For this week's blog post, I decided to focus on vocabulary instruction in my practicum classroom. A couple of weeks ago, I was writing a reading response focused on vocabulary instruction for my Teaching Reading in Elementary Education class. I wrote about how I love all of these different strategies and how I would implement them in my classroom. I then began to reflect on how the strategies I described are taught in my classroom, and then I realize that they really are not. This really made me think.
I think that my practicum teacher is great and the students are learning a lot, but vocabulary instruction is missing. The only time I have experienced a lesson focused specifically on studying words was when I taught a lesson on adverbs. Reflecting on this made me realize the lack of instruction that occurs in my practicum classroom. I realize that the curriculum is very tight and there is not a ton of wiggle room, but some elements of language, like vocabulary are essential for students to know and learn.
I became even more concerned when that professor made a comment on that assignment saying that not teaching vocabulary seems to be a pattern in a few other classrooms at my school that have practicum students. This shocked me because I feel like if a problem like this is just for a class, it can be easily fixed, by simply meeting with the specific teacher. However, if the problem is school wide, that is a much larger issue to address. Vocabulary is very important in any grade and I believe should be taught on a weekly basis.
I know you heard my practicum experience with vocabulary instruction, or lack thereof. I agree with you that it is shocking how vocabulary gets pushed to the side. In my practicum class, they simply receive a word list (spelling and vocabulary on the same list) to practice learning for 2 weeks. I don't know what happens on the other days of the week, but I'm almost certain that the word lists are never tied to a direct lesson.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the main problems is that teachers feel pressed for time. I know that my cooperating teacher wishes she had more time in her schedule for pulling reading groups and literature circles, and our writing instruction almost never happens. The tight schedules result in teachers ranking subjects and math usually wins a top spot and language arts comes after. A lot of trust is put into wide reading as a method for learning vocabulary, but I hope that my cooperating teacher's methods change over the course of the year to include more purposeful vocabulary instruction with the spelling lists.
Hi Sari,
ReplyDeleteI think Corinne makes a good point that teachers are pressed for time. It's hard to find time in the day to do everything, and oftentimes those areas that aren't assessed are pushed aside. However, making a goal for yourself to do some vocabulary related activity 1x, 2x, 3x a week is better than nothing. That may be a good goal for next semester with student teaching to see how you can work vocabulary into your regular classroom routine.