No, It’s Not Arbitrary and Does Make Sense: Teaching the English Punctuation System. You might also try putting a period at the end of a “thought.” And what about semi-colons and colons? Well…maybe those are for exceptionally long breaths and thoughts? Okay, I guess you can see that these are no official “Strunk and White” rules about usage but rather the kind of myths about standard punctuation that are perpetuated, sometimes by educators, I’m afraid.
Add to this the concern that writers, such as novelist and poets, often employ their own creative punctuation: for example, poet e.e. cummings wrote in all lower-case; popular novelist Stephen King, a former English teacher, writes long, run-on sentences to indicate stream-of-consciousness thought. So by the time students come onto a college campus, they’re often under the impression that punctuation doesn’t matter, or is arbitrary, and makes no sense—sometimes all three. Teaching English Vocabulary – 10 Fabulous Ways to Teach New Words.
Pearson Prentice Hall: eTeach: Strategies for Vocabulary Development. By Dr. Kate Kinsella, Dr. Colleen Shea Stump, and Dr. Kevin Feldman A Rationale Directly Addressing Vocabulary Development What Doesn't Work? Teaching word meanings should be a way for students to define their world, to move from light to dark, to a more fine-grained description of the colors that surround us. Successful comprehension is, in some significant part, dependent on the reader's knowledge of word meanings in a given passage. 1 Baker, S. 2 Stahl, S. There are a number of traditional teaching practices related to vocabulary that deserve to be left in the "instructional dustbin.
" Look them up. The common shortcoming in all of these less effective approaches is the lack of active student involvement in connecting the new concept/meaning to their existing knowledge base. Integration—connecting new vocabulary to prior knowledge Repetition—encountering/using the word/concept many times Meaningful use—multiple opportunities to use new words in reading, writing and soon discussion. Teaching Vocabulary with Francie Alexander. Scholastic’s Reading Resources Network is putting the focus on vocabulary.
Here, you'll find activities and resources to use in your classroom, a model lesson on video, and an online development session for vocabulary instruction. Plus you’ll discover a plethora — there’s a great vocabulary stretcher — of other resources. Our host is Francie Alexander, Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Scholastic Education. Francie has taught at all levels, was a district reading consultant for PreK through high school, and has authored professional articles for educators and 25 “books kids can read” for children. Betty Tsang Increasing Vocabulary: Concept Definition Map Observe a model best practice lesson. Motivate and Focus Set Expectations Teach / Model Adapted from Scholastic Red, Improving Reading Comprehension, Grades 3–5 Francie Answers the Tough QuestionsQuestion 1: Why is vocabulary so important?
Question 2: What words do I teach? Question 3: How do I teach vocabulary? Listen to more questions.
Effective Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary. Doing it Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary. Every Monday my seventh grade English teacher would have us copy a list of 25 words she'd written on the board. We'd then look up the dictionary definitions and copy those down. For homework, we'd re-write each word seven times. Good, now you know it. Test on Friday and never for those 25 words to be seen again. Copying definitions from the dictionary we would probably all agree is not an effective way to learn vocabulary. The truth is, and the research shows, students need multiple and various exposures to a word before they fully understand that word and can apply it.
Selecting Words Ah, so many words, so little time. My first year teaching, before my tenth graders began reading Lord of the Flies, I went through every chapter and made lists of all the vocabulary words I thought they'd have trouble with, so that I could pre-teach them. When I looked at those long lists, I began to freak out. Then, here's what to do after the students pick their own words: Ranking Words Teaching Words.