Miss Murrays Classroom

News: Vocabulary and

concept development
These easy strategies can be used at home to help students become better readers
and increase their vocabulary skills.

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Multiple meanings -

Find a piece of writing and pick out several words with multiple
meanings. Have your child predict what the words mean before reading. While reading, ask
student to double check their prediction.

Word sort -

Write many words on index cards with a common theme/characteristic. Have

students work to put each card into its correct category. You can make this more difficult by not
telling your child what the categories are ahead of time to see if they can figure it out.

Concept circles -

Put several words together from a story in a circle. Have your child find
the common theme of all the words. Have your child write the theme and connect the words
together to construct deeper meaning. This may be done as a post reading activity.

Synonyms -

Use synonyms to help your child see each word has other words associated
with it that mean the same thing. Use a matching game to show relationships.

Antonyms -

Use antonyms when talking with your child about opposites. Create sentences
where students must fill-in-the-blank with words that are antonyms.

Connect two -

Before reading a story to your child, go through and pick out some
vocabulary words that relate to each other. In a circle, write the words, and keep related words
close to each other. Have the child try and figure out which words go together. While reading the
story, stop when you come across any of the words and make have the student make the
connection.

Categorization -

On a sheet of paper, write out four words, two words that are related to
each other and two other words that are close, but not the same. Have students go through and
circle which words are similar. On the other hand, you may also have your child cross out which
words do not belong in a group.

Analogy -

An analogy compares relationships between two things. Students must solve the
analogy by thinking of what the relationship could be. ___ is to ___ as ___ is to ___. Pick words
out of a story to use.

Semantic Map -

After reading a story, pick an idea or topic from the text. Have your child
brainstorm some of the ideas from the text and write them all down. Write the idea in the middle of

a piece of paper and have the student map out some things that go along with the idea. Connect
these ideas with more specific vocabulary words. For example, a map on the five senses with
descriptive words coming off of each sense.

10. Dictionary - While reading a difficult story, write out some of the difficult vocab words. Have
the student look up the words in a dictionary to get the definition and synonyms. This will help
construct meaning of the difficult vocabulary words.