Bridget Dalton and Dana L. Grisham wrote a fantastic article in the February 2011 issue of The Reading Teacher, a journal of research-based classroom practice, published by the International Reading Association. The article, eVoc Strategies: 10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary, “highlights ten strategies that hold promise for improving vocabulary learning in intermediate grades.”
Here they are:
- Learn from visual displays of word relationships as pictured above (check out Wordle)
- Take a digital vocabulary field trip (check out TrackStar)
- Connect fun and learning with online vocabulary games (see Vocabulary.co.il and Vocabulary.com)
- Have students use media to express vocabulary knowledge (haul out PowerPoint and use it for creative expression)
- Take advantage of online word reference tools (Visual Thesaurus and Dictionary.com)
- Support reading and word learning with just-in-time vocabulary reference support (see Word Central and Yahoo! Kids and specialized picture glossaries like NASA’s Picture Dictionary)
- Use language translators to provide just-in-time help for English Learners (see Babelfish, Google Translator, and Bing Translator)
- Increase reading volume by reading digital text (Time For Kids, Weekly Reader, National Geographic Kids are a few)
- Increase reading volume by listening to digital text with a text-to-speech tool and audio books (free TTS tools are CLiCk, Speak , NaturalReader, Balabolka, and Microsoft Reader)
- Combine vocabulary learning and social service such as the free online vocabulary game Free Rice. The United Nations World Food Programme donates 10 grains of rice to countries in need for each correct answer.
Lots of possibilities! This post first appeared on SSPP Reads on 02/23/2011.
