Monday, October 10, 2011
"Weather Watcher" to "Meteorologist"!
In this week's readings I found many inspiring things, but one stuck out in particular. In the article by Holly Lane and Stephanie Allen, The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth, the kindergarten teacher's story had a great impact on me. In the anecdote, the teacher gives the children classroom jobs (such as "zookeeper", "line leader", "cleanup helper", "weather watcher", etc). Many of the jobs are common in classrooms across America, however her's became more unique. As the year progressed she expanded the children's vocabulary by changing the jobs' names. For example, "zookeeper" became the "animal nutrition specialist" and the "weather watcher" turned into the "meteorologist". It's simple things such as this that can help teach children, without having to take time out of class to have a lesson plan - instead, it's integrated learning! It's the simple things such as this that can have a huge impact on children's experience in the classroom.
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I really enjoyed reading about the progression of role titles too! I wrote in my article that this method of integrating new vocabulary is a very efficient and effect way of fostering vocabulary development and reading success.
ReplyDeleteThis was also my favorite story from the articles. I this this is an effective strategey to use because it doesn't take up a lot of time and these terms are always being used and practiced by the children.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think that this is such a great way to engage children in learning new words and also helping them to demonstrate what the words mean and how they can be used!
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