Vocabulary

I recently attended district training and was reintroduced to the best way to teach vocabulary words. Have you ever heard of Marzano's Six-Step Process for teaching vocabulary. HERE is a great article about it.

The steps are:
1. Explain- provide a description,explanation, or example of the new term.
2. Restate- ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.
3. Show or Draw- Ask students to construct a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation of the word.
4. Engage- Have students do activities that add to their knowledge of the term in a vocabulary notebook.
5. Discuss- Periodically have students discuss the term with one another.
6. Involve- Periodically have students involved in games that enable them to play with the terms.

I know with teaching the NEW Common Core I need to step up my vocabulary lessons and using Marzano's 6-Step Process will help. Our team decided to put together a vocabulary booklet for our kiddos to work in. We will print the cover on colored card stock (but I included a colored version too) and then bind about 30 of the new word pages together to create a book for each child. If you'd like a copy of our book just click on the picture below.

The faces are for the students to rate themselves on how well they think they know the word. They can cross one out and change to another face as they learn the words better. The revised square is where they can change or add to the picture as they become more familiar with the word.
We also learned some fun games to play with the words. One teacher suggested doing a 'Bug Swat' game with the words. So I found some cute graphics and put it together. You write the vocabulary words with a visa-visa pen so you can reuse them. Click on the picture if you'd like a copy.

You could also use this game with spelling words, word family words, or high frequency words.

I also found this book on Amazon.com by Marzano with more games in it.

I'd LOVE to hear YOUR ideas for teaching vocabulary words. What do you do?
Have a great day!