Video:How to Create a Vocabulary Worksheet to Teach a Lesson

Transcript:How to Create a Vocabulary Worksheet to Teach a Lesson

Hello I'm Milo for About.com and today were talking about how to create vocabulary worksheet activities.

Have Proper Preparation Before Creating a Vocabulary Worksheet

Think About the Lesson Objective: The first step in creating any lesson activity is answering the question, "What do you want the student to walk away with specifically?" A little effective planning makes a worksheet a great learning tool rather than merely a time filler.

Plan a Lesson Objective Before Creating a Vocabulary Worksheet

It's helpful to think of a lesson objective around a brain activity or process. A good example is Bloom's taxonomy. Don't let the technical name put you off, its merely a way of thinking about how we learn, organized around different levels of how the brain processes from gaining knowledge to more advanced evaluation.

Since vocabulary tends to be either for the sake of learning spelling, definition, or both, new words would mean that students are identifying knowledge to the student, whereas working with suffixes and prefixes might mean students are analyzing. For example, a lesson objective could be: focusing on the prefix anti-, we are going to take apart some familiar words to analyze some patterns in meaning and spelling.

Focus on Learning When Creating a Vocabulary Worksheet

Focus on Learning: a good lesson objective will help you focus your preparation and teaching on the learning. The goal is to maximize the amount of time the student spends successfully manipulating the content. A good rule of thumb is that the person doing the work is the person doing the learning. You should not spend more time creating a worksheet activity than a student does performing it. Creating opportunities for the students to develop their own materials gives them responsibility and participation in their own learning. Worksheets do not have to be typical, they do not have to be made by the teacher, and they don’t even have to be sheets.

Create a Learning Journal For an "Ongoing Vocabulary" Worksheet

Learning Journal: One idea of a ongoing "worksheet" is for a student to keep a learning journal, either by subject or based on vocabulary. This will be a place for the student to record words, definitions, activities, and becomes a living record of their thinking. So rather than filling out a piece of paper, they write all answers, even mistakes and guesses, in their journal. Other ideas include having students create flash cards, word lists, and even quizzes. If you have more than one student they can role-play teaching each other.

Word Sorts Are a Creative Vocabulary Worksheet

Word sorts are a fantastic way for students to begin to build an understanding of patterns in meaning or spelling. A typical sort will have columns for the major patterns the student is exploring and usually an out of sorts column, an opportunity to show that there are exceptions.

Owning Words: Vocabulary obviously comes alive in context. Having students put definitions in their own words is exceptional practice. Any worksheet on definition should allow for this. The key piece is to make sure the definition the student develops is correct.

Role Play Is a Fun Alternative to a Vocabulary Worksheet

Role Play is a very effective way of making learning relevant and memorable, and it’s easy to build into worksheets and activities. When doing math or science, be scientists or astronauts. Explorers, actors, characters from history, and famous people are all great ideas too.

Use Non-Fiction Reading as a Source for a Vocabulary Worksheet

Best Vocabulary Sources -- Non-Fiction Reading: Some great vocabulary activities can come from non-fiction reading. Keywords, new words, and difficult words are all likely candidates for word lists. Online you can find numerous lists of what words students of particular grades should know. Before reading, presenting a word list is very helpful. This gives the student a purpose for reading as well as prepares them for challenging words. Then the student can be taught a list of clarification strategies for finding the definition:

• search in context
• hunt for possible synonyms
• look it up in a resource
• ask a partner, etc.

Celebrate Learning When Creating a Vocabulary Worksheet

Evaluate Achievement of Lesson Objective: At the end of every lesson, review if or to what extent the student reached the goal and celebrate that. If you did not reach the whole goal, you have something to focus on next time.

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