Marzano's 6 Steps of Vocabulary Instruction #3: Non-Linguistic Representations

Okay, your students now have their new terms, definitions you provided and student generated definitions of each term.  The majority of your students now have a solid connection with these terms and their definitions.  So, now what?

Now, you start adding supports - things to really solidify the understanding of students who "get" the terms, and bring more of your students into the fold.  But how?

Dr. Marzano says to build deeper connections to and understandings of the terms, your students should access the visual part of their brains by making pictures, pictographs or symbolically representing the words in other ways.  I do this in several ways, and they are really fun...​  

1. Vocabulary Chart - On the first day with the new terms, my students complete a vocabulary chart.  Part of the chart calls for them to draw an image to help them remember the term.  Some of these can be really creative, funny and individual to the student.  For instance, last year, I had a student make an image for "writing" that was a smiling pencil gliding along a paper spelling out "talking with letters" in cursive.
   
2. Pictionary - Sometimes I have my students play Pictionary with the terms in pairs or groups on small whiteboards.  This is a lot of fun to watch, but it can get a bit noisy.  Sometimes, I also have volunteers draw their pictures on the big whiteboard for the whole class to guess. (CAUTIONARY TALE - If you do this on the big whiteboard and you notice a student's picture starts to look unintentionally inappropriate, be ready to jump in and take over while maintaining a straight face...)
   
3. Charades - Sometimes I have students play charades with the terms.  Like Pictionary, it can get a bit loud, but I'll take loud if it gets me learning!
   

​All of these can be really fun, get students excited about learning, build great connections with terms and can be used throughout a unit either as warm ups or filler activities.  If you want to see more great vocabulary resources, keep following this blog, or click the link below for vocabulary resources I use in my class, and be sure to also visit the rest of my store.

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