Improving vocabulary can be quite boring for students if the same strategy is used repeatedly. Often you will hear the moans and groans as a list of words are placed on the board for students to copy and define. Students go into robot mode and often they retain little of the information. Students need to be active in learning; puzzles, riddles, and word games are very good vocabulary builders.
Use creativity to introduce math, language, geography, and science vocabulary to students. Continue to build their vocabulary by adding new words daily or weekly, but it is also important to review past words.
As well, write the words on chart paper and place all over the classroom to reinforce the information to students. Too often, students will not reopen their books to improve their vocabulary but when they are bored at their seats they might read the chart paper.
Word Study Lesson Plans
Kid Friendly Dictionary
Dictionaries are in the classroom but too often they are missing science and math vocabulary or a suitable example for students to understand. As students improve their vocabulary, have them create a kid friendly dictionary that they add new words to each day. The information printed in the dictionary must be in their words and have them include a sentence, diagram or picture to correspond with the word.
A kid friendly dictionary can also be used as math data to investigate a variety of math objectives. Homemade dictionaries are used in the primary grades but are often non existed after 2nd or 3rd grade. As the student adds each new word they are reinforcing their learning and are more likely to retain the information long term.
Matching
Students match a word from the word bank to complete a sentence. The word bank should have the same number of words to statements. As well, for the primary grades you may wish to have the blank spaces the approximate size of the word. For older grades, all blanks should be of the same size.
Examples
George______________ was the first president of the United States. (Washington)
The heart is a __________________. (muscle)
A closed shape with 5 sides is a ____________________ (pentagon)
The antonym for happy is _____________. (sad)
Unscramble Words
This is a great introduction to a new science, math, geography, biology, history, or math lessons. Students unscramble words to fill in the blanks. All of the unscrambled words are in the word bank. For this exercise you may choose to add a few extra words.
Examples
The capital of Ontario is _________________ (oortont)
___________ (streig) are on the endangered species list.
An eight sided polygon is an __________________. (aotnogc)
Spelling Help
The word bank is filled with correct and incorrect spelling words. Students must decide on the correct spelling word and spelling of the word in the appropriate blank. Another option is to write a few variations of spelling the word beside the definition.
Examples
__________ is a closed shape with straight lines. (polygan, polygon, pollygone)
My stomach hurts because I ate _______ much cake on my birthday. (too, two, to)
_____________ are used to measure internal and external temperature. ( thermometer, termomoter, theromometre)
Sorting
Students must classify the words from the word bank into the correct categories. Each category should have blanks for the younger grades equivalent to the number that fit the category.
Example
Nouns
Adjectives
Verbs
Match the Term
Students match the term with the diagram or problem. This works well with math and science. Students match the diagram of an equilateral triangle with its term from the word bank. As well, students may have an assortment of problems and all answers are located in the word bank.
