Considerations for Teaching Vocabulary
Step 1: Present students with a brief explanation or description or the new term or phrase.
Step 2: Present students with a nonlinguistic representation of the new term or phrase.
Step 3: Ask students to generate their own explanations or descriptions of the term or phrase.
Step 4: Ask students to create their own nonlinguistic representation of the term or phrase.
Step 5: Periodically ask students to review the accuracy of their explanations and representations
Research shows that verbal instruction which involves telling students about details or having
then read about details is the weakest of the three types of instruction. Visual instruction
emphasizes some form of nonlinguistic representation. The effects on learning for this technique
are better than verbal instruction but not as strong as dramatization. Dramatization emphasizes
having a student either observing a dramatic enactment of the details or involved in a dramatic
enactment of the details. This type of instruction has the strongest effect both immediately after
instruction and one year later.
FLASHCARDS From Springboard Level 1 Visualizing Vocabulary Page 259 (adapted)
1. This can apply to any text students are reading. Have students write down words that are
unfamiliar to them in the text. Have them choose a certain number (ten or so). Or the
teacher can select.
2. Students make a set of flashcards, one card per word. On one side, students write the
word and draw or paste a picture the best represents the word on the other side.
3. Match up students with similar lists to work together as partners. Have them work
together to determine meaning and add a definition to the flashcards.
4. Have students write sentences for each of the vocabulary words to use the words in a new
context.
5. Students can also pair up and guess what word is being defined by the picture in each
other’s flashcards.
VOCABULARY Assessments from Paynter, Bodyrova, and Dota, For the Love of Words: (p110)
These can be used as strategies to teach students how to build understanding of vocabulary.
Students can then be assessed using these strategies.
 Writing their own definition of the word
 Generating and explaining a symbol that represents the word
 Generating examples and non examples of the word
 Drawing a picture that represents the meaning of the word
 Giving an example or experience that reflects the meaning of the word
 Give students a sentence that contains the word they are learning, and ask them to explain
the meaning of the word within the context of the sentence
 Ask students to describe how the new word is similar to or different from other related
words
Strategy: Creating Analogies
1. Identify how the two elements in the first pair of words are related
2. State the relationship in a general way
3. Identify another pair of elements that share a similar relationship
A is to B as C is to D.
Feather is to bird as leaf is to tree
Strategy: Creating metaphors
1. Identify the attributes or characteristics of the first word in the metaphor
2. Identify the attributes or characteristics of the second word in the metaphor
3. Look at the characteristics or attributes for both words of the metaphor and try to find
attributes that are somewhat related. State the relationship of these attributes in a very
general way by:
 Placing words for specific things with words for more general things
 Summarizing information whenever possible
A political map is a puzzle
Nutrients are the building blocks of our body
Strategy: Completing a semantic feature analysis:
Students are given a matrix that contains key vocabulary words that are semantically related ( ex.
A worksheet with the broad category of transportation with the various forms such as bike, car,
plane, river, stroller. Categories to consider would be; takes you places, man-made, does not
move by itself, uses fuel, etc.) Students then think about the word and determine whether to place
an X in the box for each characteristic or feature for each term or phrase.
Strategy: Classifying vocabulary
Asking students to create categories or classify words helps them think of the distinctions among
words that might be similar in meaning. Moving them beyond the obvious helps them see finer
distinctions while deepening their understanding of the words they are classifying. Students can
create their own categories.
Word Game: Vocabulary Bingo
Student generated definitions and/or symbols or illustrations are recorded on a set of cards. These
are used to play bingo
Word Cards:
Students create word cards with the following information:
Word
Definition
Sentence
Personal clue
Picture
Activities:
1. Sort the cards by category. (e.g., words related to people, words related to things)
2. Find words that have certain connotations such as positive and negative, good and bad,
concrete and abstract.
3. Sort words by parts of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs adverbs, and adjectives).
4. Make sentences using pairs of words.
5. Group words and then explain basis of groupings.
Word Theater
Acting out a word helps students live the word and remember it. Choose key words from a story
and write them on a piece of paper. Put them in a container and have a student or groups of
students pick one to act out or pantomime for the class.
Riddle or a poem
Students create a poem or a riddle using their definitions and then act it out. Other students guess
the word for a preset list.
Mnemonics to Remember
One kind of mnemonic device is a sentence in which each word begins with a letter in the target
vocabulary word for example- for BECAUSE Big Elephants Can Always Use Some Energy.
Interviews:
Students work with partners to ask twenty questions about a word to try to guess the word from a
preset list.
Graphic representation of the word;
Students pick an object of a symbol that represents that word and illustrate the word using that
symbol. For example students draw the word mountain with little drawings of mountains.
Jeopardy
First identify several new words that students are learning and write these on the board. Give the
definition. Students answer in the form of a question and explain how they arrived at their
answer.
Teacher: the definition of this word is “below the skin.”
Student: is the word subcutaneous?
Teacher: Yes. How did you know that?
Student: I know that sub in submarine means under and submarine goes under water.
Additional Resources:
Bromley, Karen. Stretching Students’ Vocabulary.
Marzano, Pickering, Pollock, Classroom Instruction that works.
Robb, Laura. Easy Mini-Lessons for Building Vocabulary.