You can use visual imaging techniques to help your students to connect a vocabulary word to its meaning. The more vivid the imagery, the more likely students will be able to connect and mentally recall the vocabulary word to its meaning. One technique for imprinting visual meaning to vocabulary words is to create a clay representation of the word.
Give each student a ball of clay and introduce a new vocabulary word. Have students form a visual image of what the word means to them out of the clay. Display the images around the room, and have the students do a word “museum walk” to view the visual forms of the word. Suggested teacher talk could be, “Try to look at all the clay forms and create a definition of the word _____.” Ask students to explain how their forms relate to the meaning of the word.
Techniques for Developing Competency in Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension, Second Edition
Book plus CD
Valerie Ellery
Get your students moving to the meaning, going on museum walks, and “egg-cited” about phonemes with this updated edition of Valerie Ellery’s bestselling book. More than 140 engaging classroom-tested techniques will help you to meet the challenges of educating your 21st-century learners.
A comprehensive literacy approach builds students’ skills in the five essential reading components—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—while incorporating a stronger focus on educating the whole child. The book includes numerous exciting and engaging techniques geared to students’ reading levels and incorporating students’ multiple intelligences—ideas you can use to really motivate students and meet their diverse literacy learning needs.
This updated, revised, and expanded second edition features
- More than 140 classroom-tested techniques
- 35 new techniques
- An expanded focus on educating the whole child
- Additional ways to engage students incorporated into the new motivation/engagement section found in many techniques
- An accompanying CD with a wide assortment of reproducibles and assessment forms
- A foldout bookmark of the whole child
September 2009 IRA Book Club selection
© 2009 / 256 pp / ISBN 978-0-87207-469-9 / No. 469-205
IRA Members $23.95 / Nonmembers $29.95
See the strategies, teaching techniques, and teacher talk from Creating Strategic Readers demonstrated in everyday classrooms from kindergarten to grade 5. Ideal for school-based professional development, the videos include favorite techniques from the book, as well as the research base that underpins instruction.
Teaching Techniques for the Primary Grades (Includes 2 DVDs)
© 2008 / 85 min. / No. 9225-205
IRA Members $200.00 • Nonmembers $250.00
Special sale on the VHS version!
No. 9303-205 / $100.00 (members and nonmembers)
Teaching Techniques for the Intermediate Grades (Includes 2 DVDs)
© 2008 / 89 min./ No. 9226-205
IRA Members $200.00 • Nonmembers $250.00
Special sale on the VHS version!
No. 9304-205 / $100.00 (members and nonmembers)
Teaching Techniques for Primary and Intermediate Grades
(Includes all 4 DVDs)
© 2008 / 174 min. / No. 9224-205
IRA Members $395.00 • Nonmembers $495.00
Special sale on the VHS version!
No. 9302-205 / $200.00 (members and nonmembers)
Buy the new edition of Creating Strategic Readers in combination with the four-DVD set and receive a 10% discount!