Vocabulary in a SNAP - Angela B. Peery

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(such as A, B, C, or D). You take a photo of the students holding up their answer cards with the app, and, like magic, the app breaks down the data for you, showing you who answered correctly and incorrectly. This tool requires nothing but the free cards that you print from the site and a device that the app can be loaded onto.

      Quizlet (https://quizlet.com) is a collaborative online community that has activities for students to use when studying just about any subject. More than twenty million students and teachers use Quizlet per month (Quizlet, 2017). It has collections of practice activities to use as well as the capability for you to make your own materials.

      A stand-up meeting is a quick way to do a check for understanding in your classroom. It obviously involves standing up, but it can be applied to many situations and can be a tool for helping your students become more self-directed in their work. The strategy is versatile. You can call a stand-up meeting to check on group or individual progress with a long-term assignment or use it to quickly check for understanding of new content you just taught.

      First, you must gain everyone’s attention and ask them to stop what they’re doing temporarily. Then, the entire class stands and gathers in an area you indicate. You can pose a question or topic to discuss in advance or once everyone convenes. See David Orphal’s blog post “Stealing Business Ideas for my Classroom” on the Center for Teaching Quality’s webpage (Orphal, 2014; http://bit.ly/2jXNBiz) for a good discussion of how one teacher used this strategy in his classroom. (Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy to access live links to the websites mentioned in this book.)

      The term nonlinguistic representations became popular with the publication of the book Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano et al., 2001). Briefly, nonlinguistic representations are depictions of knowledge that rely less on language and instead tap into the visual, kinesthetic, tactile, or concrete. Either the teacher or student can produce these manifestations of knowledge. When the teacher produces them, the goal is to help students form an image in their minds, provide them with something they themselves can do to better remember the topic or concept, or to support linguistic forms of knowledge, especially when the terminology may be of concern.

      Teacher gestures, then, are a form of nonlinguistic representation. Teachers can often use gestures (or exaggerated facial expressions) to cue students as to the meaning of the linguistic information that accompanies them. For example, Jeff Zwiers (2014), senior researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and director of professional development for the Understanding Language initiative, recommends using hand gestures when teaching students how to correctly use transition words like however and nevertheless in their writing. Because these words are used only when there are opposites on either side of the word, you can create hand gestures that symbolize that meaning.

      Nonlinguistic images have resulted in gains of as much as 43 percentile points (Marzano, 2007). Neurologist and educator Judy Willis (2006) reminds us that offering information visually sets up connections with the occipital lobes of the brain and helps create memory pathways. Teacher gestures are a powerful form of nonlinguistic image that can help students solidify information like nothing else.

      ThingLink (www.thinglink.com) is an online tool that allows students to create visuals containing links connecting to other sources such as webpages, videos, and so on. In other words, students can use ThingLink to create layered content, linking together visuals, texts, voice-overs, and more.

      Think-pair-share is a collaborative learning strategy in which two students talk together to solve a problem or respond to a question or prompt. This strategy has two critical steps: cognition and talking after students are paired. The “think” step is often rushed or almost absent. It’s critical that you pose the question or prompt, then allow adequate think time, and lastly, ask students to pair and talk. There must be individual cognitive processing before there’s collaborative discussion within the pair.

      Pairs can be preassigned in order for the strategy to work smoothly. Some teachers have standing pairs that last for a certain time period, like a quarter or semester. You can add another step and have pairs report out at the end of the allotted sharing time.

      TodaysMeet (https://todaysmeet.com) is a live backchannel that you can use in classes and meetings. Upon accessing the site, you’ll see a box that has the words “Pick a Name” above it. To create a space for your class, type in a name, such as Peerys4thBlock, and, if it’s available, you will see a check mark appear. You will then go to the box below and fill out how long you want this chat “room” to be open. For one class period, choose one hour. Then, as you conduct the minilesson, display the room you created on the screen. Students can use devices individually to join you in the room by typing in the room’s name. Then students give themselves screen names and type comments of up to 140 characters. Those comments will appear on the site and your screen in real time. TodaysMeet is a great way to keep students engaged and use technology authentically.

      A Venn diagram is a graphic organizer for comparison and is widely used in classrooms (see figure 2.4). First used in mathematics, it helps illustrate relationships in logic and probability. Now used more generally, it is a visual that shows similarities between two items. In the Venn diagram, users record similarities in the part where the circles overlap, and qualities unique to each item in the parts where the circles do not overlap. Visit www.readingquest.org/strat/venn.html to access a good discussion of Venn diagrams.

       Figure 2.4: Blank Venn diagram.

      Visit go.SolutionTree.com/literacy for a free reproducible version of this figure.

      A vocabulary frame can be hand-drawn on notebook paper, a large index card, or even a large sticky note. To make the frame, students place the term in the middle of the paper. It can be written in all caps or in large lettering to enhance memory. Their own (unresearched) definition is then written in the upper right corner. A sentence that reminds them of the word’s meaning is written on the top half of the page. A quick sketch (nothing elaborate) is written in the lower right corner. This strategy allows students to write about the term in their own words and use a visual and context to aid memory.

      The vocabulary log strategy—also called vocabulary journal, vocabulary notebook, and word log—is a record of student-selected words, meanings, and applications. Ideally, you should use it during segments of instruction that focus on general academic vocabulary and with independent reading.

      With this strategy, the student needs to accomplish five steps: (1) record each word, (2) give its part of speech (as used in the source where it was found), (3) describe the context in which he or she finds the word, (4) give a student-friendly definition, and lastly, (5) attempt to use it authentically. Figure 2.5 provides an example of a vocabulary log in use.

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