Sara Carothers
Consultant, Rainbow Resource Center
scarothers@rainbowresource.com
Questions? Ask our Curriculum Consultants.
Email us at: consultants@rainbowresource.com
Janice Price
Donna Krahn
Deanne Crawford
Sara Carothers
Gina Burmeier
Ruth Tennis
www.rainbowresource.com • 888.841.3456
Expand your own vocabulary...
• Adaptable Techniques: The main point here is structured reviewing of words, which can
be used to reinforce the other techniques. Your student practices their words out loud at
different intervals repeating beginning with 15 minutes, then an hour later they read them
again, then again 3 hours later, the next day, 2 days later, a week later, etc. until the words
become automatic or overlearned.
• Context: New words are related to a topic, like a novel or a historical event. Context can
be a common feature among new words, like all nouns or all kitchen words.
• Declarative Knowledge of Facts: Students can recognize a word, but cannot apply it.
• Decontextualizing Techniques: When teaching vocabulary, students are not given any
clues to a word’s meaning. Rather, they memorize the new words. There is very little
teacher instruction needed and words have little if any commonality.
• Fully-Contextualizing Techniques: When teaching vocabulary, students assign
meaning from their own experience and is able to practice the words using all 4 language
skills (reading, writing, speaking & listening).
• Learning Modalities: This refers to how your student best accepts & retains new
information (visual, audio, kinesthetic).
• Procedural Knowledge: Students have a working knowledge of new vocabulary words
and can use them properly.
• Semi-Contextualizing Techniques: When teaching vocabulary, students are able to pick
up on clues and make a connection to previously learned information. This often involves
grouping words.
Slang glossary for all of us over 30...
# (hashtag) – an Instagram reference
Deets – details
On Fleek – perfect
Squad Goals – something your group of friends aspires to
Throwing Shade – insulting
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Making vocabulary cards...
When students are prioritizing their vocabulary words for writing on cards, tell them this:
• Assign #1: if the word is familiar enough to use.
• Assign #2: if you have some idea of the word meaning, but are not sure if you could
use it properly.
• Assign #3: if the word is completely unfamiliar.
When making word cards, all #3 words get a card, then look at #2s and decide if they need
a card or not. Any #1 words do not need a card.
Here is a list for you parents to triage:
___ Pundit
___ Repartee
___ Loquacious
___ Fulsome
___ Veneration
___ Pontificate
___ Exasperation
___ Conscience
___ Successive
___ Caucus
Of the 10 words above, with a common thread, how many cards would you be making?
Notes:
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Auditory Learners...
• Learn through listening.
•L
ike to read aloud and often like to talk to themselves or
create musical jingles to help them learn new materials.
• Like to talk through a problem.
•R
emember by talking out loud and they like to have things
explained orally rather than through written instructions.
Like to hav
music on e
while they
study.
Activities...
• Have students say the words out loud as they flip through their stack of word cards.
• Play a conversation game using index cards with vocabulary words on them. One child
starts a conversation using a word. The next child responds using a different word.
Continue until you need a new topic. Words have to be used in the correct context.
• Make associations with familiar words or concepts. This is sometimes called elaboration
and lends itself to being talked out. Associations simple or complex, ordinary or strange,
as long as they mean something to the student. Maybe they associate a person they know
with the new word. Whatever helps it stick!
• Pull out 3 words as a story prompt, but instead of writing it, let your child tell you
the story.
• Have your student make up a song or jingle to help them remember words and then have
them teach it to you or to younger siblings.
• Use audio books and have your student make a note of new words as they listen. They can
make cards at the end of the story.
Products...
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• Toobaloo
• English From the Roots Up
• Blurt! Game
• Very Very Vocabulary
• Rhyme Out! Game
• Verbal Volley
• Synonyms: Word Game That
Gets Your Mind Racing
• Snap It Up! Game
• Crossword Puzzles
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Visual Learners...
• Learn through seeing.
•L
ike written instructions and take detailed notes during lectures.
•L
earn best with visual materials such as pictures, charts, videos,
illustrated textbooks, and handouts.
•L
ike to have a quiet place to study and use colorful highlighters
to mark notes and texts.
Activities...
Products...
• Keep a word journal as you read literature, adding
definitions when done reading for the day.
• Marie’s Words
• Color code your word cards with markers: nouns in red,
verbs in green, adjectives in blue, adverbs in yellow, etc.
• Have students add a drawing to the word card. It can be the
word itself, like drawing an apple with the word apple. Or, it
could be making something out of a letter in the word, like
making the “a” into an apple.
• Right Brain Sight
Word Flash Cards
• Post word cards on the wall that you want to highlight for the
week. These can also be used in a quiz at the end of the week.
• Older students can add details to their word cards. On the
back can be the definition, sample sentences and maybe the
word origin and pronunciation.
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Remem
visual detbaer
with ease.ils
• Vocabulary Cartoons
• Rummy Roots
• Decomposition Notebooks
• Vocabulary From Classical
Roots
• Wordly Wise 3000 (3rd Ed.)
• Vocabulary Builder series
• Word Searches
• VocabuLit
• Get a clean pizza box (usually free if you ask) and have your
student(s) remake a children’s game where you have to use
certain vocabulary words correctly to advance. Imagine
something like Candyland or Life but where your student is making up the questions on the cards.
• Have kids keep a sticky note in a book they are reading to jot down words they have a question
about and look them up later. A blank bookmark would work too.
• Using a root word and all of the words you can come up with related to it, make a poster of an
apple tree where the trunk shows the root and the apples are all words in the word family. You can
add apples to your tree as you come across new words!
• Make a word search where you give the definitions as clues and kids find the words in the puzzle.
There are websites where you can make these for free.
• Play hangman with your new vocabulary words. Do this on a whiteboard or in a
dry-erase pocket to make it tactile/kinesthetic as well as visual.
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Kinesthetic Learners...
• Learn through moving, doing, and touching.
•N
eed to take frequent study breaks and like to chew gum or
to snack while they study.
• Like to stand, rather than sit, when learning something new.
•E
xplorers at heart and like to learn through active
participation in what they are learning.
Mo
around vweh
talking oren
listening.
Activities...
• Give your student a list of words and definitions. Have them write the word on one card
and the definition on another. In a group (or alone) pass out the cards and have them find
matches. Students can call on each other to define the words on the cards they are holding.
• Punch a hole in the word cards so they are easily portable. Have your student flip through
their words several times a day.
• Have your student group their word cards in a variety of ways: grammatically, by topic, by
function, opposites, by color, things you like and don’t like, word roots
• Make a matching game where you use new flyswatters to whack the matching pairs as you
flip over cards.
• Make a bingo game with the new words where you call out the definitions
and they find the words on their cards.
• Use sticky notes to create a game show with the words and definitions.
• Play charades with your vocabulary words.
Products...
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• Study Buddies
• Pencil Grips
• Classwords
• Book Rings
• Scratch and Sniff Notepads • Smencils
• Words Are Wonderful
• Syllabuilders Game
• Scrabble
• Bananagrams
Contact us: consultants@rainbowresource.com
• Word Roots Software
www.rainbowresource.com
Vocabulary Resources...
Traditional:
Test Preparation:
• Bob Jones Vocabulary D-F (7-12)
• Expanding Your Horizons Through
• 1100 Words You Need to Know (9-12)
• Advanced Spelling & Vocabulary Course
• Jensen’s Vocabulary (6-12)
• Spectrum Vocabulary (3-6)
• Very Very Vocabulary (2-5)
• Vocabu-Lit (2-12)
• Vocabulary Builder (6-12)
• Vocabulary in Action (4-8)
• WordBuild (3-10)
• Wordly Wise 3000 (3rd Edition) (K-12)
• Words are Wonderful (2-6)
• Words of the Week (4-6)
• Working with Words (4-8)
• Zaner-Bloser Word Wisdom (3-8)
• Barron’s Painless Vocabulary (8-12)
• Common Core Vocabulary Task Cards (K-6)
• Essential SAT Vocabulary Flashcards
• Gruber’s SAT Word Master
• Hot Words for the ACT
• Kaplan SAT Flashcards
• Marie’s Words (K-12)
• Marino Mission & Mayan Mission (8-12)
• SAT Vocabulary QuickStudy
• Spectrum Vocabulary (3-6)
• Vocabulary Cartoons SAT Word Power I & II
• Vocabulary in Context (2-9)
• WordSmart ACT/SAT Prep
• WordTeasers: SAT Vocabulary Edition
Words (7-12)
Word Root:
from IEW (9-12)
• Bob Jones Vocabulary A-C (7-9)
• Book of Roots: Advanced Vocabulary
Building from Latin Roots (K-AD)
• Daily Warm-Ups: Prefixed, Suffixed & Roots (5-AD)
• English From the Roots Up (1-12)
• Greek and Latin Roots, More Greek
and Latin Roots (4-8)
• Greek and Latin Roots Cards (4-8)
• Greek and Latin Root Words Flipper (7-12)
• Red Hot Root Words (3-9)
• Rockin’ Root Words (3-8)
• Roots and Fruits: Comprehensive Vocabulary
Curriculum (K-12)
• Roots of English (3-5)
• Vocabulary from Classical Roots (5-12)
• Vocabulary Packets: Greek & Latin Roots (4-8)
• Vocabulary Vine (3-9)
• Word Roots Books & Software (3-12)
• Word Up! The Vocab Show Vol. 1 DVD (5-AD)
• Word Within a Word
• Wordbuild (3-10)
*Grade levels are shown in parentheses.
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Goodies online...
There is an amazing amount of vocabulary material online if you do some searching.
Vocabulary websites...
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• Vocabulary lists for SAT & ACT studies,
historical events, literature, news and more:
https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/
• Free activities to work on spelling and boost vocabulary:
http://www.spellingcity.com/teachers-overview.html
• Online graphical dictionary:
http://www.visuwords.com/
Contact us: consultants@rainbowresource.com
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