Word Alive An instructional strategy to teach vocabulary

1. Word AliveAn instructional strategy to teach vocabulary Researched, facilitated and compiled by Kathleen Bagmanov, Stephanie Ernst, Linda Pennington, Courtney Thomas and Shelley West

2. Word Alive is an instructional strategy that encourages students to think about key vocabulary words by having them predict the meaning, look it up in the dictionary, rewrite the definition in their own words, identify synonyms and antonyms, sketch the word, and finally write a caption for the illustration of the word. What is Word Alive?

3. Graphic OrganizersWord Alive Now illustrate the word and write a caption to go along with it!

4. Another Graphic Organizer • Vocabulary word: ________________________ 2. Predict its meaning: _____________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ 3. Dictionary definition: _____________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ 4. Definition in YOUR own words: ______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ 5. Synonyms: _____________________________________________________________ 6. Antonyms_____________________________________________________________ Sketch the word: Caption:

5. What are activities that we can use with/for Word Alive? Activity #1: When working with small groups, assign each child a vocabulary word. Each student will look up the word and create a poster of pictures with examples of the word. For example: The word is Natural resource…The student can create an 8x11 poster with pictures of examples of natural resources such as tress, water, pebbles, soil, coal, sand and soil. The other students in the group will have to guess what the word is from the pictures on the poster.

6. What are activities that we can use with/for Word Alive? Activity #2: Divide the class into 2 groups. Create cut out pictures of flies; write one vocabulary word on each fly and display the words on the Word Wall. Choose one student from each team and ask them to turn their backs to the words. Give both students a fly swatter, then the teacher gives a definition for one of the words. The students will face the words and attempt to be the first to "fly swat" the word to earn points for their team. For younger students, instead of saying the definition show a picture of the word. For example, if the word is Monkey, the teacher would show a picture of a monkey and the two students will do the same as above.

7. What are activities that we can use with/for Word Alive? Activity #3: For younger children When working with nouns/verbs have students look up the word, then write the definition in their own words, then come up with synonyms. Finally have students look through newspapers or magazines for pictures of the nouns or examples of the verbs. This will definitely work for 2nd grade and 3rd grades, if not more. For grades under 2nd, have them skip the part of looking up the definition. You can provide the definition and they come up with synonyms from prior knowledge then they draw a picture.

8. Pros/Cons