One of the vocabulary strategies I use to get my students to remember and practice vocabulary words is a Vocabulary Sheet of the Week. With this simple vocabulary strategy, students will focus on learning two vocabulary words in context each day.
Since my students lose things like nobody’s business and I like them to easily keep track of vocabulary words that will be on their weekly quizzes, I made up this vocab sheet (an adaption from any others you can find out there) as a quick reference tool, organizer, and memory stimulator.
Our weekly vocabulary quizzes are on Friday, so after students submit their quiz they grab a new Vocabulary Sheet of the Week that will be used throughout the upcoming week to learn their new word list.
HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
Project the sentence with the vocabulary word in context on the board when they come in the room. They know to take out their sheet and copy the word in context in that column.
Once class starts, I read the sentence and ask them to identify the part of speech (it’s shocking how much trouble they have with this and it’s very useful so that they use the word correctly in a sentence).
Then I have them pull out parts of the word we recognize (prefix, suffix, roots, words that have similar parts).
I then call on someone to give me a guess at the word definition. We discuss it as a class and then I show them the slide with the formal definition.
The most helpful part is what comes next. I make them develop a way to remember it. Many of my students are visual learners. They need word tricks to refresh their memory. Since the kids develop it, it is more realistic, but I have been known to share my absurd ways of remembering vocabulary words, too.
Here’s an example of my bizarre memory tricks that students claim help them:
The lawyers scrutinized the contract in order to catch any problems for their client.
“This word sounds like it starts with ‘screw,’ which is what I do with my eyes when I’m looking closely at something. Plus, it has what sounds like ‘eyes’ in it so it has parts to refresh my memory. I screw up my eyes when I scrutinize.” Yeah, it works. Then my visual learners will draw eyes around the word scrutinize in the box and on their flashcards and it helps them remember.