How to use this Page

Let’s look at  Word Walls for interactive learning developing comprehension both in language arts and in curricular content. Robert J. Marzano in his book, Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement, offers six steps to effective vocabulary instruction:

1. The teacher explains a new word, going beyond reciting its definition
2. Students restate or explain the new word in their own words
3. Students create a nonlinguistic representation of the word
4. Students engage in activities to deepen their knowledge of the new word
5. Students discuss the new word
6. Students play games to review new vocabulary

This works!  Check out Georgia Scurletis Wordshop on ThinkMap. And, you can use it with the Step Up To Writing program and with your classroom Word Walls. Certainly the primary grades make good use of Word Walls for developing sight words and patterns in word families. But, is it time your Word Wall becomes a tool, not just a decoration?  The Word Wall though can be effectively used for content vocabulary. In the International Reading Association‘s bimonthly membership magazine Reading Today (Vol. 29. No. 4) Katherine Hilden Clouse and Jennifer Jones Powell of Radford University  advocate using the Word Wall “strategically and effectively.”  Here are their suggestions:

Primary Classrooms:

• When organizing the Word Wall based on sight words word families, beside each sight word placed a red dot indicating to students that it is an important word used in reading and writing but can’t be “sounded out”
• Start with high utility word families which equip students with patterns that can be applied to new words
• Here’s some Word Wall Activities from Teaching First and Scholastic
• And, interactive word wall ideas

Upper Elementary:

• Focus on content words
• Categorize  words might be color coded based on the content area in which the words are predominantly found
• Here’s some content word walls (math, social studies, science)

Use and model the displayed words:

• Teacher instruction, to be effective, must be direct and systematic
• Use the word wall during classroom down time
• Use the word wall during reading and writing instructions
• Play with words rather than drill and kill students with word lists
• Try word banks

Build a conceptual base 

Parents often ask, how old do my kids need to be before I can stop reading aloud with them?  Looks like they are never too old! The Forum on Child and Family Statistics recently published America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2011,  a summary of national indicators of children’s well-being and monitors changes in those indicators. One key indicator is the family reading to young children at home.  It is linked to reading development and later on,  achievement in reading comprehension and overall success in school. This study was a feature article in the recent issue of Reading Today, the International Reading Association’s bimonthly newspaper.The Florida Center for Reading Research lends support to this indicator and has made available to families recommendations to help families promote literacy development at home. Here at Sts. Peter and Paul Salesian School, our K-5 reading program– Houghton Mifflin’s The Nation’s Choice, recently upgraded to the Medallion Edition, provides recommended leveled reading lists for students (easy, on level, challenge), independent readers, and for read alouds for students in K-5.  You might want to check the lists out here, and then get the books at the public library.  Nothing like a good story to get the imagination running, dendrites clicking, and getting ready for school!

Graphic courtesy of The Eagle’s Eye