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Vocabulary resources for upper elementary


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I’m prepping for the upcoming school year, and need some resources for building vocabulary for upper elementary students. This is an area I love but also struggle with, because it’s so vast! I found a Rasinski workbook for grades 2-4 (Starting with Prefixes and Suffixes) that teaches the 20 most common prefixes/suffixes. I’m sure that will be great. Maybe too easy though. There’s a book in the same series for prefixes for grades 5-8... can’t find the corresponding suffixes book, if it even exists. 

Any other great resources that you love? I will also work with the SLP and hopefully just use her materials!

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9 hours ago, PeterPan said:

What's the context? This is for use with your own dc or a class?

One or two students in a small group. I'm starting a new job (yay!) so I only know what I see on paper. I just need something to get started with - something generally useful while I get to know the kids. 

Seeing "vocabulary" on IEPs is like looking at a vast wilderness with no guideposts! 

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9 minutes ago, Kanin said:

"vocabulary" on IEPs

You should page some of the people here who work in schools. When I read SLP stuff they're usually saying to connect with the teachers to get academic vocabulary. I think you have those dual issues of the root problems (EET type stuff) and then the academic implications (needing academic vocabulary just to understand the texts).

I've done some workbooks from ProEdInc for vobulary where they were focused on academics. I like the Rasinski stuff. The EET stuff is essential if they have language issues. Nothing ever seems to be overkill for my ds, lol. 

https://www.proedinc.com/AdvancedSearch/DefaultWFilter.aspx?SearchTerm=vocabulary

I've used the spotlight series for vocabulary from that link. It has 2 levels. 

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It is my considered, expert opinion (hahaha) that academic vocabulary may be better learned with games than worksheets. Although we did some (that now I don't remember where they came from, because I'm not seeing them at ProEd), reality is there wasn't a lot of click. Games are always a winner with my ds. So things like Guess in 10. 

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21 hours ago, PeterPan said:

It is my considered, expert opinion (hahaha) that academic vocabulary may be better learned with games than worksheets. Although we did some (that now I don't remember where they came from, because I'm not seeing them at ProEd), reality is there wasn't a lot of click. Games are always a winner with my ds. So things like Guess in 10. 

Yes, good reminder! I also agree with you about general vocab vs academic vocab.... The need is for both so it's challenging. The SLP seems great so hopefully she'll be a good resource.

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I swear, language is the everlasting pit. I used to think OT was, but it's language, lol. I said something to ds yesterday, asking him to go to the "deep freeze" to get xyz, and he totally didn't even know what that was! Now he has autism, but sometimes it's fatiguing to realize how many layers there are to vocabulary. (naming, morphology, academic vocabulary, all the things we DO with vocabulary like antonyms/synonyms, categories/functions/attributes, etc.)

Have you seen the oop 100% Vocabulary book? It helps you work on the functional stuff with vocabulary. http://www.e4thai.com/e4e/images/pdf2/100_vocabulary_primary.pdf  This is the primary level but there's also an intermediate level. The cover says it covers "vocabulary skills". So there are those skills you do with them (understanding the words as being in categories, having names, having functions, having relationships) and then naming and then having bits/parts (morphology). It's crazy, lol. Anyways, love this workbook. I'm probably going to start the intermediate level with my ds pretty soon. And go work more on naming since apparently we have some holes. :biggrin: 

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3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

I swear, language is the everlasting pit. I used to think OT was, but it's language, lol.

Yes! It definitely is! 

And yes, I love that 100% vocabulary book. It is awesome! You probably turned me on to it in the first place. I swear I had the intermediate version somewhere, but I can’t find it... so I wonder if it was just my imagination. I’m not able to find it online anywhere... Do you have a source for buying it?

Working on vocabulary at school is challenging. The classroom teachers are covering their material, so I want to support that, but at the same time, I have very little time to find out what they’re doing ahead of time, prep materials based on that, etc. Ideally, I would like to work on some general-purpose things to support vocabulary like prefixes/suffixes, root words, etc. and pull in some of their class materials for part of each lesson. 

 

 

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5 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Have you seen the "Basic Not Boring" series? You could probably find a workbook to correspond to the age/grades/subjects and that would give you the normal vocabulary to cover. Not too expensive.

 

I have not... I'll check it out!

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