Today's focus for RPI was based around teaching vocabulary. This is an area that needs to be implemented much more thoroughly as part of my literacy programme. I think that I place too much of an emphasis on the comprehension and understanding of the text for students. It would be helpful to focus on incorporating more word work or vocabulary practice with my students. A graph that was shared today reminded me of the vocabulary deficit of many of our students when they enter school.
The following is an example of a guided reading follow up task. Even though I feel that I do incorporate some word work into the guided reading follow up activities for students, I need to provide more opportunities for children to practise saying words out loud and recording themselves so that they can hear what they are saying and listen to whether it sounds right. I also need to provide more opportunities for students to practise vocabulary activities.
We heard about using word walls/displays in class. I do have word walls, but I am not making good use of them. I aim to do a better job of utilising my word walls next term.
I actually really enjoyed the word play activities and will add this to my literacy planning for next term. I enjoyed the activity of pairing up with another teacher to work through some vocabulary activities. We also had the opportunity to create a follow on task based on a text for next term. I think that it’s great that we get a head start on this and start thinking about how we will implement the new learning about vocabulary with our students.
Next term my goal is to be more explicit and intentional about teaching morphology, phonemes, spelling and growing word consciousness. Here are some of my thoughts from today as to how I plan to do this.
