To continue with my series on vocabulary development, I've decided to tackle a common problem that readers face when they've learned to decode small words but are stumped when they come across longer and more complex words. A great vocabulary learning activity that you can use to help overcome this hurdle is a activity that I first learned about from the book Phonics they use by Patricia M. Cunningham called Big Word Collector.
| | To motivate your students to start they're own word collections I found this book to be great. In this picture book by Kate Banks, Max is envious of his brothers collections so he decides to start a collection of his own; a collection of words.
You can encourage your students to do what Max did and create big word collections. This activity can help students as they build their vocabulary, increase their writing ability, and learn to easily decode big words.
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Help your students to expand into other genres by giving out a mystery award.
To earn this award students will need to read four books in the mystery genre. You can, of course, alter this number according to your grade and your students need. You can get this award and many others in the Awards, Certificates, Achievements and More eBook.
Whats so great about the mystery genre?- Mysteries draw readers into the story by encouraging readers to figure out a solution from provided clues.
- In mystery series, students will be able to enjoy familiar characters that they've already grown to love.
- Mysteries provide a very predictable story plot, a problem/crime occurs, a "detective" searches for clues to solve the mystery, there is usually some type of plot twist, and near the end of the book the mystery is solved and explained to the reader.
- Another benefit is that nearly all of the time the detectives uses knowledge to solve the problem. This puts an educated person as a role model.
Do you think that mysteries are only for the upper grades?
Think again. The following books are great to use in the younger grades.
Get students to expand their reading habits with the genre genius award. To get this award students need to read each of the genres in the genre wheel. By teaching genre you will help students decide what they like to read, and let them find new books they might not have read otherwise. A student who doesn't like reading just hasn't discovered there favorite book!
Along with this awards you also get a graphic organizer that students can mark their progress. The graphic organizers has students color in a wedge for every book genre that they have read. You can also have them write the name of the book to let them have a record of their reading.
This award is given to students who discover their favorite author. What better way to have students discover the joy of reading than to find an author that they love to read over and over.
See all of the awards in the e-book
Introducing the Clean Desk Award. Perfect to rewards students who routinely keep their desks clean and motivate students who don't to start. This is one of the 52 Awards that are in my new e-book, Awards, Certificates, Achievements and More!
More Clean Desk ideas
