Sabra over at Teaching With a Touch of Twang has been hosting a book study on Word Nerds by Brenda Overturf, Leslie H. Montgomery, and Margot Holmes Smith. I read this book in ONE sitting. Could not put it down! The ideas and strategies are so practical and doable in the classroom. However, keep in mind that if you’re not already devoting part of your day to vocabulary instruction, you will need to carve out a chunk of time to begin. 🙂
You can read about it, and I think even preview it online, or buy a copy at Stenhouse. Here’s a little description of the book:
Word Nerds
Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary
Brenda J. Overturf, Leslie H. Montgomery, Margot Holmes Smith
Word Nerds takes you inside classrooms at a high-poverty urban school and shows how two teachers implement creative, flexible vocabulary instruction that improves their students’ word knowledge and confidence, enhances classroom community, and increases achievement.
Here’s a study guide: http://www.stenhouse.com/assets/pdfs/wordnerdsguide.pdf
And here’s a video of 2 of the authors being interviewed: http://www.whas11.com/great-day-live/video/Teachers-write-Word-Nerds-about–201062181.html
My goodreads summary:
Now this is an AWESOME book about strategic vocabulary instruction. Not only does it offer strategies for teaching vocabulary, but it also gives you a 5 day plan and 10 day plan that you could follow if you wanted. Another practical PD book that I’m in love with.
Now let’s get started with my thinking on CHAPTER 7!! 🙂
Chapter 7-Spreading Vocabulary Wings
This chapter begins with the study of morphology which includes root words and affixes. This is an important part of the Common Core State Standards. The authors of this book call their activity-“Crystal Ball Words”. It’s an awesome activity that begins with 1 word and ends with about 41 words!!!!!!!!!! Wowza! Talk about expanding vocabulary! 🙂 Here’s the example from the book:
They also talk about how explicitly teaching vocabulary not only adds vocabulary to a child’s knowledge bank, but it teaches them about the world as they make connections and inferences when reading texts.
I LOVE the “talk like rascals” activity where the teachers wrote “pirate talk” sentences on index cards, and the students had to work in groups to change them into “rascal talk” sentences that are more sophisticated. One example was:
“me cut rock with me tool”-pirate talk
“My chisel blazes through the rock like a swift runner”-rascal talk created by students
And of course they ended with a pirate vocabulary celebration!!!
Some books they mentioned as ones to extend vocabulary were 13 Words, Frindle, and The Boy Who Loved Words.
I just have to say that I’m in love with this practical book and all of the strategies and ideas they provide. I absolutely LOVE their Crystal Ball Words activity, and the “rascal talk” activity is great as well.
I’ve already devoted a small bulletin board in my 6th grade classroom to our EXPLICIT VOCABLUARY INSTRUCTION that is going to take place everyday!!!!!!!!!!!
Can’t wait to begin SPREADING OUR VOCABULARY WINGS!!!!!!!!! 🙂
i run read teach 