Chapter three proposed many ways to enrich vocabulary for different content areas. It also included multiple profound statements regarding vocabulary. First, it stated that vocabulary heavily influences reading comprehension. In addition, the author claimed, “teaching words in isolation exclusively” is an ineffective way to teach vocabulary. Furthermore, as the chapter argues knowing the definition of a word is not enough. Rather, knowing a word is understanding it’s word schema. I could not agree more with these ideas. Dr. Hanna always talks about the diversity we will face in our future classrooms and that is pertinent to know our students. For instance, one read-aloud lesson may include a book about the beach. While we would assume that everyone knows beach vocabulary, some students may not have any connections, thus hindering comprehension. For example, they may not understand what the words “tide” and “dune” mean. It is the teacher’s responsibility to create prior knowledge for her students if it is absent. This could include a video, a field trip or even bring in sand for the students to feel.
The strategies suggested seem to be very useful. I particularly liked the “shades of meaning” strategy. I found it to be extremely creative. Personally, while I write papers, I try to replace “normal” words for those of higher quality. Many times, I use a thesaurus. At times, I have trouble picking a word with the correct meaning that I am looking for because I was never taught “shades of meaning”.
Questions:
There are different strategies discussed within each content area. Are the strategies more beneficial when used for the particular content areas?
I find the semantic feature analysis to be confusing. All of the plusses and minuses are overwhelming for me. Is there a way to make it more beneficial?
Anne, i could not agree with you more when you say "knowing the definition of a word is not enough"-- There is SO much more to vocabulary. it is so important to activate prior knowledge when teaching vocabulary. i mean, my gosh.... who knew vocabulary was this important.
ReplyDeletei envy you for liking the shades of meaning strategy and replacing normal words with high quality becuase i have NO desire to do that... just feels like more work to me- but i think it is great that you do that ;)
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