One of the key indicators of students' success in school, on standardized tests, and indeed, in life, is their vocabulary. The reason for this is simply that the knowledge anyone has about a topic is based on the vocabulary of that information (Marzano & Pickering, 2005) See below for more information

It is recommended that you incorporate direct vocabulary instruction into your weekly routine by focusing on 5 words per week.

Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary

• • Learn Common Word Parts: using prefixes, suffixes, and roots

  • Vocabulary game: A vocabulary word on one side, and the definition on the other side. Everyone gets a card and a partner. One at a time, you read your partner’s word, and tell them the meaning of the word. Your partner then reads your word, and they tell you what they think your word means. This is a great way to build vocabulary. You can also read the meaning of the word, and have your partner guess what the word is.

  • Some good board games to help with vocabulary are Apples To Apples, Scrabble, Boggle, Pictionary.

  • Look it Up: Pick a vocabulary word, write the definition, and make a sentence for the word.

  • Draw it: Make an artful picture with one vocabulary word.

  • Vocabulary Journal: Create a journal of vocabulary words. You can draw it, define it, use it in a sentence, etc.

  • Write a story: Choose 5 vocabulary words and make a story using all the words.

  • Label the house: Put labels on things in your home to help younger children learn what things are called.

  • Part of speech: Is your vocabulary word a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, something else? Why?

  • Set up a Kahoot to learn challenging vocabulary words.

  • Word of the Day: Talk about a word of the day, it’s definition, ask your child what it means a few times during the day.

  • Write about it: List your vocabulary words, write the definition, draw a picture about the word, and write any knowledge connection you know about that word.

  • Pick a synonym and an antonym for your vocabulary word

  • Categories: Have your child draw six columns on their paper and write a category at the top of each column. You can choose categories that fit what you’ve been studying or go with some basics. Popular categories include food, names, cities or countries, furniture, verbs and clothing.

• Choose a random letter and write it on the board. Give your child enough time to write down a word for each category that starts with that letter. You can repeat with new letters as many times as you like.

• Write a word vertically on the board and then have your child write a word starting with each letter of the vertical word. For example:

  • pet

  • oh

  • red

  • car

  • hop

    • • **Make this tougher by requiring the words to be related to the acronym.

We would love to add to this list!

If you have more strategies to share, please let us know!

Semantic Mapping

(There are many ways to do this. Below are some examples.)

Word Parts

Vocabulary Lists

Flocabulary Vocabulary Lists

Marzano Core Content Vocabulary Lists

Smarter Balanced Vocabulary Lists