Today I’m joining up with Speech Room News to tell you my favorite vocabulary activities. I loooove working on vocabulary. And…since vocabulary makes up around 75% of my goals one way or another, I have a lot of favorites.
According to Louise Spear-Swerling, specific language impairment puts children at clear risk for later academic difficulties, in particular, for reading disabilities. Studies have indicated that as many as 40-75% of children with SLI will have problems in learning to read, presumably because reading depends upon a wide variety of underlying language skills. When you are explicitly teaching vocabulary, especially activities that are evidence-based, you can feel good that it is benefitting your kids in other areas. =)
There is something magical about those chips and the magnetic wand. The kids never tire of it! And… it contains so many activities, I can use it with just about all of my kiddos with language goals. I especially love the “verb” cards. They contain sentences with academic words that my kids need to be taught such as “construct, infer, predict, measure, review.” It runs for $65 so make sure put it on your wish list and grab the free shipping!
2. LINCS vocabulary
Research showed that in a social studies class in which the LINCS Vocabulary Strategy was taught to students, the students with LD performed at a mean of 53 percent in the pretest and at a mean of 77 percent correct answers after learning the strategy. In the control class in which students did not learn the strategy, the mean percentage of correct answers decreased from the pretest to the posttest.
Here’s one that my middle school student did:
And if you need a template, I created one for you free! You can download it HERE.
3. The Expanding Expression Tool is a must-have. Kids know and recognize the lovable “Eetchy” and definitely expand their definitions!
There are a million ways you can use context clues. Just picking up a book or magazine and highlighting unknown words for students works. However, I find myself reaching for a product I made a year ago more often than not: Context Clues Using Tier Vocabulary. Tier 2 words are the most commonly occurring words showing up in today’s language. And… teaching children strategies proves far more beneficial than teaching each individual word.
I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my favorites! If you use any of these, let me know in the comments! And make sure you stop by Speech Room News to celebrate her 2 year bloggy birthday!
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Jenna Rayburn says
September 22, 2013 at 2:23 amHi Nicole! I use your context clues packet AND the LINCS strategy after reading about it on your blog! Thanks for being such a fab resource!
Jenna
Mary Cooper says
September 22, 2013 at 11:08 pmI seriously must be the only person who didn’t know there was a vocabulary chipper chat!
http://oldschoolspeech.blogspot.com
Cindy and Kristina says
September 23, 2013 at 5:47 pmNicole, I use your Context clues packet and LOVE it! It is a great way to target vocabulary with my students! Thanks for the great resource!
T. Sullivan Scott says
September 25, 2013 at 11:57 amI absolutely love EET! I am always looking for ways to use it with my entire caseload. I have a few of your packets and others that work really well with my students. I am also using EET with my autism students – they love it!
Ellie says
February 11, 2018 at 12:06 amNicole, the Linc worksheet link is no longer working! :’( Any chance you could fix it? Or possibly email me a copy?