Seeing vocabulary sentences Boosts word knowledge exponentially

Reading and using vocabulary in sentences several times is essential if students are to learn a word well enough to:

• Understand its meaning when they encounter it in their reading.

• Understand its meaning when they hear it spoken.

• Use it correctly and appropriately in their own writing.

• Use it correctly and appropriately in their own speech.

To provide an adequate number of exposures to a word in context, you need to incorporate some vocabulary into every other topic you teach. That doesn't mean you must have vocabulary instruction in each other topic each day. It means you need to have some vocabulary element each day in at least one other topic you are discussing.

Overlapping content is really simpler than teaching disconnected units. However, it requires a different mindset, one that focuses on course objectives rather than on unit or lesson objectives. You will find much more on that topic on the goals and objectives thread.

Find examples of words in context

Once your students are accustomed to looking for instances of their vocabulary words, you can turn part of that work over to them. Initially, however, you need to find examples of your vocabulary words in use and bring them to students' attention.

Simplify finding examples by choosing vocabulary words you know students will encounter in the reading materials for your class. The more of these you can draw from students' class materials, the better. When students see they are learning something they can use right away, the vocabulary study becomes motivating and reinforcing.

If you have access to any of your text materials in digital format, you can use technology to help you find vocabulary sentences. If you are searching for analyze, for example, you can use find and replace to locate the word and put it in a distinctive color so you can readily find the sentences in which it appears.

Another useful option is on online program called Just the Word or JTW. Developed by Sharp Laboratories of Europe, the free program allows you to see how words are used in context. In effect, it produces a concordance on demand so you can see various uses of a word in context.

For example, I typed in the word clemency and chose the thesaurus option. Results were returned in two lists. Once list was of 35 examples of the word being used. The other list was of the examples of sentences showing prepositions used with the word clemency.

Another good way to find examples is to search for your vocabulary words as you read online websites, especially sites that have a timely tie-in with something that interests students. I use the find function in my Firefox browser to check a web page for specific word. You can do such searches easily while you are reading material that interests you.

How to use vocabulary sentences

Depending on what other things you are teaching, you could use your vocabulary sentence examples for such things as :

• A vocabulary mini-lesson.

• Raw data to be used in developing a writing prompt.

• Reference material for students working on yes-no-why or word analogies.

For you and your students to get maximum value from vocabulary sentences, you have to make sure students use them to accomplish something other than just vocabulary instruction. If you use the vocabulary sentences merely as your lecture material, most of the lecture will fall on deaf ears.