Anchor Vocabluary

Building your students’ vocabulary is one of the most valuable things you can do, in terms of helping your students to become better readers. I learned about anchor vocabulary during my student teaching days and have found it is the best way to help students understand and retain new words. Anchor vocabulary is when a teacher chooses words from stories read in class and then refers back to those words using different visual aids. An effective teacher will refer to the words regularly on a daily and weekly basis. A good activity is to create a visual word wall.

I recently did this at home with my three-year-old daughter. We read “Chicken Soup with Rice” written by: Maurice Sendak. This book is filled with words an average 3-year-old might not understand, so I picked out about 6 of the words. As I read the book to my daughter we would pause after reading one of these words. I would then explain to her what it meant. Next, I asked her to repeat the word. I then encouraged her to try and act out the word, using her hands. The next day I took sticky notes and wrote each word on a separate note. We again read over the words together and then I drew a picture underneath each one. I created a word wall just by sticking them onto our pantry door. Now whenever we get a snack, or do an activity in the kitchen, I point to the words and pictures. She now understands the words and is starting to use them in her everyday conversations. The other day she saw a dead rose and said, “This rose is drooping.” I was quite pleased.