Centers and Independent Work - Part Five

Word Work Centers – Part One

          Word work and vocabulary are key components of literacy instruction. Students should be working with words daily.

There are several ways word work centers could looks like. This teacher uses drawers to organize materials and activities. Students may have a choice over which activity they want to do or the teacher may direct which activity they do. Different groups of students may do different activities, or the whole class could do the same activity. With centers, the options are endless.  Some materials you may consider keeping at a work center are: pocket charts, magnetic letter tiles, word cards, vocabulary cards/pictures, blank index cards, notebooks, paper, created word lists.

Digging into the Dictionary

One center for word work center idea is called Digging into the Dictionary. In this center students use the dictionary to use guide words, define vocabulary words, and use words in context.   The possible steps students could do at this center are

1) Write your word on an index card,

2) Find the word in the dictionary,

3) Write the part of speech,

4) Write the definition,

5) Write a synonym for the word,

6) Write your word in a sentence,

7) Reread the definition and the sentence to make sure it was used correctly. 

You probably wouldn’t have students do ALL of these steps. You would need to choose which ones you’d want your students to do.

          We just talked through what Dig into the Dictionary could look like. It’s just one idea. If you want to use Dig into the Dictionary in your classroom, you’ll need to tailor it to fit your students’ needs.  If you haven’t taught your students how to use guide words, you wouldn’t want to include that component.  Some other considerations might be:

• ·        Are students doing this activity in pairs or independently? You may have students who need a partner as a support. Other students may be able to work independently.
• ·        What might this center look like?  I could write our vocabulary words for the week on index cards and use a binder ring to keep them together. I could put the directions in a page protector and hook it to the binder ring, too. Will students use a print dictionary or a digital dictionary? The standard requires students understand and use both.
• ·        What skills would my students need to have in order to do this center? If you use the center as is, your students would need to know how to use the dictionary.