As a high school teacher, I used Sadlier’s Vocabulary Workshop years ago and was dismayed to find that all of the answers to the exercises in the book were readily available online. I also knew that the exercises in the book alone did not provide enough exposure for students to master the 20 words per unit.
When I was asked last year to use Sadlier’s Vocabulary Workshop with my sixth graders, I took my qualms to teachergram and asked “what do you do?” I used the information and ideas I got from other teachers plus a few of my own to create a routine that worked for me and my students.
Introducing The Unit
Sadlier’s Vocabuly Workshop (beginning with Level A) is organized into units of 20 words each. At the start of each unit is a passage that uses the majority of the unit’s words in context (usually at least 15 of them). My students and I read through this passage together in class on day one of our vocabulary routine and then for homework that night, students revisit the passage, identifying context clues from the passage that help to define the words (this is on a handout of my creation; see an example here). I provided the definitions for each word since some have more than one meaning. Students are also responsible for trying to identify the type of context clue: restatement (synonym), contrast (antonym), or inference (figure it out). Information is provided about these at the start of students’ books (it is page 7 for Level A).
Making It Manageable & Providing Repeated Exposure
From there I break the unit in half to focus on the first ten words before moving on to the second set of ten words. On day 2 of our routine, I review the first 10 words of the unit with students. Before class, I look through the definitions and cross out anything obscure (like the verb form of apparel) that students are unlikely to use or even read anywhere. During class, I read through the words and have students highlight key parts of the definitions because some of them are quite wordy or repetitive. This year I’m also going to have students mark any word parts (roots, prefixes, suffixes).
For homework on day 2 of our vocabulary routine, students will create word webs for the first five of the ten words we reviewed that day. Students have a template for this word web glued in their notebook, which is solely for vocabulary homework. I also model filling out the word web the first few times we do it and after any break from vocabulary. Word webs include the word, the highlighted definition, synonyms, antonyms, part of speech, word part and meaning, examples, non-examples, and an illustration. (In addition to the word web template, students have lists of the most common roots, prefixes, and suffixes glued into their vocabulary notebooks to refer to during this part of their homework.) The next night, day 3 of our vocabulary routine, students complete word webs for the second 5 of the 10 words we reviewed on day 2.
The following night, day 4 of our routine, students create flashcards in preparation for a quiz on those first 10 words. On day 2 or 3in class, students will play a Blooket I created to help them review their vocabulary. Questions include choosing the word that best matches an image, identifying synonyms, and filling in the blank sentences. Blooket games are always engaging, but to make them even more fun, I like to add my students’ names in the sentences.
On day 4 in class, after students have completed all of their word webs, we will share examples and non-examples to help them review for the quiz. I find that part of the word webs is where students can struggle most, but also helps to make the word meaningful (and therefore more likely to be remembered) when put in a context they can understand and connect to).
Unless it falls on a Monday, I give a quiz on the first 10 words of the unit on Day 5 of our routine. Students identify which word I am giving an example of and have four answers to choose from on a Google Form quiz. This type of question helps to prevent cheating; even if students look up the definition of a word online during the quiz, that won’t necessarily reveal the answer. They really have to understand the word and apply their knowledge to the question.
On the night of the quiz, students complete two sorting activities on a handout I created (see an example here). First, they sort out all 20 words of the unit into parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, and adverb (there are very few of these in Level A). A word may be recorded in more than one column if it has meanings for more than one part of speech. Second, students sort all 20 words by connotation: positive, negative, or neutral. Students choose 3 words to explain their choice of connotation for. This year I may change that to all words.
On days 6-9, we repeat our routine of:
Day 6 – review the second 10 words in the unit and begin word webs for homework
Day 7 – play a Blooket review game and finish word webs for homework
Day 8 – review examples and non-examples and make flashcards
Day 9 – quiz
Wrapping Up The Unit
Once students have been quizzes on both halves of the list, we begin completing the exercises in the student workbooks. On day 9 students will complete “Choosing the Right Word” for homework, on day 10 they’ll complete “Complete The Sentence (I encourage them to use their set of flashcards like a word bank for this), and on day 11 they will complete “Vocabulary in Literary Context.” In class on one of those days, I’ll have them work in groups on the synonym and antonym exercises. For each of those exercises, you could also have students highlight context clues that helped them determine the answers.
Day 12 will be the test on all 20 words. I break the Google Form into sections by part of speech and questions are fill in the blank sentences with all of the nouns, all of the verbs, or all of the adjectives/adverbs in the unit as possible choices. Similar to the fill in the blank Blooket game, I use my students’ names in the sentences to add a little bit of fun to the task.
Reflections & Circling Back
One thing I would like to add into our 12 day routine this coming year is using some of the writing activities provided in the students’ work books. I would also like to focus more on morphology by working with word matrices for the vocabulary words that include common roots.
After every 3 units is a review unit. I like to save these to use right before a break so that we can start fresh with a new unit after the break. In the day before a break, we will also play games t review the units we have covered so far. Another way I have students return to vocabulary from previous units is by offering bonus points on essays for accurately using vocabulary words (maximum 5 points).
You can find all of the resources I use with Sadlier's Vocabulary Workshop here.
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