By Stacey Seybold Hiller, Speech Pathologist
When I work on expanding vocabulary with our students, I frequently use a system that I call “Valuable Vocabulary”. I made a chart with three columns. The first column is called $1.00; the second is called $20.00 and the third is the $100.00 column.
I explain to the students that in order to grow our vocabulary, we not only need to learn about new words, but we need to USE those new words in writing and speaking to truly make them part of our working word bank. So, while we are reading a story, or doing a lesson, I will put a new vocabulary word into one of these three columns, then we brainstorm on how to fill in the other two (by using more or less “valuable” synonyms). It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t.
For example, if we come across the word DIABOLICAL, we may put that in the $100.00 column. Then I use it in a sentence, to try to allow the students to figure out via the context of the sentence what the new words means. We may end up with something like this:
$1.00 $20.00 $100.00
evil despicable diabolical
Then I will challenge the students to try to use more valuable vocabulary the next time they say or write the word “evil”. I suggest that when writing a sentence or a story to get their ideas on paper first, then go back and try to replace some of the words they originally used with a more “valuable” synonym.
This is something that can happen easily at home, when you are reading with a student. If you come across a new word, try this interactive way for them to learn it independently. It will make mastery of the new word much more likely if they “discover” the meaning on their own, rather than just hear the definition from someone else. This type of activity also is a great way to learn to use either the printed or the online versions of the Thesaurus as well.
Happy vocabulary growing!
HI, What a great idea. Just processing the concept here as I read and am wondering if you have lever inked and rewarded the ‘find’ of the most valuable words with an incentive scheme? Also having read that the use of colours is important to learning have you tried having the colums in a differnt colours, or the text in a differnt fonts or size? The better the word the bigger and bolder the word would then appear which might make it more memorable. And thinking some more, having been on an NLP course recently and also being dyslexic I bet, if you havent done it already if you asked your students to draw a quick picture of that most valauble word or an image of what it means or how it makes them feel I bet they would have a better chance of remembering it later on when writing their stories. Just a few suggestions on my part. Hope you dont mind me raising them. Its great learning. All the best.
Glad this was helpful and thought provoking! Yes, color coding and font sizes can be very helpful tools. In this case we were working on the use of “juicy words” and challenging students to go with the big money words whenever possible. Thank you for your response!