Reflection #8: Vocabulary Instruction Continued...

    This week's readings continued to discuss vocabulary instruction strategies.  The Bromley article was full of strategies for teaching new vocabulary words to students.  I especially liked the example from Table 1 for "The most frequently appearing and most commonly taught prefixes, roots, and suffixes."  I remember using a similar strategy when I took Latin in High School and College, and it was very successful for me.  I believe that something similar could also help my students in mathematics.  For example, the word "binomial" contains the prefix "bi," meaning two, and a binomial has two terms.  Math can be a difficult subject to grasp, but by understanding such key vocabulary, students will have a better shot at being successful in mathematics.  

      The Baumann & Graves article defined several types of academic vocabulary and described strategies for identifying important vocabulary to teach.  My favorite part of this article was the description of the importance of symbols.  Baumann & Graves go on to explain that “mathematics is laden with symbols, which involve another type of academic vocabulary “(p. 11).  Symbols are such a huge part of mathematics.  As a result, it is crucial that students learn the meanings of these symbols, just as they would for key academic vocabulary words.