Vocabulary as part of Reading???

[TulaneMama]

We just started Wordly Wise (LOVE IT!) and as I was reading through the citations, I noticed that a lost of the information that they refer to comes from the Texas Reading Initiative. Now vocabulary does enhance reading obviously and vice versa. I am struggling with course material for Reading (which is required in MO) and I was wondering what you all thought about the vocabulary lessons being placed under the Reading heading. It seems plausible.

[TulaneMama]

bump

[TulaneMama]

to clarify...*I* would classify vocabulary under Language Arts...however, in MO, we are required to teach Reading in addtion to LA. I had planned on logging vocabulary under LA but after seeing that most of the research that Wordly Wise is based on comes from a initiative to boost reading, reading comprehension and so on I started to think that perhaps I might be able to log our vocabulary minutes under the Reading core and not LA.

[Ellie]

I don't think it matters that much, since "language arts" doesn't seem to be defined in the Ed. Code.

[TulaneMama]

can anyone else weigh in on this?

[Guest ThinkBoutIt]

Im a bit confused by your question but i know vocabulary and reading go hand in hand.. a child can be a fluent reader but if they dont understand the vocabulary they are not getting anything out of the reading.

[Lovedtodeath]

I wouldn't simply because your child should be reading more than that.

[TulaneMama]

apparently my thoughts in my head are more organized than they come across on scren :lol:

 

DS is 10 and in 5th grade. He is an avid reader and reads well beyond his "level". I am required to teach Reading. The kicker though, is that there are no guidelines, that I have found, telling me just what the subject of Reading should consist of. DS just finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and I had him answer some questions about the book. That I counted towards reading. I also log the time that he spends on his free reading.

 

But since we read so much anyways, I was looking for another means in which to add time to our log and contemplated adding the time he spends doing his vocabulary lessons as a part of Reading.

 

Is that a bit easier to understand?

[Lovedtodeath]

Okay. That makes more sense. My DD is young and started out reading way beyond level and often, so I didn't have it as a required subject in our homeschool. She at some point slowed down and I have to start over by requiring her to do the Sonlight program, which is admittedly way too easy and not much but about 10 minutes a day, but she fights it now and I find I have to require something...

 

Your case is different. I think your idea is fine.

[Ellie]

apparently my thoughts in my head are more organized than they come across on scren :lol:

 

DS is 10 and in 5th grade. He is an avid reader and reads well beyond his "level". I am required to teach Reading. The kicker though, is that there are no guidelines, that I have found, telling me just what the subject of Reading should consist of. DS just finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and I had him answer some questions about the book. That I counted towards reading. I also log the time that he spends on his free reading.

 

But since we read so much anyways, I was looking for another means in which to add time to our log and contemplated adding the time he spends doing his vocabulary lessons as a part of Reading.

 

Is that a bit easier to understand?

I wonder if you have to teach *every* "subject" *every* year??

 

"Reading" doesn't mean teaching a child how to read, or allowing him to free-read. It means helping him understand things like foreshadowing, and familiarizing him with different genres, even what the parts of a book are (flyleaf, title page, table of contents, etc.). It can also include vocabulary; when I was in the 7th grade one of my classes was "Reading," which was a separate class from English. That's where I learned to use words like "brouhaha" and "tete-e-tete." We learned about newspapers: how to read them (including the "proper" way to fold a newspaper to read it), politics/political cartoons and what it meant to throw one's hat in the ring, what "masthead" and "filler" and "by-line" meant, even how to read the stock market stats. We learned how to do research, which back then was strictly library, so that included using the card catalog and other reference materials. There were also units on improving our reading speed, probably comprehension, as well. This class was one of the most informative classes I *ever* had in school.

 

I have never seen anything published that covered all these topics so I can't recommend a resource. However, I think it would be a fun challenge to put it together yourself.

 

And so, yes, vocabulary would be included. You could use Wordly Wise as a base, and add words which might pertain to a particular area of study, such as newspapers.

[PeterPan]

Have you looked at some of the things WTM does with vocab and reading in the higher grades and then worked backwards? For instance, at the high school level I think (I'm tired and may be remembering wrong) she has them record in a journal words they come across that they don't know and write the context sentence. Well doing that repeatedly with a young kid is too much, but asking for one or two words along with a single sentence chapter summary is not too much. That's something I've toyed around with. When the books are really long, doing single sentence chapter summaries helps my dd express the overarching flow of the plot. So then you can take that journaling and add in little things as convenient. The Hobbit guide we're using includes vocab for each chapter, so we discuss it ahead of time. Absolutely there's discussion of vocab in reading. Vocab like people think of with workbooks is more what phases in as spelling (as a subject) phases out.

[TulaneMama]

Have you looked at some of the things WTM does with vocab and reading in the higher grades and then worked backwards? For instance, at the high school level I think (I'm tired and may be remembering wrong) she has them record in a journal words they come across that they don't know and write the context sentence. Well doing that repeatedly with a young kid is too much, but asking for one or two words along with a single sentence chapter summary is not too much. That's something I've toyed around with. When the books are really long, doing single sentence chapter summaries helps my dd express the overarching flow of the plot. So then you can take that journaling and add in little things as convenient. The Hobbit guide we're using includes vocab for each chapter, so we discuss it ahead of time. Absolutely there's discussion of vocab in reading. Vocab like people think of with workbooks is more what phases in as spelling (as a subject) phases out.

 

 

great idea! i will re-read the book for the higher levels! thank you! :)