Breaking News
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- Get "Conference Savings" without leaving home! Even if your school's budget doesn't include conference attendance, you can still save on our products. Just use Coupon Code Conf410 at checkout during April, and save 15% on your web order! (one coupon per customer, online orders only.)
- Will you be attending IRA and CEC? Stop by and see us, at National IRA (Chicago): Booth 1819 -- or National CEC (Nashville): Booth 227.
- We'll be exhibiting at many other conferences this year too--please stop by for a visit if you attend.
- More Savings from DreamBox Learning K-3 Math: DreamBox Learning's award-winning online math practice program now extends to Grade 3. DreamBox has extended a new offer to Primary Concepts customers: purchase a subscription now for the 2010-2011 school year, and use the program FREE for the remainder of this year.
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| Word of the Day: Robust Vocabulary Instruction |
2,500 or 5,000 Words? Children today begin school with vastly different levels of vocabulary knowledge. Some children come from language-rich environments where they have heard many millions of words spoken. Others come from homes where a language other than English is spoken, or where they are simply not talked to, let alone read to, as much as are highly verbal children. 5 and 6-year-olds from vocabulary-poor environments may come to school with a vocabulary of 2,500 words, vs. 5,000 or more for children from language-rich environments.
The Price: Reading Success. And there's a price to pay: Oral language skills are strongly linked to success in learning to read. According to Pamela Hook, Ph.D., "In addition to phonological awareness and phonic word attack strategies, vocabulary knowledge is closely associated with a child's ability to decode words and read fluently as well as comprehend what they have read." As early as 4th grade, children's reading comprehension skills and scores suffer from poor word knowledge. The effects are cumulative: the more students read, the better their vocabularies become.
Robust Vocabulary Instruction. There are a number of ways to teach vocabulary skills, both directly and indirectly, as outlined in the links below. According to researchers Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction), the most effective direct vocabulary instruction involves conversations about words that allow students to connect what they already know with the new words they are learning. In activities like those described in Primary Concepts' Word of the Day series, students learn a new word by hearing a story about it, then answering questions that make them think about the new word and what it means. The teacher can extend these conversations by encouraging children to use their newly learned words at home and school, following up the next day by having children describe how they were able to use their new words. For more information on this technique and other vocabulary instruction methods, consult the links below. |
| Downloadable Activity: Word Problem of the Day |
| Try these quick 10-minute lessons from Word Problem of the Day. Great for improving students' listening comprehension and problem-solving skills, as well as applying math knowledge. |
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Product Spotlight: Word of the Day Books |
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How do we learn new vocabulary most easily? When we hear the new word used in context, and then use it ourselves in a meaningful way. The Word of the Day books offer 10-minute rich oral vocabulary lessons based on this fundamental principle. Students hear a "word story," and are invited to ask questions about the new word and think about what it means. Interactive follow-up activities such as acting out the word, or drawing a picture, cement their new knowledge in students' minds.
Books include:
Word of the Day: Bit by Bit
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| Web Specials |
| Announcing new weekly specials--Check our website every week
for new savings!
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Regularly $13.95--Now 11.86
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Let the weekly savings begin--
(does not include eBooks)
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| Next Month's Topic: Literacy and the Struggling Learner |
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What's the best way to help those students who are struggling with literacy, because of language, learning issues, or other problems? We'll share links and resources to help you meet the challenge. |
Quote of the Month
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"The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else."
--John W. Gardner |
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