Vocabulary Development Resources

Students depend on a base of vocabulary to comprehend increasingly difficult content. And students must maintain a solid foundation of content vocabulary to communicate mathematically with others. Vocabulary is only learned through multiple exposures. Here are my top three resources for vocabulary development in the math classroom...

#1 

Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering (2010) have completed extensive research regarding a six-step process for learning and acquiring new vocabulary terms in their book, Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual.

• The teacher provides a description of the term.
• Students restate the explanation in their own words.
• Students draw a non-linguistic representation for the term.
• Students participate in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the term.
• Students discuss the term with one another in small groups.
• Students play with the vocabulary term in games 

#2 

Ben Taylor incorporates cooperative learning and Kagan structures in his book, Vocabulary: Making It Memorable, to expose students to academic vocabulary in a variety of settings.

#3 

The Granite School District in Salt Lake City, Utah maintains a wealth of vocabulary building ideas for all grade levels and subject areas.

The MATH-7 team will investigate vocabulary building in their next Genius Hour on January 20.
Stay tuned for more details...