Week 9 Blog Kelsi Vidal

While reading for this week I was reminded of how difficult it can be to gain word knowledge and what going through it was like in elementary school.  The eight components of word study (concepts and word meaning, multiple meaning, morphemic analysis, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, etymologies, and figurative meanings...yikes!) were very overwhelming to learn from what I remember.  I think for a student who is just being introduced to these concepts they can be intimidating and confusing especially because there are so many little things to remember for each.  I think it can be difficult to differentiate between the spelling of certain words that may sound similar or to become confused when dealing with words that have more than one meaning.  It is not only a challenge for students to learn these concepts, but also can be complicated for teachers to instruct students in.  There are often not concrete explanations for rules like these and that can be difficult for students to comprehend since it is not tangible.  It was interesting to me that students learn the majority of their vocabulary outside of school and incidentally, not through direct instruction.  Obviously this depends on a child's experiences, social situations, and home, but i found this to be quite surprising.  Although teaching vocabulary strategies at school remains an important part of literacy development, it is not the primary place where word study takes place.  When you think about a figure like, students vocabularies can grow at a rate of 3,000 words per year, it is amazing to think about how many words students really do pick up in their everyday life whether it is through direct instruction or somewhere outside of school.  

A couple of vocabulary minilessons that I liked from the book involved the use of a word wall.  The first one had students make their own word wall out of a piece of paper.  They would divide a piece of paper into squares and label each one with a letter of the alphabet.  As they go through the book or a chapter, they write down words that they think are important or that are confusing to them in whatever box the beginning letter of the word corresponds with.  Then as a class or with a group they can share and discuss the meaning and importance of the words from the book.  The lesson had a word wall that was organized by parts of speech (noun, adjective, verb, adverb) and was one large word wall for the entire class.  The students would then go over the more important words for understanding the story with the teacher and discuss them in context of the story.  These lessons are for older students because of the content and level the book is written.