Monday, March 9, 2015

Words and Readers

A colleague, friend, and follow slicer recently wrote about the power of words in her SOL post,  "Sticks and Stones"

Another colleague, friend, and fellow slicer(who teaches 4th grade in Texas) often talks about her students  lack of words and the connection to struggling writers. If our students don't have a bountiful supply of words how are they able to write with effective word choice in a way that paints a picture for their reader??? 

All of this conversation has made me think about words and struggling readers. I have one student that comes to mind every time I think of this. The more I work with her the more apparent it. I really don't think fluency, rate, or comprehension are her problem. The root of her problem is, her lack of words. She gets stuck on a word and it's not that she can't decode it, she can. It's hard for her because it's an unfamiliar word. She has no background knowledge about the word.  Every time she gets stuck I ask, do you know what that word means? Have you ever heard it? More often than not, her answer is no. 

I know there is a connection between a child's lack of words and struggling readers and I know this is probably not new information for any of you. But, how do we help?? More time independently reading, more time read aloud to, more exposure to words?? 

What else??

5 comments:

  1. Very true Brittany! Lack of vocabulary is linked to their lack of scheme I think. Kids need more exposure to rich text, fiction and nonfiction. It is hard to make that connexion, but your student is lucky to have a teacher that is willing to work on that gap in vocabulary.

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  2. You are so right!! Students have not been exposed to the kinds of words that will help them understand reading. Keep reading aloud and exposing your students to lots of words. I think having conversations with students is important, too. I used to have lunch with my students and just visit with them. Rarely did they talk with adults, which led to a lack of words.

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  3. You are so right!! Students have not been exposed to the kinds of words that will help them understand reading. Keep reading aloud and exposing your students to lots of words. I think having conversations with students is important, too. I used to have lunch with my students and just visit with them. Rarely did they talk with adults, which led to a lack of words.

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  4. There is a good website that might be useful. It's www.vocabahead.com
    Also, you might try personal word banks where students collect interesting words from their reading. That way they see how the word is used in context. This could also be extended to homework, and they could share one of their new words with a parent at home each day and encourage them to use the new word in a sentence. Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. I whole heartily agree with everyone else. A couple of other things that can help are audio books and quality non-fiction TV shows. It is all about exposure to words. I see this so often with ELL students. If they have a solid vocabulary in their native language(s) Google translate can really help. Bless you for your heart and desire to help this kiddo grow as a reader and writer.

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