Customer Reviews

Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is by far the best resource on vocabulary instruction available today. In my work with teachers, this book has had the best reception with practicing teachers of any book I have used. I has been a very popular selection for professional book clubs.

The authors use common-sense language to explain how to make vocabulary instruction meaningful--and why many commonly used techniques are ineffective. Of the essential elements of reading instruction, vocabulary has easily been the most neglected, despite its clear connection with reading comprehensioin. This book provides teachers with real, usable methods that have been proven effective.

Every teacher should read this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I still remember when my high school teachers would assign the dreaded weekly vocabulary homework. We would painstakingly look up each word in the dictionary, write down what was usually the shortest definition, and then take a wild stab at writing the word in a sentence. I'm not sure how many of those words I actually learned, but I do remember being bored, frustrated and confused. Dictionaries are not necessarily the only tool for deriving meaning of new words.

Thankfully, this book helps educators to realize the importance of meaningful vocabulary instruction. It outlines various techniques for robust instruction in both primary and secondary grade levels. If you teach vocabulary, you should consider this book for your collection.

I read this for a graduate class and found it to be a quick, easy read. The authors give you simple ways to enhance your vocabulary instruction. I would recommend this book to teachers at all levels but especially those working 3rd grade and above.

This book came during my summer vacation when my motivation to read was quite low........I read it in one sitting and got so many ideas for my work with language impaired elementary school students. It is timely and appropriate for all age levels. Many educators are looking for research based best practices and this is a great reference!

This book is very helpful in planning vocabulary instruction in the classroom. Not only is it packed with ideas, it constantly refers to research to back up strategies.

Teachers should read it! It will help them if they need ideas and boost their confidence if they are already using some of the strategies found in the book.

Truly Enlightening!!! Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction is THE resource book for all educators. This book is soundly researched and gives teachers practical new ideas and techninques to teach Vocabulary Instruction. "Exciting and engaging vocabulary instruction can set students on the path to a lifelong fascination with words.(Back of Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction)"

Bringing Words to Life is an essential book for any classroom. It offers valuable insights and strategies for teaching vocabulary in all classrooms, elementary through high school. It's written so that it's easy to understand and each chapter ends with activities for the reader to better understand the content of the chapter. There is also an easy reference appendix for books to use with vocabulary instruction. If you're looking to enhance the vocabulary of your students, this book has everything you need!

While I appreciated the premise of the research outlined in this book, and have no doubt the approach recommended would be effective, I question the practicality for application in a classroom. It seems that it would take a considerable amount of planning and cumbersome documentation particularly with younger children or multiage classes. I plan to try to implement some of the suggestions and like the idea of working to help children establish their own definitions, moving away from traditional dictionary definitions that are only confusing for young students.

Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction is a good book to use for resource of ways to teach vocabulary. I found Chapter 4: Developing Vocabulary in the Earliest Grades to be the most helpful for finding ideas on how to teach vocabulary to my reading groups. All though, at times I did think some of the chapters were quite lengthy and even sometimes hard to understand. I will be using this book for ideas in the future.

Bringing Words to Life was a great resource in teaching vocabulary development to school age children. The most important item that was helpful to me was identifying the vocabulary tiers. It was very helpful in developing vocabulary lessons.