vocabulary

There are so many things that are different in today's classroom than the one I grew up in. One big difference is how vocabulary is approached. All through elementary school I was subject to the boring lessons of Wordly Wise. Even just thinking about it makes me cringe a bit. We were supposed to take them home, complete the lessons, then return and check it together in class. Well, of course, this rarely happened. I can distinctly remember sitting in 3rd grade and coloring in random bubbles as the teacher walked around to see if we had completed our work. Then, I would just fill in the right answer as we were supposed to be marking our mistakes. The article "Vocabulary Lessons" provided a number of suggestions on how to engages students in the material rather than just present it to them and hope it sticks. One of my favorites was allowing them to contribute to the word wall when they locate a difficult word. This would provide a sense of ownership to their own knowledge and it give them an opportunity to contribute to the classroom community of learners. Now honestly, which method seems more effective?

http://www.setonbooks.com/viewone.php?ToView=P-VO06-11