WEBVTT

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[Music] Welcome to
Building Vocabulary

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in Middle School Math Class.

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My name is Maureen Ferry,

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and I am the seventh-grade math
teacher at KIPP SF Bay Academy

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in San Francisco, California.

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At KIPP we are trying to
make vocabulary instruction

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in math a schoolwide thing.

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By using the vocabulary
journal across the school,

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across all math classes,
and by teaching the students

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in fifth grade that
vocabulary is an essential part

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of math, they're used to that.

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They understand it.

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And then, by the time to get
to sixth grade/seventh grade,

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they're comfortable using
their vocabulary journal,

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and their vocabulary is probably
going to be much stronger.

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Every Monday I directly teach
at least five words per week.

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I present a PowerPoint, and
my students write their terms

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and descriptions and examples
in a vocabulary journal.

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So students set up
the vocabulary journal

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with a table of contents.

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They separate the
main section by class,

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and then they also
have an index.

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And so each class has
its own table of contents

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where they just write the words,

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and then each class
has a section.

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For instance, all my students
use just their math section

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in their vocabulary
journal in my class,

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but they're using
the same journal

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in all their other classes.

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And for every word, each
student enters in a description

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of that word and then either an
example or drawing of that word.

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And by the end of the week,

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I have my students
enter a new insight.

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So something new they learned

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about that word throughout
the week.

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To give you an example of a word
that we used today, consumer,

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my definition was, "any person
that purchases something

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for personal use or consumption,
and a student's description

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that they shared in class was,

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"any person that
buys something."

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I check for understanding
of their vocabulary in class

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by engaging in discussions
with students,

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with particular students,
and by walking around

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and spot-checking their
vocabulary journals.

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At the end of the week,
I also assess my students

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on the vocabulary for
that week, and at the end

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of every unit they have a
unit vocabulary assessment.

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I want to give students
the opportunity to engage

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in conversations
around the words,

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and so I often give them
opportunities to work together

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in pairs-to play games,
to discuss the words,

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to share a sentence-for
a couple of reasons.

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One, it gets them
talking about the word.

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Two, often when they share
a sentence or an answer

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with their partner and they
check it with their partner,

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they're more likely to
raise their hand and want

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to share it with the class.

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And then I also strategically
call on students

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to share-out examples
or sentences

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to check for understanding.

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I use a lot of vocabulary
games in class,

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really to get my students
talking about the vocabulary

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and using it in common language.

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I want to engage
them in conversations

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around the vocabulary words.

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I think it's really important

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that students are practicing
vocabulary in their homework,

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so I reinforce vocabulary
on a daily basis

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with their homework assignments.

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In addition to their
skills homework,

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whatever skill we are working
on, they also have vocabulary.

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I don't want this
vocabulary homework

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to be necessarily challenging
to them, but I want them

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to be practicing with the
words that they're learning.

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So every single Monday night
students are doing a spelling

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activity with the words;
they're called letter pyramids.

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Every Tuesday students are
completing a cloze list.

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So they're filling in words
into sentences that are part

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of their packet that
they get every week.

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Every Wednesday my students
create a crossword puzzle.

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So they write clues for the
words; they set up the words

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on a crossword puzzle.

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Thursday they swap those, first
thing in class, to get practice

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with the words, and Thursday

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for their homework
they add a new insight

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to their vocabulary journal.

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To help my students to
determine word meaning,

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I often use roots depending
on the week's words.

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So for instance, when we had
percents and we were doing a lot

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of percent conversions,
I wanted my students

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to understand what the
word percent really meant.

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So we broke it down.

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"What is cent?"

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Cent is "of 100."

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Think of other words
that have the root cent.

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And so the students
thought of "century."

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Students thought of
cent out of the dollar.

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Breaking down the word percent
help them better understand why

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you move the decimal
two places to the left

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when you representing
a percent as a decimal.

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It's always of 100 it's always
in the hundredths place.

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Another strategy
that students use

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in identifying word meaning
is just using context clues.

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So I help my students
break down a word problem,

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underlining important vocabulary
words, circling numbers,

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and determining using
the context clues--

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using the clues in the
problem-- what the word means.

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I provide my students
with opportunities

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to use the new vocabulary words
in their homework, in the games

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that we play in class, and
then in cumulative reviews.

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So at the end of the
unit, I'll continue

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to review the words
from the entire unit.

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When we have a benchmark
exam, I'll continue

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to review the words
from the entire quarter,

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and so that way the words are
continuously being integrated

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into the classroom.

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[Music] To learn more
about building vocabulary,

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please explore the
additional resources

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on the Doing What Works website.