Quote: "Reading has the greatest impact on students' vocabulary development, but other activities are important, too."
Comment: Sometimes I think that reading is just the most important thing when it comes to learning vocabulary. In literacy circles in elementary school and in middles school we would also find words we didnt know and look them up and become familiar with them. A large part of learning new vocab came solely from reading. But as I get older, I realize that children can learn vocab from a variety of sources, including tv and movies. When I go back and watch Disney movies like the Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, I hear words that kids wouldnt know and that I only learned recently, but just exposing the children to new words help them recognize and become familiar with them. Also, speaking with other people helps students develop vocabulary. My dad always has a new large word to use in daily speech and I have to ask him what it means. Babies that are talked to have a significantly higher vocab in grade school at a young age then do babies who are from low SES homes where their parents dont talk to them as much. There are so many great ways for children to expand their vocabulary.
Question: How can we encourage new vocab words for students to learn besides giving them a list of words to look up?
I love what you said about how we can learn vocabulary in a variety of ways. I think the greatest way to learn vocab is through hearing and reading others use that vocabulary and then speaking and writing with it on your own. In a classroom I think a good way to teach vocab without a list of words is to make them familiar by having the students use the words in their own speech and writing. Have them write a story with a set of new vocabulary words so that they are having to think about and use the words on their own. Also, as a teacher use the words when you teach and ask the students what those words mean from the context you use them in.
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