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 "I teach 5th graders at a Title I elementary school on the East Side of San Jose, CA. 26 of my 34 students are English Language Learners and all but three are on free or reduced-lunch. I also teach our school's Gifted and Advanced students program. My students face a vast array of challenges, all ...
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"I teach 5th graders at a Title I elementary school on the East Side of San Jose, CA. 26 of my 34 students are English Language Learners and all but three are on free or reduced-lunch. I also teach our school's Gifted and Advanced students program. My students face a vast array of challenges, all of them combine to hinder their acquisition of the basic competencies they will need to succeed in life and learning.
This year, we have dedicated ourselves to addressing the students' vocabulary deficit. English Language Learners reach fifth grade thousands of words ?behind? their native speaking counterparts. This creates a vicious cycle, slowing their reading and thus slowing their acquisition of new words. Thus ?word work? has become a staple in our class, we spend thirty minutes a day to learn 30 new words a week. While the students have done remarkably well acquiring the new words, I am constantly searching for powerful activities to promote their use and retention.
With your help, I hope to share with them two of my favorite of all word games: Scrabble and Apples to Apples. (In Apples to Apples, three students pair an adjective card from their hand with the noun card in play, while a fourth student judges the best pair, discussing her/his pick.) Research shows the educational game is among the most effective environments for learning, as the positive affect and competitive motivation creates an ideal atmosphere for complex thinking and knowledge acquisition.
I would like to teach these games because they both offer a pure learning task, practice in the contemplation and discussion of English words. Too many ?educational games? are weighed down with inefficient gimmicks that make them more game than education. These games are the opposite. Every aspect of these games meets an academic need: from vocabulary to the simple arithmetic of adding points!
Using my personal sets, I have started teaching these games already. Students love them more than I could have imagined and I have already begun to hear them using the words from the games. I am hoping to expand this success beyond my classroom to the 30 other students I teach during English Language Development time (an hour per day dedicated to learning English) and the 20 students in the Gifted/Advanced program. Help me spread this activity across my classroom and my school! Thank you!
The cost of 5 Apples to Apples Junior (2nd edition) from Areyougame.com and 4 Scrabbles from Cannon Sports, Inc. is $279, including shipping and fulfillment Live Updates
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Ambre T. (staff member)
on Jan 22, 2006
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