As I read Chapter 9, I thought about my own experiences with learning vocabulary. I couldn't think of one experience that didn't consist of being handed a list of words and definitions to memorize and regurgitate on a vocabulary test one week later. I remember being in high school and all of the language arts teachers focusing on SAT and ACT vocabulary. We memorized 20 words a week. Words that I'm sure I rarely used other than on the vocabulary test. Luckily, I've always had an excellent memory so this was never a problem for me; however, reading this chapter made me stop and think about how teaching vocabulary this way might be a significant struggle for other students, especially students who have learning disabilities. To help teach vocabulary more effectively, there were several strategies that I liked in Chapter 9.
One strategy I particularly liked was "Assign Word Study, Not Word Memorization." I like this strategy because it encourages teachers to have students learn words that they will actually use. I know many of the vocabulary words that I have retained were those words that appeared most often in conversations and the texts we read in class. It makes sense to me to have students focus on learning fewer words that they can learn to use well in both their oral and written language.
A second strategy that I liked was "Teach Word Parts." I like the idea of teaching students about roots and affixes and using a vocabulary tree to help them visualize the many different forms a root word can be turned into. Also, I like the fact that a vocabulary tree encourages students to listen more closely to conversations to determine if someone they know uses a word they are focusing on. Along this same line, I liked the strategy "Use Graphic Organizers" because it also provides students with a visual display that helps them to see relationships among words that they might otherwise miss.
Overall, I think this chapter helped me to see that vocabulary can be fun for students who aren't word lovers. Allowing students to interact with words in different ways seems to be a much more effective technique to ensure they are enhancing their vocabulary rather than to hand them a list of words to memorize that they will probably forget shortly after being tested on them.
