The Word-Conscious Classroom: Building the Vocabulary Readers and Writers Need

Want to guarantee that students are learning rich vocabulary all day, everyday and, by doing this, improving their reading and writing? In this lively, research-based book, based on successful classroom practice, the authors offer dozens of strategies, mini-lessons, units , and activities that increase students' exposure to and appreciation of sophisticated language.

A sampling of the vocabulary-focused strategies and tools include:

Using daily read alouds and think alouds during shared reading to gather powerful language from literature

Organizing literature circles with one student serving as the word hunter

Engaging in whole class and small group lively games such as gift of words bingo and ricochet

Using mentor texts as models for writing class books

Appointing all students to be word catchers and word coaches for each other

Establishing a classroom community where it is considered normal to ask about word meanings and experimenting with language

Collecting and displaying words in the Bank of Powerful Language

Offering rubrics for word learning assessment

In addition, the authors offer lively ways to enhance word consciousness by linking reading and writing through step-by-step units on poetry, memoir, stories, and research writing. For use with Grades 4-8.