Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary

Word Nerds takes you inside classrooms at a high-poverty urban school and shows how two teachers implement creative, flexible vocabulary instruction that improves their students' word knowledge and confidence, enhances classroom community, and increases achievement. Leslie Montgomery and Margot Holmes Smith weave vocabulary into each school day using multisensory instruction that includes music, art, literature, movement, games, drama, writing, test-taking skills, and technology. Along the way, they turn every student into a lover of language.

With support from literacy specialist Brenda Overturf, Leslie and Margot have developed a five-part planÑintroducing new words in context, adding related synonyms and antonyms, engaging students in several days of active learning, celebrating new words, and assessing vocabulary developmentÑthat teaches all students to learn and love vocabulary.

This easy-to-read reference explains how to plan, teach, and assess based on the latest research in vocabulary instruction and learning. Forget copying definitions from the dictionary and completing boring worksheets! Word mastery comes from intimate knowledge of language. From prediction to practice to performance, students from all backgrounds can discover how to make words their own. After incorporating Leslie's and Margot's vocabulary plan into your daily instruction, you and your students can become word nerds, too!

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: What's the Big Deal About Vocabulary Instruction?

Chapter 2: Classrooms That Foster Word Confidence

Chapter 3: Making Introductions

Chapter 4: Squeezing the Juicy Words -- Adding Synonyms and Antonyms

Chapter 5: Active Vocabulary Practice

Chapter 6: Celebrating to Validate

Chapter 7: Spreading Vocabulary Wings

Chapter 8: Learning Through Assessment

Epilogue: End of the Year

Appendixes

References