Gauging Students' Voc. Level - by Ms. Rocha (John P. Ojeda MS, 6th grade Reading)

Actually sitting down and thinking about a lesson plan was not easy to do even though I have used the newspaper in my classroom for years!

One of the activities that helps me gauge the extent of my students' vocabulary involves a context clues lesson.

• Warm-Up: (select a paragraph from a lead story in the newspaper--I seat students in pairs for this activity and give each group two sticky notes) Students, draw a box around the words that you do not know and underline the words that you do know. If your partner has a box around a word that you underlined pair/share your definition for the word. If both you and your partner have the same words boxed, write the word/words on the sticky note.
• As a class we discuss the words on the sticky notes (sticky notes are placed on a bulletin board next to my door as students leave---I review the notes to see how many words written down were the same/different)
• Pass out newspapers--each pair picks a story and does the same thing. I then use the document viewer (ELMO) to show the class each group's story (they don't know what story belongs to each group). I then lead into our new vocabulary activity about context clues.
• When students have learned/practiced context clues strategies, we revisit the newspaper stories and see the difference of the students' understanding now that they have new strategies under their belt.