Real- Life Reading Inquiry

For my real-life reading inquiry, I chose to study the skill of vocabulary as it has always been a favorite reading skill of mine. I decided to go home to my elementary school where I grew up in Memphis, TN and ask one of the fourth grade teachers if I could sit in on her class and observe her vocabulary teaching tactics. While I was there for the two hour lesson, I observed her helpful class decoration, the interactions she had with her students, and how they reacted to the lessons.

                When I first walked into the classroom, I immediately began to observe the charts and wall decorations having to do with vocabulary that surrounded me. There was a giant Social Studies map that covered one wall and interestingly enough had words labeled all over it. This was Ms. Jackson’s* way of making sure her students knew what a compass, ocean, island, and more were. I thought this was a great way to incorporate expanding vocabulary into other subjects. The students also had a whole row of student dictionaries next to their desks which encouraged them to look up words they may not know or struggle to remember the meaning of. Word walls also appeared on every wall having to do with each subject the student was learning from math to science to language arts. Blachowicz and Fisher’s article “Vocabulary Lessons” emphasizes the importance of independence by putting up word walls for the students to learn at their leisure and giving full access to dictionaries whenever a student feels encouraged to look up a word. This is a great way to show students that subjects can be intermixed. The students were surrounded by opportunities to improve or expand on their vocabulary at all times.

                After I observed the classroom decorations, the lesson began. Ms. Jackson first had her students categorize spelling and vocabulary words into a spire before the lesson by syllables, suffixes, prefixes, and root words. They used both academic vocabulary and bi-weekly vocabulary that related to social studies knowledge on Indians. This warm-up for the students allowed them to focus on the activity at hand. I was able to figure out that the students were in a Derivational stage of reading where they were focusing on root words and adding endings, learning bi-weekly vocabulary, and were learning to think critically and creatively.

After the warm- up, the teacher moved into a reading exercise using Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. While she read the chapter aloud to her students, she also encouraged them to write down words for four different categories: misspoken (due to youth, lack of education), slang (due to dialect, region, time period), Old- fashioned (usually found in dictionary but not used anymore), and new words. The students listened attentively as Ms. Jackson read the story animatedly occasionally laughing at the story. Blachowicz and Fisher’s article “Vocabulary Lessons” suggests that students develop oral vocabulary about two years faster than their reading vocabulary. Ms. Jackson allows the vocabulary to sink in easier by encouraging the students to read the book to themselves while she reads it aloud. After she finished reading the chapter, the students were put into small groups and were told to focus on finding one of the four categories of words. While the students were working, Ms. Jackson clipped a giant piece of paper onto the chalkboard and wrote down the four categories. Then she allowed her students to raise their hands to be chosen to write the words they found on the board. The children became immediately enthusiastic and excited about writing the words they discovered on the board. For the new words, Ms. Jackson made the student look it up in a dictionary to find out its true meaning. Once the students looked up the word, she chose an approach similar to Lane and Allen’s in their article on sophisticated vocabulary. Instead of giving her students easy synonyms she invited them to think of complex words such as thrilled instead of excited or intimidated instead of frightened. She gave examples for the other three categories that the students may not know using familiar references like Facebook, family, recess and homework. After they finished this vocabulary activity, Ms. Jackson smoothly transitioned into allowing her students to perform skits together demonstrating what they had learned from Bud Not Buddy.

Sitting in on Ms. Jackson’s vocabulary lesson helped me realize how enthusiastic students are to learn if interaction is key. The students’ response to being read to aloud, working in groups, and being allowed to write on the board showed me that being actively engaged is important to learning any skill. Being a teacher, I will need to learn to teach creatively and interactively with my students to ensure that I can keep them attentive while also allowing them the leisure of having fun while learning. I also learned how easy it can be as a teacher to seamlessly incorporate other subjects into skills such as vocabulary to create a bridge in the students’ minds intellectually.