Reading in Our Classrooms -

Amy Freiberg's Second Grade,

Lincoln Elementary School

My class has been studying the rainforest with lessons designed to tie together weather, insects, nonfiction reading and writing. While many students may have some schema about the rainforest, these lessons present many opportunities to build students' vocabulary. After taking a vocabulary building class by Barbara Dress, I tried the following approach.

 

The following is a lesson I did with my class:

•  I began with a large piece of butcher paper divided into four columns: Possible Words We May See, New Words and Definitions, “Mystery Words” and Web & Summary.

•  The first two days we began by brainstorming words we predict we would see in the big book Life in the Rainforest by Melvin Berger. I put those words in the first column (Possible Words We May See) of our chart.

•  Once the students brainstormed, I'd list new words from the text in the second column (New Words and Definitions) one at a time, giving the children time to talk and share possible definitions. These possible definitions were written on Post-Its notes until after reading, and then we revisited the words and decided on final definitions.

•  The third day we read the book and circled any words listed in the first column (Possible Words We May See) that actually were in the text.

•  Prior to a second read the following day, each student chose one word from the second column (New Words and Definitions). They brought Post-Its with them to the carpet and wrote down notes and thoughts they had when they heard their word, saw the photographs, etc. They got together with other students who chose the same word and together wrote one definition to replace the Post-Its on the butcher paper.

•  I then chose nine “mystery words” students would have to guess. I drew lines for each letter so that students could guess the missing letters and then the word.

•  Finally, after reviewing the text, nonfiction features and first three columns of our poster, we made a web then summarized our learning.

 

This whole process took us about five or six days to complete. The poster will be displayed in the classroom for the following week so that we can refer back to new vocabulary words and use them in different contexts. The lesson gave students the opportunity to learn and practice reading skills and strategies that will help them comprehend unfamiliar words, as well as providing an opportunity to collaborate with other students. Lessons like this help students reach goals outlined in the Curriculum Roadmap, a guide to provide more specificity for teachers in skills students are expected to have in literacy at each grade level. This lesson relates to goals 204, 206 and 209.

To view Amy's chart, click here.

To view a blank chart, click here.