Today;'s post is about vocabulary. As an SLP, one of the things I have tweaked and retweaked and retweaked and retweaked year after year is vocabulary work. I have no problem with the activities, but I question myself, have internal debates, research and debate some more when it comes to what words to teach. I have looked at academic word lists, Marzano's Vocabulary Project (which is incredibly overwhelming) and used commercial products. What I want is vocabulary that makes a difference to my students in the classroom. One of my fellow teachers suggested I check out Jan Richardson's book The Next Step in Guided Reading. She has a list of words commonly found in texts for reading levels A through H. Lady A and I looked over the list and liked it. There is always this assumption that if a student can read or decode the word, they comprehend it. Surprisingly not always the case.
Lady A and I created vocabulary cards for these words using Boardmaker. It was quite laborious.
They aren't perfect because by the time we finished, our eyes were permanently crossed and we were convinced we teach kids to read using vocabulary that could not be pictured. However, if you would like to use them, here they are:
By the way, Jan Richardson has a website with a ton of guided reading resources. You can explore it here.
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