Create a Vocab Journal

An interaction that can help adolescents absorb methods for exploring and evaluating words and helps keeps language centers in the brain activated and growing.

Many older students have two big mental obstacles with using multi-sensory strategies: 

1. they think they have to use actions or active strategies because they’re not smart enough to just know things;

2. they think using physical tools are like using toys and they’re baby-ish. 

Adolescents, especially diverse learners, really want to be "normal" or do things they believe other learners do even though they don't really know what those thing would be. As they are working to develop vast and rich vocabularies, I work to inspire them to engage with words regularly.  I also work to teach them strategies and how to use tools to help them support their own success. 

My usual tools:

• index cards – I prefer to use multiple colors whenever I can

• Ziploc bags, they make great containers for index cards

• composition books with the stick-in tabs – these are generally cheap, durable and the tabs assist with organization

• a black marker – preferably thin permanent marker, these create best visual contrast on index cards and other materials (we do use pencil or pen in the composition books though) 

• colored pencils

I also use highlighters constantly and post-it notes like they're going out of style. I should note that I use these everyday types of tools for very specific reasons: 

1. Students should be able to duplicate these strategies for all subjects as needed. 

2. They should feel like they are tools and not toys. 

3. If anything is lost, it will be easy to replace.

And, I always share these reasons with my students so they know it’s not because they are not “worth” more formal or expensive items. 

One of my favorite tools to create with students is a fabulous summer activity: a Vocab Journal, or a Personal Dictionary. 

I call it both a Vocab Journal and a Personal Dictionary when we are getting it setup, and then I continue to use the term that the student chooses or that seems to resonate more with him or her. **I want to be respectful and reinforce that it is their tool and the goal is for it to be useful for them (not just an assignment to complete).

Materials: a composition book, a black fine-tip marker and writable tabs.

It takes a little bit of time, but I try to assemble it when we are together so the student has some ownership. We use a system for alphabetizing to give it some structure and so they can see the relation to a dictionary. Again, the goal is that the student see it as a tool they he/she can use to support their own learning and language development. 

Assembling the Journal

We determine how many pages can go in a section and how we want to divide the alphabet and write them out on the tabs. Most composition books have 100 sheets (200 pages) so we create some sections with groups of letters like F-G, J-K or P-Q depending on what letters we think will have less words we may end up collecting or studying. 

After writing out the tabs, we count out the pages and apply the tabs, like in this example:

Selecting Words

Our work is to provide some ownership of this tool for the student, so most of the words that we add are chosen by the student. There are a few I say "you need to add this to your vocab journal", but I always provide a reason. For older students, entries are sometimes specific to morphemes - roots or base words, prefixes or suffixes- rather than words. Again, the goal is that it become a useful tool for the student to use. (I know I say that often, but I cannot over emphasize the importance and value of that concept.) 

Typical reasons I provide to students for selecting words or entries are: words you are proud of (e.g. they were new to you, hard to decode, hard to spell, often confuse with another word); 

words you know will be important for you in the future (e.g. for other courses, other teachers or career interests);

or, words you thought were interesting. 

This interaction can help adolescents absorb methods for exploring and evaluating words which also keeps language centers in the brain activated and growing. Sometimes the key factor is not the word itself, but the process of interaction, so there is no one right way to add an entry. 

Great teachers model for learners; great parents model for this children. Think about your own learning this summer. What words would go in your Vocab Journal?