Vocabulary Lanyards

I got really excited last night when I was typing this post that I put "publish" instead of "schedule" so you are getting some Monday Made It a little early! Thanks to Tara for the link up!

I am a data fanatic. Data reports can help me create a pretty good picture of what type of learning and teaching needs to occur in my classroom. Last year, our SAT10 results showed that my students needed to be more proficient in vocabulary. So, I began to research and did you know that research shows that students who have a rich and expansive vocabulary are better, stronger readers? Not only do they read more fluently, but they actually better comprehend the text that they are reading. 

So guess what is going to be a much larger focus in my classroom curriculum this year? Yup! You guessed it! Vocabulary!

Vocabulary is essentially the knowledge of words and their definitions. However, student understanding of vocabulary should go beyond just knowing what a word means. Students should have such a deep understanding of vocabulary that they can use those higher level words in context.

One of the things that I love most about our new Wonders Reading series is the rigorous level of vocabulary words that are targeted each week. The vocabulary words can be found in multiple curriculum tools across the series(levels readers, anthologies, and reading workshop stories). 

So take all of that information I have just thrown at you and combine it with the knowledge of activities that are growing into my head thanks to the book Word Nerds that I am reading right now coupled with my love for GoNoodle and their awesome new classroom freebies. 

What do you get?

Vocabulary lanyards GoNoodle style!

 Following one of the activities found in Word Nerds, my students get to "wear and share" vocabulary lanyards each week. I introduced the concept to the class two weeks ago and asked other teachers and staff in my building to stop and have vocabulary conversations with the students wearing lanyards. It has been working out great, but my handwriting is horrible and the handwritten word cards were boring. 

Thanks to GoNoodle and their new supply labels(which you can find free here), I spiced up our vocabulary lanyards, and now my students are wearing them proudly.