5.7 Demonstrate research-based instructional practices for developing both academic and domain specific vocabulary.
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Making it Hands on with Math Vocabulary Academic and domain specific vocabulary needs to be pre-taught and reinforced in a variety of ways. Educators cannot simply assume that students will understand academic language or retain it. Areas like Mathematics and Science are filled with particularly challenging terms and can baffle even the most motivated student. It is imperative that educators find engaging ways to incorporate academic language into the classroom "dialogue."
I chose to incorporate this into my classroom in two ways. Before I began Chapter 3 (basic addition and subtraction), I pre-taught the vocabulary needed for this series of lessons. I asked the students to tell me what they thought these terms meant and how we might be using them throughout the chapter. As I taught each lesson that contained this complex vocabulary, I used visuals, short videos, and repetition to provide further clarity. Finally, I prepared a few hands-on activities that featured these vocabulary terms. The first was about using arrays for repeated addition and ultimately multiplication. My students are a bit candy obsessed, so this activity was quite the highlight. What seven year old would not be thrilled to create arrays out of Skittles? However, on top of that, it was a hands-on, tactile activity that made the use of arrays concrete for these students. I saw real growth during this activity and was even fortunate enough to see a student have an "aha" moment. I could certainly see myself using this strategy again in the future. |