Robust Vocabulary Instruction In A Readers Workshop

After going through our assigned reading for the week, I was excited to see vocabulary is the main point of discussion for this week. No matter what subject or grade level we end up teaching vocabulary will be the foundation of our curriculum and it is essential we are effective in teaching it.

I found the assigned article, "Robust Vocabulary Instruction in A Readers Workshop" particularly interesting as it was written by a teacher actually implementing vocabulary instruction in her classroom. What I especially liked about her vocabulary instruction is that she spent a week teaching the same ten vocabulary words using different modes of instruction. It has been found that a student with an average IQ requires 35 exposures to a new word for it to be registered in their long term memory, 40 for an at risk student (McCormick 1999). By dedicating 10 to 15 minutes of instructional time a day to the same words the students are getting this necessary exposure without being bored with five days worth of "drill and kill" direct instruction.

The only question issue I took with the author's procedure is the choice of vocabulary words being used. The shoebox activity is effective in giving students ownership over the words they are learning and the teacher specifically mentioned she made sure to pick a variety of tiered words, basic to complex, but how does the instructor ensure the vocabulary words being picked are used across subject matter? Are most of these words ones the students are encountering in their language arts lessons or math and science too? Vocabulary words of any subject can be taught in any lesson regardless of the setting. It would be extremely helpful for the students to incorporate words they are learning in science and math into this lesson as well.