Fun Ways to Teach Vocabulary in Classroom
Enhancing the vocabularies of students is essential to success in college and beyond. Vocabulary is a topic that builds upon itself, becoming increasingly difficult over time, so creating a strong basis for understanding vocabulary words is key in future language-building. Learning vocabulary may not be the most exciting thing students do in school, but by using interesting and fun ways to teach vocabulary words, educators can increase students’ interest and help with both memorization and retention.
Children learn best from examining words in context. From my personal experience, I have used these tips to help students expand their vocabulary:
Read Together
The best way to help students increase their vocabulary is to engage with them in discussions about words. Try to read together and talk about the interesting words that come up in the books you read. Help the students to identify the words that they don’t know the meaning of or has questions about. Discuss the definitions of these words in the context of the books you read. As opposed to learning about vocabulary words in isolation, this strategy gives students real-life experience about how words are used while engaging them in rich discussion about vocabulary. Try to not only talk about the definitions of words, but also discuss the pronunciation, context and spelling.
Use Interesting Words
Encourage an interest in vocabulary by using a variety of words in your daily life or during lessons. Using interesting words in context can help encourage an appreciation of language. Challenge your students to use particular vocabulary words in their lives. Make a game out of this challenge by seeing who can use the most vocabulary words in casual conversation.
Go Back to the Roots and brainstorming
Teaching root words to elementary-aged students will help them have a context for figuring out unknown words. Learning about common prefixes and suffixes can also...