Developing Vocabulary

Kay Urbank - 1st grade
Shady Point Elementary

Building vocabulary, both oral and written can be quite a challenge. Some of the activities I use with 1st grade are:

Y-1. Write a cloze sentence on the board. Read the sentence together, listing suggestions for the missing word and discussing if the word suggested makes sense in the sentence. After getting a fair number of words, write the beginning letter of the missing word in the blank - see what now fits. Add another letter - see what words from the list fit now, etc.

Target areas - Phonological Awareness, Oral Language, Vocabulary, Listening or Reading Comprehension.

Y-2. When working with a list of "new" words to be found in a story, we make up "clues" about the words and try to find the target word from the word cards. I make up some and the students come up with others. The clues can be meanings, rhyming words, opposites, beginning sounds, ending sounds, etc. I.E. I see a word that ends like ___ (rhymes with), etc.

Target Areas: Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary, Listening, and/orMotivation to Engage with Text depending upon the clues given.

Y-3. An activity I use for reading vocabulary is to fill a pocket chart with word cards, reciting the words with the group as I place the cards. The students then take turns choosing a word they know, taking the card back to their seat when they identify the word correctly. With some students I need to tell them a word to look for depending upon their ZPD. (Did I use that term correctly?) When all of the cards have been chosen, they switch cards and put them back into the pocket chart, telling each word as they put the card back. This activity is highly motivational because they're searching for the words they know/can figure out and paying attention to the others because they don't know which cards they'll get when they switch.