At Marlow C of E Infant school, we use the Word Aware approach to promote and support the development of pupils' vocabulary.

Word Aware has been developed by combining up-to-date research with extensive classroom experience. Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan have been using this approach and training many practitioners since 2010. The end product is an effective and time-efficient method for developing the spoken and written vocabulary of all children. It has been enthusiastically received by class teachers, head teachers, curriculum coordinators, Special Needs co-coordinators, Learning Support Assistants and Speech and Language Therapists / Pathologists.

Focussed on whole-class learning, Word Aware is of particular value for pupils who start at a disadvantage – including children with Developmental Language Disorder, Special Educational Needs and those who speak English as an additional language, but it will extend the word learning of all students.

The Star method

SELECT:

The teacher will select the appropriate words to teach using the Word Aware approach.  These will be really useful words which are likely to be encountered again in spoken language or reading.  The average adult will have a good level of knowledge of the word.  Topic words will be taught where they are core to topic learning.

TEACH:

Teaching covers phonological sound, syntactic grammar and semantic meaning. In other words, we will be teaching the sound and initial letters of the word; what word class it is (for example, a noun, adjective, adverb, verb), including how the word is structured in a sentence; and what the word means.  Children will have access to dictionaries to look up the word, they will consider synonyms and will create their own sentences with the word to consolidate meaning.  Other activities used include: word raps, word songs, acting out the word,  discussing prefixes and suffixes, symbols or pictures, spelling of the word, syllables, rhyme, physically experiencing the word (where possible), using objects, links to what the children already know and identifying related situations that the word does not apply to.

ACTIVATE:

The teacher will then ask relevant questions to explore and activate the meaning of the word.  Example questions are shown below:

REVIEW:

Once a word is taught, it is placed on a word wall.  These words then need to be reviewed (repeated) by the class in both their writing or their spoken language (both needed in the right context).  In addition, we play games to consolidate our understanding of these words and will send out a list of words (fridge words) we will teach each half-term to allow you to discuss and review these words with your child at home.

 

Find it - before or even after reading a book with your child, identify words they might not understand, write them down and ask them to find it in the story. Can they then use the clues and their reading skills to work out what it means. They could use a dictionary to find the meaning or look in a thesaurus to find words with similar meanings.

 

Dictionary Definition – ask your child to choose a number based on how many pages you have in your dictionary. Then choose a number between 1 and 20, depending on the average number of words on the page. Then, when you have told them the initial letter, read them the definition. Can they guess the word you are describing?

 

Articulate – describe a word without using keywords. You can buy this or make your own version with your child’s topic words.

 

Splat it – define a selection of target words, and your child can say which one you are describing by either hitting it with a fly swat or by throwing beanbags or a pair of bunched-up socks.

 

Word group spinner – you don’t really need anything fancy, just something to point with or a pot to hold the cards. On one side, there are 4 letters and, on the other, 4 categories, such as noun, verb, adjective, living thing, food, etc. Then choose one from both sides and see if you can find 5 words to fit the sound and category. Either do it together or turn it into the fastest wins!

 

Treasure Hunt – on the way to and from school, look for things you could describe by a particular word, like shrivelled or spiky. Categories such as living things, things with circles, and things with engines.

 

Touch, taste and smell – take every opportunity to describe sensory experiences. Ask them to describe it to you. Try to encourage them to use more detailed words than nice or bad, such as rough or sweet.

 

Word of the day or week – as a family, see how many times you can use your target word in a meaningful way during the week. The only rules are that the sentence must make sense and fit into your conversation.

Remember to try to use these new words in your conversations to embed them into your child’s vocabulary.

Try some of these ideas and become splendiferous word detectives together!

 

Keep an eye out in the newsletter for some fun and interesting words.

If you have any words to include in the newsletter, please do pass them on to Mr Creese or Mrs Reynolds.