In this book, Chapter 4 is called, "Vocabulary and Fluency." This chapter focused a lot of the vocabulary knowledge and how it is highly effective of reading comprehension. While reading this chapter, it also focused on the idea that students are learning best when receiving language through both expressive and receptive models. What this basically means is that students are engaging and interpreting information through reading on their own, listening to read aloud, and the biggest one of all using visual aids.
While reading this chapter, it presents a variety of great activities that involve the students to be given a visual aid while working with their vocabulary lesson. I must confess that I am a visual learner and I have also been a visual learner since I notice that I couldn't pay attention if I didn't see it done by my teacher pointing to the board or showing us pictures etc,. In class, we would get handed index cards and we would write the word on one side and the definition on the other and then we would draw a little picture to represent the word so that we could remember. As teachers, we should include visual aids to help our students learn in a different way. The book talks about a Virtual Field Trip (VFT) which are accessible to anyone that has internet. They provide the students with a unique way of learning through a virtual online tour taking you to different features on their websites. This is such a fun way for students to get engaged with using technology and learning new information.
A very useful website that the book introduces us is the Wonderopolis. "The Wonderopolis site presents a question along with supporting image. Explain that students should make their best guess based on their prior knowledge and the image. Also explain that once students click on the image, more information is provided to assist in answering the question" (Pg, 52). Once I read about this website, I decided to explore it myself and I found it to be very resourceful. It presents different kinds of information. This is a fun website and it makes their information clear so that students can related and comprehend to the information that is presented. I would recommend this website to any teacher and of course I would use it in my own classroom one day.
Hey Kayla! I definitely agree with everything you said about this chapter. Using visual aids, students are extremely motivated to learn inside the classroom. I am also a visual learner, and being able to see the word and definition was very helpful and I agree that teachers should definitely include more visual aids inside their classroom to helps students learn. The Wonderopolis website is excellent as it represents useful and fun facts and information and makes learning fun for students!
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