VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
"Vocabulary is the glue that holds stories, ideas and content together, making comprehension accessible for children." - Rupley, Logan and Nicholls
"I love teaching the Vocab Busts as part of our Whole Class Reading curriculum, the children get so much out of it - they love it too!" - MV Staff
"When I observed a vocabulary lesson on Governor Day I was so impressed with how the teacher and the children were excited to learn and use new and challenging words - brilliant!" - MV Governor
"The stages of knowing words helps me with my learning because if you don't know a word at the beginning of the topic and it is in the red box, I know by the end of the topic I will have learnt the word" MV Pupil
"When we are taught things in History it helps us to have a better understanding of vocabulary on the stages of knowing words" MV Pupil
Don't underestimate the power of vocabulary!
We recognise that this is a key area that our children need to develop. We aim to expose our children to a rich diet of vocabulary so that they build the language they can draw upon to communicate with in both verbal and written form. Reading is where we pick up the vast majority of our vocabulary as children and as adults - this is one of the reasons why we see reading as our master skill.
Through whole class reading and by developing the love of reading both at home and at school we aim to extend our children's vocabulary. Through whole class reading we aim to extend our children's knowledge of tier 2 words and our knowledge rich topics aim to extend the children's understanding of tier 3 words.
Together we strive to ensure that the children at Morley Victoria leave us with a wealth of vocabulary to draw upon in their next stage of education. To ensure the children are acutely aware of the tier 3 words needed to understand the topic they are studying we have developed the stages of knowing words sheet for each topic (for the driving topic and science topic). These are shared with the children at the start of a topic and referred to throughout and at the end. These words are also sent home so that families can support their children with knowing the meanings of different words.
“Language skills are a critical factor in social disadvantage and in the intergenerational cycles that perpetuate poverty. For all teachers, there is no bigger motivator or incentive to ‘buy in to’ the importance of vocabulary teaching in both primary and secondary settings than that.”
Taken from 'How Schools are Closing the Vocabulary Gap'
