Finding the Meaning of Words

This week we were focusing on finding the meaning of new vocabulary words in a text. This is a hard one for kiddos (especially ELL kiddos which is most of my class), and it can be tricky to teach. As an adult we already know what the word means so when it is used in a text the meaning is obvious. However, when you are 7 the meaning is not so obvious, it's actually quite difficult to find. That is why I came up with this activity this week.

This week are story was a non-fiction story about chimpanzees, and there were a lot of new vocabulary words for my class to learn. I put my students into partners. I love, having my kids work in groups or in partners! Not only are they more engaged, but the conversations that they have is at such a higher level of thinking, they are more willing to make learning their own when they get to do it together. Also, there is less to grade hehehe. ;)

Anyway, I gave each partner group a note card with a vocabulary word written on it. I told my students that they needed to find the word in the story, and use the passage and pictures to figure out the meaning. On the note card the kids had to write what the word means, how they knew that is what it meant, and use the word in a sentence. 

There were a couple of groups that struggled to find the meaning, but overall the majority of the class was able to complete this task on their own. Allowing them time to talk to each other and justify their answers really motivated them to find the definition.  I was really impressed with my class, this is something we had been working on for a couple of weeks now and this activity just made it click for them.

You can check out some of the pictures below! :)

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