Building Vocabulary Promotes Thinking, Enhances Communication

Publication: El Paso Times
Date: July 12, 2008

Summary: West Texas Writing Project Teacher-Consultant Chrissy Beltran argues that the well-being of our society depends in part on childrens' ability to increase their vocabulary and use new words in their writing.

Excerpt from Article

Using students' reading vocabularies as an indicator of their writing vocabularies is a huge mistake. Students have become good word-spitters.

They can read words on a page by using phonics, and they can choose between four multiple-choice definitions and often come up with the correct one.

But when we ask them to write about something exciting that happens in their lives, frequently they are only able to communicate, "We got a new dog. My dog is nice. She is good. We love her."

Copyright © 2008. Reprinted with permission from Chrissy Beltran. Beltran, Chrissy. 2008. "Building Vocabulary Promotes Thinking, Enhances Communication." El Paso Times. July 11.

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