Reading Practise Intensive Day 6: Vocabulary (and Decoding)

 This week was a fun week. We looked at vocabulary - which is something that I have been doing in my classroom, and what I hope that I have been advocating for my learners.

We looked at the background knowledge of vocabulary. Looking at some of the statistics that have come out about how much vocabulary our learners have show that our learners are in critical need of MORE. How can we teach that as teachers though? There are many dimensions to word knowledge, but just because a child can search a word up doesn't necessarily mean that they know what it means, or the other meanings that they may have. This is something that I will look at changing up in my Weekly Spelling Task.

We also spoke about Word Consciousness. I wasn't familiar with this term but now I know that it means being aware and interested in words and word meanings, and noticing how the words are used too. I have a word wall in my classroom that my learners love adding to. I thought that getting the learners to search for the definition (which they are excited and happy to do) was enough, but I know I need to directly explain, thought provoking connections to meanings in students' experiences, playful use of words (rebus puzzles, puns, riddles, idioms), interactive engagement, and follow up activities with multiple encounters. I will most definitely implement this onto my word wall, as well as whole class learning. I know this will help my learners remain engaged and excited about learning new words.

We also looked at vocabulary for ourselves as teachers that we would look at today. Something I was most definitely not familiar with was lexical bar. I now know that it is that threshold between words that are used in childhood through oral language and academic written language. I also solidified my understanding of denotation - which is the literal meaning, and connotation - the underlying feeling, emotion, or cultural idea associated with the literal meaning.

When looking at morphology, I noticed that in my own teaching I wasn't making it a priority. Looking at the resources and thinking back on the discussions about how valuable the morphology learning is across all age levels, I know I will definitely make more of an effort to add in Morphology knowledge - especially with it being in the curriculum. (decode multi-syllable words by applying their knowledge of the alphabetic code, morphology, and syllables; independently infer from context clues and use morphology to understand challenging words).

I am looking forward to implementing this new knowledge and utilising the new skills I have learnt about Vocabulary for my learners into my teaching programme. Closer look: link