Lesson Plan
Understanding Academic Vocabulary in a Nonfiction Text
This lesson will provide students with an opportunity to become more comfortable with identifying and defining academic vocabulary words in a nonfiction text about a chicken's life cycle to support comprehension.
Need extra help for EL students? Try the Using a Dictionary to Clarify the Meaning of Unknown Words pre-lesson.
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Need extra help for EL students? Try the Using a Dictionary to Clarify the Meaning of Unknown Words pre-lesson.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to define academic vocabulary in a grade level text.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Ask a student volunteer to briefly explain nonfiction and choose a nonfiction text from the classroom library. Clarify that a nonfiction text or book is about a real topic.
- Skim through the pages until you find a word that most students wouldn't know without using tools, such as an online dictionary, to figure out the meaning.
- Write the word on the whiteboard and model a think-aloud. Say, "Hmm...I'm not sure what ________ means. What tools could I use to figure out the meaning of this word?"
- Allow a few students to share out responses and record accurate responses on the board under the heading "Tools for Tricky Words."
- Explain that today students will be learning about tools they can use to figure out tricky vocabulary words in a nonfiction text.
Beginning: Provide students with a pre-made copy of a worksheet titled "Tools for Tricky Words" and include the following tools on the worksheet: context clues, dictionary, online dictionary, picture.
Intermediate:
- Encourage students to show an example of a nonfiction book.
- Allow the students to explain what nonfiction is, using their own words.
- Clarify the meaning of tricky, explaining that tricky words or hard to figure out or challenging.