When delving into a new topic, be it science or social studies, sometimes the hardest part can be the vocabulary. Academic vocabulary can be difficult, because these are words we don’t use every day and are often large and complicated. But what if I told you there was a strategy that not only activates students’ prior knowledge on the content area, but also engages and develops their ability to utilize context clues, root words and affixes, as well as their knowledge about parts of speech and sentence structure to predict the meaning of words? Not only this, but students can also become more engaged while learning these vocabulary words, as they are eager to see if their predictions are correct. All of this is possible with a strategy called Possible Sentences, in which students will attempt to construct sentences utilizing vocabulary they are likely unfamiliar with.
Reading Strategy Workshops for Parents and Teachers
Strategies to Support Teaching Reading and Reading Development in Young Readers