Recently I have been talking a lot about the development of vocabulary across the curriculum in training I have been leading, and during school support visits. Many curriculum documents contain carefully planned and selected vocabulary linked to the units being taught and many lessons contain opportunities for children to be exposed to a range of technical or ambitious vocabulary via teacher modelling.
But many children I see only hear this vocabulary with their ears or feel it through their hands as they are asked to include it in their written work. And this misses a link. This is the opportunity to feel the words in their mouth as they use them in their own speech. Often I see classes doing choral responses or turn and talk but less frequently do I see lessons or parts of lessons which focus on ensuring children truly understand the vocabulary they are being introduced to. In order to become fluent in any language you need to speak it. We can listen to someone else speak that language, we can practise reading it or writing it, but we won’t truly assimilate it until we are using it flexibly in a range of spoken contexts. Often when we think about developing a rich vocabulary, the focus is on ensuring children understand the correct definition of the word, obviously this is an important first stage, knowing what it means but just parroting back a learnt definition does not probe understanding or meaning making.
If we are to ensure children truly understand the vocabulary we want them to know, we need to design opportunities for them to use it in their speech so we can probe the nuances of their sense making, diagnose misconceptions and ensure that they understand both the definition and application of the new vocabulary. Too often I see new vocabulary introduced as a simple matching activity or flashcards or just a cursory explanation.
Developing vocabulary can help to provide accurate pitch, clear progression and ensure that concepts and aspects of the curriculum are described and understood with precision. The development of an understanding of these carefully selected words by our pupils therefore should underpin lesson and task design in order to ensure they become fluent and flexible in the use of them.
This doesn’t require hours of planning and preparation either. Some tried and tested simple approaches can encourage children to think hard about the meaning, definitions, nuances, connections and applications of the vocabulary just by including simple talk tasks.
We know from the work of Efrat Furst that connection is fundamental to understanding. Designing talk tasks that encourage children to think hard and make connections is therefore likely to both ensure that the vocabulary is understood rather than just remembered, but also that it will go beyond just simple recall of a word’s meaning.
Below are some suggestions of activities to try or to revisit which encourage children to think beyond the simple recall of what a word means and which also encourage them to feel the words in their mouths not just hear them in their ears or feel them with their fingers.
Odd One Out
Give children a set of words and ask for the odd one out. Encourage the children to focus on the word’s meaning rather than surface features like how many letters in the word.
- Bridge River Mountain
2. Henry VIII Elizabeth I Mary Queen of Scots
3. Precipitation Air Resistance Condensation
4. Grams Ounces Newtons
5. Monet Picasso Andy Warhol
6. Scalene triangle isosceles trapezium Square
7. 11 3 22
You will notice that there is more than one possible answer for each set and that is the point. It is the justification and associated discussion about the odd one out that can help to reveal misconceptions, delve into nuances of meaning, provide opportunities for retrieval and revisiting as well as multiple opportunities for children to use the words themselves as they talk with a talk partner about their choices. If this is twinned with a think, pair, share sequence such as the following then it ensures all children are involved in independent “hard thinking”, discussion and then whole class reflection.
Here are three words.
For one minute, by yourself without talking to anyone, think of which one you think is the odd one out. You will need to think of a reason why you chose it.
There is more than one possibility so be ready to explain yours but recognise it may be different to someone else’s.
Give thinking time.
Now talk to your partner and tell them your choice and why you chose it.
Listen to their explanation too.
Then ask the question.. Who had the same as their partner? Who had something different?
Then ask individuals to give examples of their explanations. Pause to ask after each one, “Hands up, did anyone else have this one?” “Toni, you said you had the same one, can you add any more detail or build on X’s explanation?”
Collect and collate the examples, focusing on children using the vocabulary in their answers.
Pause and ask children at points to read out together as a class some of the scribed answers in choral responses or reading them together as a whole class.
Ask children to point out any examples they hadn’t thought of themselves in their pairs, e.g. “Sammy and Amira which of our whole class answers was a surprise to you or one you hadn’t considered together? This again encourages use of the vocabulary again.
Ask the question, “Think for one minute. Which of our class odd one out connections had you not considered or not noticed before? What is it? Which do you want to remember for next time?”
This is designed to be a quick activity but can be extended to be used as elements of assessment and review
Link Two
Put two words on the board and ask children to explain the link between the two.
e.g.
stigma and stamen
Romulus, Rome
Condensation, Evaporation
Volcano, Magma
Light, Tone
Crotchet, minim
Reformation, Catholicism
Polar Bear, Adaptation
Follow the same teaching sequence as in odd one out.
This can also be adapted to be used with sets of three words. This makes it more challenging as children juggle three related definitions not just two.
Words and pictures
Use a picture stimulus and put unit specific words around it. e.g. a picture of Florence Nightingale and the words Crimea, improvements, soldiers around it. Ask children to talk to their talk partners about the picture using the words around it.
Ask the class for feedback on their discussions and how they had used the words in their talk. Collate and discuss examples, asking children to build on each others examples and diagnosing any misconceptions.
Tell me something true and tell me something false…
Give children a word or pair of words and ask them to tell you something that’s true about it and something that is false about it
e.g “Triangle”
It is true that a triangle is a three sided polygon
It is false that all triangles look the same
or
It is true that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees
It is false that all triangles have a line of symmetry
Other examples
Verb
It is true that a verb is a doing or being word
It is false that all verbs end in “ing” or “ed”
Pollination
It is true that pollination is part of the life cycle of a flowering plant.
It is false that all pollination occurs via wind
You can then begin to extend this activity by asking children to add “because” to their answers, especially the false ones which then encourages them to use the correct information in their answers.
In a minute
Put a topic word/phrase on the board. In pairs ask children to talk about one of them for a minute to their partner. They can include others from selection in their answers but should aim to talk about their chosen word for one minute. When putting the selection on the board to choose from, put up a selection from the same unit of work or area of study. The examples below are to illustrate how this can be adapted across the curriculum, not to be used within the same activity.
e.g.
The Reformation
Prime numbers
The water cycle
Figurative language
Florence Nightingale
The story of Rama and Sita
Air resistance
Four in a row
Put a grid of topic words on the board approx 8 x 8.
Divide the class into two teams or play “class vs teacher”.
One team picks a word.
Ask the class to think hard about that chosen word’s definition.
Ask the children in pairs (in both teams) to describe/define the word. Take feedback from the choosing team as to the word’s meaning.
If it is correct, colour it in with the colour of that team.
Continue until a team has 4 colours in a row (like connect 4)
Throughout the game, ask children who have not given the answer, questions such as “Could you add anything to that definition” or “has X missed any important information out”
Alphabet game
Display the alphabet on the board.
Put your class topic/area of focus on the board and ask the class to think hard independently for one minute about the alphabet and your topic and a word for each letter of the alphabet.
After one minute, work with a partner to come up with as many topic words as possible for the alphabet. Each one can only be used if they are sure they can also use it in a sentence.
Take feedback as a class. For each response, ensure the word is used in a sentence within the answer, e.g if the topic was was “Habitats” the first answer might be “Arctic: animals in the arctic often have a thick layer of fat to keep them warm and insulate them from the very cold temperatures”
You’ll never have a word like me…
This is a little like “pointless”. Put a topic/area of focus on the board and ask children to write down a word that is connected but to the topic/area of focus and ask children in pairs to think of a word that is connected to the area but that they’re sure no one else will think of. Give time for the pairs to formulate and write their answers then take feedback. This encourages children to think of the full range of possible answers and to consider answers beyond the obvious. It encourages hard thinking and is a great way to diagnose misconceptions.
None of the above activities are new or revolutionary but sometimes get forgotten or lost along the way. None rely on anything more complex than a pen to write the words on the board, and all provide opportunities for discussion, practising of vocabulary and opportunities to diagnose misconceptions, activate hard thinking, integrate retrieval and really rather importantly, are fun for both you and the children to do.
If we want children to be fully conversant in our curriculum contents then we need to give them multiple opportunities to become fluent in the language and vocabulary of its contents. Integrating time for developing understanding of curriculum vocabulary is never time wasted. So let’s ensure that we have classes who feel the full richness of our delicious and carefully prepared vocabulary in their mouths as well as hearing it and being asked to write it.
Thinking Flexibly 