A Wall of Words and Other Ways to Teach Vocabulary

by Shaleen Reed, West Union Junior High School, West Union, Ohio

I love words. They are the key to self-expression, both written and oral. As a language arts teacher, I want to help my students broaden their personal word banks and receive the most from their native language. I try to imbue my students with effective strategies they can use to define and study words in any classroom setting.

I have found that many of my students are easily frustrated when they read a story that has several words they don't know. So when my students are reading a class novel, we create a vocabulary "wall." It works this way: The students write down confusing words and find the definitions for homework. The next day in class, we review all the words the students didn't know and their meanings. I then write them on our vocabulary wall, a large sheet of color roll paper posted where the students can see and study the words daily. We continue to use these words in other activities aside from the novel. Since students are unlikely to remember a word if I just teach it once, I try to keep using the words until they know, without a doubt, what they mean.

For those students who are hardly excited, to put it mildly, about learning new words, I have found other ways to make words and their meanings interesting to them. I often turn vocabulary study into a game, an art project, or even a song.

I have found two books to be especially useful. One is Kylene Beers's When Kids Can't Read--What Teachers Can Do (2003)--see Chapter 9. The other is Janet Allen's Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12 (1999). Finally, I make a great effort to show my students how learning new words and extending their vocabulary relates to their lives and is beneficial to their future success.

Shaleen Reed is a first-year teacher at West Union Junior High School in Adams County, Ohio. She is currently teaching seventh- and eighth-grade language arts and is coaching softball. She graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with an undergraduate degree in marketing in 2000. In 2004, she earned her master's in education from Wright State University.

References

Allen, Janet. (1999). Words, words, words: Teaching vocabulary in grades 4-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Beers, Kylene (2003). When kids can't read--What teachers can do: A guide for teachers 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.