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Richer Vocabulary: It’s in the Cards
0 Comments | Posted by readers1 in Language in the Classroom
By Sara Finegan
A huge number of students with IEPs, particularly in elementary school, have expressive and/or receptive language deficits.
Difficulty finding the right words can mean that a child struggles to speak in complete sentences, but most commonly, I think, it manifests in a child’s inability to come up with specific verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. What does this look like in a classroom? It looks like this:
Excessive use of what I call “cottonball” words – vague, generic words such as “things”, “stuff”, “that one”;- Use of bland verbs such as “went”, “does”, “says”; and
- An absence of most adjectives and almost no use of adverbs at all.
Difficulty in understanding words is a little different. I will never forget working with one of my students on a math word problem, trying to figure out where he was getting stuck, and finally realizing that he really didn’t understand the difference between “each” and “every”. (What do we call these, distributive adjectives?) This presents a problem not just in math, but in science and other subject areas that require students to follow directions, visualize, or comprehend text.
We teachers need to recognize both types of disabilities, and carefully craft ways to teach students to use language, and ways to cope with their deficits. If we do not do both, we are going to shortchange some very bright kids who simply are lacking the right tools to make it known.
Sorting Cards for new vocabulary
One of the first interventions I ever used in my classroom is one that I continue to implement on an almost-daily basis. It’s one of the simplest ideas, and the materials are cheap and always right at hand: markers and index cards. I call them Sorting Cards, because they are, well, cards that my students sort. They also do other things with them, and I’ll explain that as we go along here.
How they work: A sorting card is an index card with a word written on it. I make cards for every new vocabulary word in social studies and science. I also make cards of verbs associated with the vocabulary words. Thus, for example, if in our study of an ancient civilization the new words are: loom, weaver, pottery, potter, fabric, flax, craftsman, agora, peddler, merchant – the verbs might be: created, manufactured, designed, wove, sold, bought. As we proceed through a unit, we add cards about farming and crops, government, religion, etc.
At first, I just have the kids read through the cards in pairs or small groups, familiarizing them with the vocabulary as new sight words. I want them to recognize the words automatically, as that will eliminate any struggles to decode the words during later activities.
Then I start having them create sentences using the words. I might model: If I take “agora”, “merchant”, “sold”, I can say “merchants sold goods at the agora.” My aide or I will work with them at first, then gradually withdraw to the kids make up their own sentences. The particularly good sentences get written down on chart paper in the classroom.
As the kids become more and more comfortable with the rich vocabulary, I start them on sorting activities. By this time, we have a huge stack of cards (25-50) all relating to whatever unit we are studying. I ask pairs of kids to work together to sort the cards into categories. At the beginning of the year, I will suggest the categories for them (“how about farming, trade, religion, and government?”) but later on, they become quite good at determining the proper group names. The students work together to sort the cards into the chosen categories. When they’re done, my aide or I will take a look at what they’ve done.
We ask the kids to justify their organizational choices. We do this for several reasons. First, some words can go in several categories, and we are always interested in understanding why the kids chose one or the other. Second, it’s a good way to make sure the kids really understand the words. Third, we want the kids to be able to explain their thinking. That way, if they put a word in an obviously wrong category, we can quickly grasp the nature of the error, and help repair the misunderstanding.
What happens with the sorting card activities is that the kids engage in conversation with each other about the words and concepts that the words represent. They begin to use the words themselves, both in our class discussions and in their writing. I’ll hear them encouraging each other to use specific words: Last week, as my kids were starting to write about Ancient Egyptian farming, Benny said to Alex, “they what canals? They……you don’t want to say “made”, do you? How about “dug”?
My students don’t talk about making fabric, but weaving it, not writers but scribes, not strength but power, not winning a war, but conquering, or, in the alternative, victory.
...trot, run, jog...
Sorting cards aren’t just for content-area vocabulary. We develop series of cards to practice and learn different ways of saying things – not just similes, but similar acts. For example, we might make an entire set of cards related to the way we get from one place to the other (amble, wander, climb, crawl, walk, trot, run, jog, fly, race, tiptoe, creep, dance, skip, gallop……) I’ll mix those cards up with cards from other categories (ways of expressing words: “yelp, whine, whimper, moan, gabble, whisper, yell, shout, screech…).
I’ll put several categories of words together and have groups of kids sort them and reorganize them in like groups. Just as happens with the content-area words, the kids begin to recognize the words, and use them, at first with prompts, and then independently.
As the kids use and re-use words, work with them and rework them, a great thing happens in their brains: the words start popping forward as they think and speak. More and more automatically, they choose specific words instead of generic ones, richer vocabulary instead of bland words.
You might be wondering if the same lessons can be taught the standard way, with worksheets and mini-lessons. Possibly, but not with as much engagement and sharing. Maybe, but not with the relaxation and ease that comes when kids work together, without writing, to use words in ways that are new to them. Perhaps, but I don’t think that the increase in vocabulary lasts, or that the synapses that are linked and refired when the kids talk together and experiment and think about how to use the words occurs.
In a demanding classroom, kids use vocabulary, they don’t just memorize it. When they use it, it becomes a part of them.
