Riddled Definitions Improve Students' VocabularyAuthor(s): Michael R. AkersSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 40, No. 7 (Mar., 1987), p. 706Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199592 .

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Practice and learning had taken place.

Followup reading As followup the next day, students take their stories to another class and share

them. Then each may choose some

words from his or her story and make a

bingo card. We end by playing bingo

I and, as usual, asking the students to

j read their stories to someone at home. For a further practice, students who

need help with punctuation can be

! worked with in small groups. Here, oral reading and intonation practice are good.

Four concepts are key to lessons

such as these: good feeling tone, chil

dren's interest, reward/success, and the teacher's guidance/knowledge of the results.

Riddled definitions improve students9

vocabulary Michael R. Akers, Bluefield, West

Virginia

How can initial vocabulary instruction in the content areas be made more

meaningful for the student? One method I have discovered is a game called "Match the Stash." It takes place on the social studies bulletin board in

my room and is changed to meet the introduction of each unit's vocabulary.

A theme is chosen for each chapter: Viking pirates, Roman soldiers plun dering a captured land, etc. On the first day of the unit, I introduce the

words and, if possible, semantic map

ping is used to associate the words into

groups. Next, I define any unidentified

words, and then the students use them in sentences.

The following day we begin con struction of the game. The class is di vided randomly into groups. The

object is for each group to gain as much of the "Stash" as possible. Words are put on index cards and a riddle def

inition is placed on sentence strips. On the back of each strip is an amount of

money in the currency of the country being studied. For example, for the word guillotine the riddled definition would be "During the French Revolu tion people could really lose their heads if they met me." The amount of

money would be in francs. Match the word with its definition

and the money goes to your team. If there is no match the other team has the right to sneak in and try to steal the

money. The amount doubles if any member of the successful team can use the word in a creative sentence that is

acceptable to the teacher. The activity continues until all the words are cor

rectly matched to their riddled defini tions.

This activity works well in my 6th

grade because students can show off their artistic abilities, too. The bulletin board also displays figures depicting the period or region we are studying.

The children do their artwork a day or two before the matching activity.

My students always seem to enjoy "Match the Stash." It allows them to

participate in a team activity and this

helps the shy student who might not

speak out. It also gets students in volved with words in an atmosphere that is a little less like school.

As a conclusion to the vocabulary instruction, each student selects a fa vorite word and tries to trace its ety

mology. This provides additional contact with the word. I have seen im

provement in my students' word

knowledge in all areas, reading class included.

Tramps9 symbols To amuse the class sometime at the end of a long day, tell them about the sym bols tramps write on buildings and fences for each other to read. The lan

guage of the road means that tramps

706 The Reading Teacher March 1987

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