could be modified and clues could be a picture or a personal connection. The author also suggests having “lead
detectives” every week. These detectives share one of the words they found in their reading. These words are then
put on a class word wall (Ainslie, 2000). Ainslie (2000) says she uses this strategy with her fourth-grade class and has
found it to be successful.
Story Innovation. Story Innovation (Griffith & Ruan, 2007) is a strategy in which students look at and read a book,
and then recreate that story changing some of the key elements. Perhaps they may change the setting, characters, or
sentence structures (Griffith & Ruan, 2007). The authors give an example where students changed a story about
forest animals and an oak tree to a story about rainforest animals and a kapok tree (Griffith & Ruan, 2007). This
strategy helps students build vocabulary, make connections, and aids fluency (Griffith & Ruan, 2007).
Word Sort. Word Sort (Vacca, Vacca, Gove, Burkey, Lenhart, & McKeon, 2003) is a strategy used to categorize words
and make connections between words. Word sort is basically what it says: students have several words, and working
in teams or partners, they discuss how to sort the words (Vacca et al., 2003). Categories for the words can be given
by the teacher, which is a closed word sort, or students can create categories, which is an open word sort (Vacca et
al., 2003).
Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy. VSS or Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (Ruddell & Shearer, 2000) is a great
way to give ownership and motivation to students. In this strategy, students collect words from anywhere in their
environment (Ruddell & Shearer, 2000). This allows students to learn words that are meaningful to them, which is a
great motivational tool. VSS has been shown to be effective in raising motivation and increasing student involvement
in their vocabulary learning (Ruddell & Shearer, 2000).
Many others suggest simply reading is the most important way to increase vocabulary (Nagy, 1988; Routman, 2003;
Santoro, Chard, Howard, & Baker, 2008). The more a person reads the more words they are exposed to (Nagy, 1988).
Conclusion
Vocabulary development is an essential element of reading (Anderson et al., 1985). Vocabulary has been
shown to have a strong impact on reading comprehension; thus, it is important to have an effective strategies for
teaching vocabulary (Beck et al., 2002; Biemiller, 1999; Chall, 1983; Hirsch, 2003; Snow et al., 1998).
The strategies discussed in this article are Story Impressions, Word of the Day, Predict-O-Gram, Word
Detectives, Story Innovation, Word Sort, and VSS all of which are researched-based strategies that have been used to
improve vocabulary and reading comprehension (Ainslie, 2000; Griffith & Ruan, 2007; Gunning, 2004; Ruddell &
Shearer, 2000; Vacca & Vacca, 2008; & Vacca et al., 2003). The strategies are easily implemented into any classroom,
any subject. They are very adaptable. These strategies will increase student engagement because they allow for
student interaction and/or involve student ownership of learning (Ainslie, 2000; Griffith & Ruan, 2007; Gunning,
2004; Ruddell & Shearer, 2000; Vacca & Vacca, 2008; & Vacca et al., 2003). Once students have learned and used
these strategies, the strategies become tools the students can use during independent learning. They will be more
motivated and capable to learn a new word, rather than skipping over it.
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