Focused Questioning Strategies For Vocabulary Development by: The Reading Tutor/OG

Greetings from Literacy Land! I'm Emily from The Reading Tutor/OG, and I'm thrilled to be here with all of you! So, who needs strategies for teaching vocabulary? If you're like me, I'm always seeking new and innovative ways to help children build their vocabulary development beyond the traditional list of words. More on that in a minute.

 

First, let me share a bit about myself. Years ago, I pursued a Master's degree from Lesley University in Curriculum and Instruction with a Specialization in Literacy.  I taught in a classroom for over 13 years. Now I am home with twin toddlers, with a third on the way next month!  I am a private Orton-Gillingham instructor, but I also tutor children who struggle with writing.

 

Before teaching elementary age children, I worked with toddlers and preschoolers. I've worked with children mostly in grades 2-5 in inclusive settings.  It required a great deal of collaboration and communication.

 

Although I love teaching all subject areas ( I really do!), I'm most passionate about Literacy. Several years ago, I pursued training in using the Orton-Gillingham approach to help dyslexic learners with reading. Going through the training really helped me to understand dyslexia, recognize the red flags, and learn how to support struggling readers in a way that would help them succeed. Learning that 1 in 5 people actually have dyslexia was fascinating to me!

A few months ago, several of my lovely teacher bloggers recommended that I pick up the book Bringing Words To Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan and boy, am I glad that I did!

I had done a post on vocabulary development within the Mystery genre for teaching story elements. Some of the activities I created were discussed in this book, and I had never even read it before! One strategy from the book is teaching your vocabulary words in the form of questions to create and facilitate discussion. Children need multiple exposures to vocabulary in a variety of ways. Using the questioning strategy with newly taught vocabulary opens up a level of interaction and engagement that will give language development a big boost. This is critical practice for children with language impairment or word retrieval issues.
After finishing Bringing Words To Life, I decided to create a set of question cards based on the book's suggestions with a series of generic questions where I could fill in any vocabulary words I needed. That way I would have them ready for any text. Then, I went a step further and created eight more cards for the book Penguin Chick by: Betty Tatham.

This was a required text I used with my third graders. Although very high interest, the book had about 10 words that may seem new or present a challenge to some of my readers.

Here is a list of the Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary I selected to try the questioning strategy with Penguin Chick:
webbed, brood patch, rookery, tobogganing, krill, huddle, down, trumpets, preen, and creche.

You'll notice these words are a combination of both Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary because some have multiple meanings, while others are content specific. Take a peek at the question cards:

Generic Question Cards: These questions would work really well with introducing character traits, since you'd probably need an adjective to fill in each blank.

 

Question Cards for Penguin Chick: These cards are more specific to the text, but provide a level of engagement where students have to use their knowledge of the book vocabulary to be able to discuss them in a meaningful way.

Sometimes when a student explains the meaning of a word, their explanation can seem tacit, or surface level. When creating vocabulary questions, I found these tips useful:

• Keep questions open-ended.
• Place the word in a "what if" scenario.
• Create an "either or" questions or a "which would you rather" question.
• Make a pros/cons question. "What are the benefits of...?"
• Have a question that compares and contrasts the vocabulary word to another word.
• Make sure your students are making a connection with the word by posing a question that asks them to rely on their schema.

Using the question cards raises their level of understanding, and really gets your children actively talking about words! You can use them at the beginning of a lesson as a whole class, pair students up and give them a card, or use them during a guided reading lesson.
Click the link below the image to print out a copy of the cards I created to use with your own students!

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IfP1qg39PPSm9LRnlBLVVjd1k/edit?usp=sharing

 

I'd love to know how you incorporate effective strategies for teaching vocabulary in your classroom. Please share in the comments! Thank you for visiting Literacy Land today!