, Co-Director of a University of California Office of the President professional development institute for instructional partners of English Language Learners, and she has numerous publication on vocabulary learning and instruction, including articles and chapters in Reading Research Quarterly, Elementary School Journal, and the Handbook of Reading Research (vol. 3).
Bonnie J. Skobel is an adjunct faculty associate at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and a veteran classroom teacher-researcher.
Jan Wells is an experienced classroom teacher of thirty-five years, teacher educator, curriculum consultant, and co-author of seven professional books, including Better Books, Better Readers and Writing Anchors. She has taught in England, as well as in two Canadian provinces, Ontario and British Columbia. She has been both Faculty Associate and Sessional Instructor at Simon Fraser University as well as the elementary literacy consultant for both the Vancouver and Toronto school boards.
