How does teaching parts of speech enhance word consciousness and ones ability to solve analogies? Well, the more one knows about words, the more word consciousness he or she will gain. This means that a close look at English grammar needs to happen within a word conscious classroom. The teaching of Grammar is beneficial on many levels. For example, by understanding the parts of speech, students learn the role or function of the word, which in turn helps to enhance their metalinguistic...

For the majority of my teaching career, I have been teaching vocabulary using the specific word learning technique. According to the Vocabulary Handbook, this technique falls under intentional vocabulary teaching. Hence, many of the passages from our anthologies and basal readers utilize specific word learning as an intentional instructional approach to teaching vocabulary. Based on the figure above, vocabulary instruction is generally centered around specific word instruction and...

Teaching students to pay attention to text is what I've been focusing a lot of my energy on lately. It has been my experience that students have been over-taught how to read and decode text, and under-taught how to figure out what the author is doing with text. As I am teaching students how to close read text, I try to employ the Elements of Thought, an approach to reading text created by The Foundation for Critical Thinking. In order to promote close reading and using the elements of...

A few years ago, I went to a professional development workshop on using Analogies for teaching gifted learners. The presenter provided a strategy entitled R.O.P.E. which stands for Relationships, Order of words, Part of speech, and Exactness. I was fascinated by this strategy and I started using it with my students. For a copy of the strategy, click here. Analogies have not always been easy for me to teach. I first attempted to teach my students analogies back in 1998. I had a Grade Four...

In their introduction to the 2015, Perspectives on Language and Literacy Journal, Berg and Buckerfield introduced the issue with, Vocabulary Research Meets the Classroom. They stated, "the examination of how to effectively teach vocabulary so that our students are equipped with the word knowledge necessary, not to simply survive, but to thrive in the new landscape of complex text, occupies the minds of many researchers, parents, and educators." Hence, teachers who want to effectively teach...

As I set up my classroom for word study, I consulted the Growing Words: Word Part Instruction Guide.  Before I introduced the Word Part of the Week, I wanted to introduce Latin and Greek Roots to my students in a creative way.  I started looking online for materials that would set the stage for teaching Latin and Greek Roots and I came across a resource on Teachers Pay Teachers entitled Common Core Story of Greek Roots .  I used this resource to help my students understand that many of our...

In a previous post, I wrote about encouraging students to look inside of words for spelling patterns. In this week's post, I am directing students to look inside of words again, but this time we are focusing on smaller words, words that are considered Anglo-Saxon base words. I then explain to students that a compound word is a word made up of two smaller words. Last year, I went to an Orton-Gillingham training session and at that session, I learned to use compound words as an entry point for...

The more I build a word conscious classroom, the more I am committed to word study. Scott, Skobel, and Wells (2008) argued that words are the lifeblood of literacy. Hence, word study should be central to all literacy instruction. Included in word study is spelling, decoding (word calling), and word meaning. In this episode, I am having students focus solely on word sounds. In this episode, I directed students to look inside of the word for the spelling pattern /au/ or /aw/. I then had them to...

I speak African American Vernacular of English (AAVE) and at times, it trips me up. As it happens, in this podcast episode, you will hear me mispronounce one of our vocabulary words. Plus, if you've been following my podcast, then you know that I mix up my verb tenses and my pronouns. Hence, I am very cognizant about how I pronounce words and my grammatical use of words. As a speech model for my students, I want to ensure that my students are hearing our language spoken properly. Nonetheless,...

Predictions are powerful! In fact, we ask students to make predictions all the time because student predictions provide a window into the situation model, or the mental model, that students create in their minds. In this podcast episode, I decided to use a lesson from Texts and lessons for content-area reading. Daniels and Steineke (2011) suggested the use of a strategy entitled, the Quotation Mingle, a strategy similar to to Beers' (2006) tea party (p.131).  Daniels and Steineke (2011)...

One fun way to build word consciousness is to use Eponyms with students. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, eponyms are defined as "one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named." Students may not realize that some of the things that we use in everyday life is named after a person. One famous example of an Eponym is the sandwich.   Before I taught this lesson, I looked for resources that would support the learning of my students. I researched Eponyms and...

It's important for teachers to know the current levels of their students in order to enhance effective literacy instruction. There are many screening tools provided by the school system as well as informal assessment that teachers purchase for additional information about the student. Although my school system provided me with many reading assessments, I felt the need to use an assessment that targeted the students current decoding and encoding reading level. As I was researching, I found...

Having students set goals is a powerful way to help them create a purpose for their learning. Students also create a learning identity that enables them to have agency and productive power. Each year, I have my students set goals for themselves and at the end of the quarter, we review our goals and think of ways that we can operate as agents for our learning needs and learning preferences. As a result of having students set goals, I notice that students are forward thinkers and they...

As I prepare my students for advanced decoding, one of the lessons that I had to teach was accented syllables. Teaching accented syllables is a hard skill for me because I don't always here where the syllable is accented. I explained to my students that an "accented syllable is pronounced as if it were a one-syllable word with a clear vowel sound according to its syllabic type" (Johnson & Bayrd, 2010). In addition to using the lesson from our advanced decoding word learning program, I...

As we get closer to the summer break, I want to get my students hooked on a couple of books that I expect them to read over the summer. I have a few reluctant readers who would prefer doing anything else rather than reading. Still, I would like to capture the interests of those students with a book talk. Book talks entice students to read books much like "movie trailers entice people to watch the movie" (para 1). I personally have not done many book talks with my students because the...

Questions are a powerful source for building a word conscious classroom. And, Queries are even more powerful because they create the surge that promotes deeper thinking by students. Many teachers use questions to help guide students through strategy usage and problem solving. While questions can be used to assess student comprehension of text,  they can also be used to increase interactions between the students and the teacher.  Students should be taught how to handle various question types...

While at The George Washington University working on my Master's Degree, I got the privilege to take a course with Dr. Anna Uhl Chamot. After learning about her passing, I wanted to contribute one of my podcast episodes to her magnificent work. Dr. Chamot, along with Dr. O'Malley, created the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) based on her extensive research with second language learners.  I got the honor of learning about her approach to teaching language learning...

When I was learning how to read, I can recall my First Grade teacher using diacritical marks that indicated how to call the target words. My First Grade teacher may have taught me the names of those diacritical marks, but it was not until I was in my thirties, that I actually learned the names of the marks used to indicate the short vowel sound, and the long vowel sound. A study that was done in 1972, proved that "children who used this medium were superior in reading not only in their...

We write learning objectives every day. But our learning objectives are mostly linked to content learning and not language learning. Not only do students striving to learn English need language learning objectives, but any student that is learning how to use the functions of our English language need language learning objectives too. Language objectives promote academic language growth, connect well to content objectives, and focus on developing receptive as well as expressive language...

"Andrew Biemiller (2004) believes that the inability to readily assess vocabulary growth has been a major reason for lack of attention to vocabulary in the primary grades" (Diamond & Gutlohn, 2006, p. 31). Hence, we use running records and other informal reading inventories while assessing our students present levels in literacy, however these tools lack relevant information on a student's knowledge of word meanings. This lead me on a Google search to see what types of informal vocabulary...

We can't assume that students know how to break a multisyllabic word into a prefix, a suffix, and a root. As words become more complex, knowledge of roots becomes more essential for students. "Words, like stories, have structure. ...Like the parts of a story, the parts of a word also carry meaning. And this is precisely what a word root is: a part of a word that carries meaning" (Rasinski, 2008, p. 26). After reflecting on my instruction, I realize that I discuss prefix, suffix, and root,...

  For years, I focused on teaching my striving readers phonics. My hypothesis was, if I teach the babies phonics, then they will read better. However, I'm learning more and more that it's not about phonics so much as it is about vocabulary. "Vocabulary is a critical  factor in the development of reading skills. Vocabulary knowledge has long been identified as one of the best predictors of reading comprehension, reading performance in general, and school achievement" (Lane and Allen,...

  What does it mean to know a word? Given that words are multifaceted in nature, how do we ensure that students can savor the richness of individual words? In a word conscious classroom, we can not take our students' knowledge of words for granted. Many of the formative assessments don't measure vocabulary knowledge specifically. In my quest for specific informal word meaning tests, I came across some paper based assessments and an online assessment. I decided to administer the paper and...

"A classroom community must be established so that it is considered normal to ask about word meanings, experiment with language use, and to have not only the teacher, but other students, serve as vocabulary coaches" (Scott, Skobel, & Wells, 2008, p. 15). Children learn best through play, hence, as teachers within a word conscious classroom, we must encourage our students to become vocabulary players as well as vocabulary coaches. In this podcast episode, you will hear the students...