Vocabulary Power Lesson 1 Using Synonyms Exercise B Answer Key

[Percival Blanco]

Buildword power through high-quality contemporary and classic literature, nonfiction, essays, and primary source texts. Unlock word meaning through context clues and develop mastery using multiple, research-based vocabulary strategies. Each literature-based lesson focuses on eight to ten Master Words with exercises of increasing complexity to extract meaning, apply vocabulary skills and strategies, and assess mastery.

In less than 15 minutes per day, your students develop the word study skills they need to improve reading fluency and comprehension.

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Three, deceptively simple questions changed my teaching practice forever. These questions transformed my teaching from a deficit model to a growth model, that is, one that helps me clearly identify where my students are and push them further by having them do the hard work of thinking critically. The routine, called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) involves students looking at an image and having a discussion led by the teacher using these three questions:

VTS created a culture of thinking in my classroom: as it became routine, students started to practice and use it throughout the day in all content areas. I began to speculate that using VTS as the core of my teaching in an organized, systematic way, while trusting the process, would deliver the same powerful outcomes in other areas of learning as the VTS discussions themselves did with art.

In pursuing answers to these questions, I understood that VTS would not survive as a stand-alone strategy in my classroom, with so many different curriculum demands placed on me. I needed to create a structure where VTS could be at the core of my teaching practice, with everything else radiating outward.

My quest to create and extend such a methodology began with the opportunity to collaborate with my VTS trainer, Heidi Arbogast from the Museum of Arts and Culture. Together, we spent five years developing, applying, and refining this method in my third grade classroom, eventually building from there to a district-wide professional development model called the VTS Writing Lab. At the core of both classroom learning and teacher-led learning is self-reflection. We found that students and teachers alike changed their behaviors when given time and a framework to self-reflect. The VTS Writing Lab provides this framework: it is a multi-layered, complex, rigorous learning environment for both student and teacher.

Creating a VTS environment in the classroom involves mindfulness of the core concepts of VTS: keeping an open mind, listening to all points of view, valuing a diversity of ideas, meeting each student where they are as a learner, and fostering a growth mind-set for both teacher and student. We found that VTS works well in tandem with a wide range of teaching strategies, from classroom meetings to mindfulness practices.

After becoming skilled using this strategy with art, my students were able to transfer this culture of thinking into other contexts, creating a supportive, caring, thoughtful environment for themselves and each other.

Facilitating VTS discussions with art images is the key building block in constructing the VTS classroom. It allows me to understand how my students think as well as what they already know. It is very important to begin this process by discussing art images to promote a risk-free, inquiry-based classroom.

My students noticed that I valued what each child brought to the conversation and they observed that as I linked, named, framed, and clarified their ideas, lifting the language for all in the classroom, this caused everyone to think more deeply. In addition to building language and listening skills, it allowed me to identify and assess what every student was thinking, as well as their use of Standard English. I can identify their learning gaps and take steps to help students in the moment.

I develop the VTS Vocabulary Word Wall immediately after the image discussion. The students generate this list, which immediately makes them feel they are part of the writing process. Everyone wants to participate because the words the third graders hear in the discussion become the word wall, which allows everyone the opportunity to use them in their independent writing.

For emergent writers, I also draw a quick sketch next to each word. This way, students have fair and direct access to meaningful words that they create as a group. The word walls vary according to the purpose. I can extend their vocabulary by choosing several words to find as synonyms, or I can group the words into nouns, verbs, and adjectives (hitting our grammar standards), or into character, setting, and detail (teaching our reading standards). In this context, vocabulary is purposeful, has meaning, and reflects the words spoken in the image discussion. This supports students in writing their ideas independently for twenty minutes.

In valuing their own writing by putting it up (anonymously) for all to see and grow from, writing becomes purposeful for them. They begin to build stamina as writers and to see writing as an act of joyful learning.

The revising and editing lessons focus on a writing/grammar learning target by showing an example of student writing to revise or edit. Using the same selected piece of writing, students analyze a sentence or two from the text. The questions I use for these lessons are:

Students examine the writing again; the questions ask them to provide evidence for their thinking. The third question makes it clear to students that we may have more than one kind of thinking out there and that all thoughts are valued. Revising becomes a more open-ended process, but students also understand the goal of revision. They learn that we revise to make our writing more clear and precise.

In all of these VTS Writing Lab components, students are doing the hard work: they are answering the questions; they are providing the evidence; and they are accountable for their own learning. After group lessons, they analyze their own writing using student reflection handouts that have the same VTS questions. With their partners, they help each other analyze their own writing and set their next writing goal.

Self-reflection is then followed by peer-reflection: they read their own work to a group of four, share their self-reflection handouts and their own personal goal based on the CCSS writing goals. The group of four looks at each individual goal and calibrates the goal to match the writing.

Just as VTS is student centered, the Teaching Lab is teacher created. Many teachers struggle with the same questions I have about teaching writing, we often do not have time to collaborate with peers and reflect on our writing instruction so that we can continue to learn and grow from the process. In the teaching lab, we focus on creating a supportive, conducive environment to allow a culture of thinking in our classrooms.

Through teacher feedback, we have heard that this teaching and learning is reflective, deep, and lasting. I believe this is because the lab model emphasizes constant reflection, building the skills of facilitation and precise content knowledge. These include deepening the linking, naming, framing, scaffolding, and paraphrasing skills for the VTS discussion as well as the writing content areas.

As a teacher, I have always loved reading aloud to my students, no matter what grade level I was teaching. I have done read alouds for second graders, middle schoolers, undergraduates, graduate students, and even principals. Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of our community and humanity. Christ, our greatest teacher, knew well the power of story to instruct. The act of reading aloud makes text come alive and produces its own kind of magic.

As a mom, I couldn't wait to read aloud to our daughter. I started reading aloud as soon as I found out as I was pregnant. Now that our daughter is three, every night she chooses the book she wants us to read to her from her bookshelf and if it's one that we've read a lot, she can "read" it back to us. Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Mixed: A Colorful Story are current favorites that she can recite by heart.

Teachers have been reading aloud to students for years and the research base on the power of read alouds is extensive and well documented. Research has shown that read alouds improve comprehension (Duke & Pearson, 2008), vocabulary (Massaro, 2017), and fluency (Trelease, 2001). Read alouds allow the teacher to model expert, fluent reading of the text. This liberates the students from having to do the work of decoding and allows them to focus on comprehension, acquisition of new vocabulary, phonemic awareness, etc. For this reason, teachers can select books that are above students' independent reading level but at their listening level. According to Massaro, "children listening to a reading aloud of a picture book are roughly three times more likely to experience a new word type that is not among the most frequent words in the child's language" (2017, p. 64). This is particularly important in early elementary classrooms to ensure that children become familiar with a wider range of words earlier in life, knowing that children come to school with varying levels of exposure to more complex vocabulary.

There is an artfulness to a good read aloud. Setting the stage is important. Consider where and how you will sit to make sure all students can see the book. Think about how you can create a sense of comfort and community so that students feel that read-aloud time is a sacred, ritual part of your classroom culture. Also, consider how you want students to sit in order to minimize distractions and maximize their focus on the book.

One of the most difficult aspects of planning and executing a read-aloud is focusing in on a single purpose for your read aloud. You can re-read the same book many times for different purposes. Being clear about your purpose will help guide decisions such as which questions you will ask, what think alouds you will plan, and how often you will stop to engage students in the story.

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