Today I helped Mrs. Abernathy, Chamberlayne Elementary’s librarian, run a small 4th grade novel study group who is reading the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. Her focus was learning new vocabulary words that the students would be coming across in their next reading. Mrs. Abernathy gave each child a vocabulary word and 4 out of 5 could NOT even pronounce their word.
Each student signed into their Google account. One student created a blank presentation and sent it to each student in her group (we need to set up a shared Google folder for this class so sharing will be easier/quicker). That same student added a slide for each child in her group and then everyone hopped onto the presentation and selected a slide to work on. They typed their name and their vocabulary word into the “title” text box. Next, we visited dictionary.com to look up their word’s definition. Students used the keyboard shortcuts or the right click to copy and paste the definition onto their slide. Mrs. Abernathy made sure they gave credit to dictionary.com somewhere on their slide. Then we asked the kids to type a sentence using their word. Students were still having trouble pronouncing their word so we revisited dictionary.com and had them listen to the pronunciation sound clip. They wanted to put this on their slide so we showed them how to copy the link and hyperlink their word on their slide to the pronunciation sound byte. Students finished up by changing their background and adding pictures. By the end of the lesson, this small group had a firm understanding of five new vocabulary words that they will be coming across the next time they read! Simple…easy…EFFECTIVE!
