vocabulary

My son has vocabulary tests at school so I am very familiar with this. I suspect that just being told the meaning as she reads the story isn’t enough for her. First of all, she is more focused on the meaning of the story than on a particular word. Second, it just isn’t enough repetition. It takes more than one exposure for someone to learn something usually.

My son has 20 words a week and they are expected to write them and their definitions on cards and do a variety of exercises with the words. In studying with him, I find that putting the words in sentences that use familiar objects is the most useful for him. Other people have talked about teaching them visualization techniques but my son is more of an auditory learner. We make up sentences about his (annoying) brother and our dog, for example. Some of the sentences are silly which amuses him.

We also discuss vocabulary a lot at home. He will ask us what something means and we also quiz him as to the meaning of different words. For him, it is better to separate vocabulary development from reading. His vocabulary is above grade level while his reading is not. It is much easier for him to remember a new word if the word is already in his vocabulary.

Beth

There are also SAT picture vocabulary books available at most major bookstores. I’ve found them very helpful for students who have trouble remembering meaning. Somehow the humorous pictures help alot. The books also identfy the part of speech the word is as well as its meaning or meanings, and uses the words correctly in sentences.

Unfortunately, they usually don’t correlate well with many vocabulary books, so you have to buy a variety of the books and then search the indexes for troublesome words. It’s just too time consuming to do it for all of the words, IMHO.

Karyn

For kiddos who don’t grab verbal information and internalize it easily, saying what a word means doesn’t help the idea “stick.” A new word is a new name for an idea, so it’s like learning somebody’s name at a party. Sometimes it takes a little ‘extra’ to remember it. Fortunately you don’t have to make up weird artificial mnemonics - you just have to engage the brain a bit more than “This is ‘altercation’ - he’s another word for ‘fight” or “argument.’”

So I’d include “you’ll see that a lot in newspapers for some reason, if somebody gets arrested for having a fight.” I might even say “what would an altercation look like?” … somethign to engage the brain in the process.

Then, just as you’re more likely to remember somebody’s name if you *use* it a few times, I’ll try to use the word again & maybe ask what it meant in the immediate future.

http://www.ldonline.org/article.php?max=20&id=490&loc=27 has an article that describes a rather detailed approach to use especially with an important concept word;

http://www.ldonline.org/article.php?max=20&id=1087&loc=27 is a great little article on memory in general.

Yep, repetition is the key. One exposure is not enough for most kids to learn a new word. And it may take many more repeitions for an LD child to learn a new word. The research says to explicitly teach vocabulary besides doing it incidentally.

Janis

Hello All! (Long time no Susan Long!)

How nice to have something interesting to consider!

In helping kids to remember vocabulary, I have been trying to track into several different learning modalities: Visual, Auditory, Tactile/Kinesthetic, Artistic, Etc.

Sometimes seeing it while saying it in several repetitions will work; sometimes walking or jumping in a rythym helps while saying it for our bouncy kids. Sometimes drawing a picture connected to meaning will help. (I use that in my classroom lots and it works for lots of kids).

Use the word in conversation. Look for examples of it as you drive around with your child.

We have a word of the day in my classroom and we try to use it with each other 3-4 times a day as kids see me in the hallways. (I give out little treats sometimes for this.)

For me personally, I have trouble remembering people’s names and sometimes vocabulary, too. I have to connect to a visual picture. A new guy I met named Petticourt was connected to “petticoat” and I pictured him in one and never forgot his last name again. It’s a fun game to play and I learned it from a lady named “Wallenzine” who told me to picture her standing against a wall reading a magazine. How clever!

IOW, I try to find out what helps each individual and help them find a useful tool for life. I finally found mine :lol:

How is everyone? Email me…I’ve missed you all!

Thank you all for the information and we’ll start implementing the suggestions-Thanks again

I am so happy to see you again, Susan! I just wrote you a message on another thread. I hope you see it!

Janis

Welcome back … again :-)

Sorry your school system didn’t know what it had :( How ‘bout we get that little underground cyberschool going…

What is this? I just learned about wikis today…guess I’m behind…
:)

Concept Definition Mapping - Shows the category, properties (what is it like?), comparisons, illustrations.

Frayer Model - I use this to make a glossary of roots/affixes with my middle school students.

Semantic Feature Analysis -

Semantic Mapping - Like an idea web

Much of this depends on the type of word — an idea, one with a base or root word that needs to be found & labeled, a characteristic of a person place or thing.

Brains like putting things in categories. Brains like compare/contrast (what it is like & not like).

For general development - word sorts of things that belong in different categories.

If you Google those terms with ” ” around them, you should get a hit that shows the graphic organizer and definition of the concept. If not, let me know and I’ll try to link you to a couple. I’ve made many of them in word.

Auditory Mom,

For vocabulary, you might want to think about a structured, sequential approach to word roots. Vocabulary Vine offers just such an approach. I suggest you check out the author’s website, which has a lot more about the study of vocabulary, at http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/index.htm.
I don’t remember how old your child is; the author does not suggest using her program before fourth grade.

Try it without the period :

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/index.htm