Word learning has never been a priority in my life. I never would stop and question what a word meant or have any desire to look up words I've come across; it was not a priority until now. By having to keep a blog, my habits and tendencies changed. I became more aware of the language people around me used and words I came across in my daily life. My ears would perk up when I heard an interesting, unknown, or crazy word. I did not care what kind of word it was---I just loved learning new words. I gained most of my vocabulary from the class assigned reading. As a graduate student, I am still learning lots of new and important words in the field of literacy. I also became much more aware in my daily live as well. At work, the gym, or out-and-about, I would take notice to words. I also made a habit of looking at dictionary.com's word of the day. These words were sometimes funny or current. Dictionary.com became my go-to-guide to find the unknown.
The benefits of word learning were endless this semester. First of all it made me more aware of unknown words around me. I have always been someone who would use my prior knowledge to figure out an unknown word, or I'd just skip it. Vocabulary learning has never been a priority to me because I associated it with high stakes testing.
The blog allowed me to show my expanding vocabulary knowledge in a non-high-stakes environment and it allowed me to share my growth with my peers in a non-threatening way.
It also encouraged me to seek out new words as well. Instead of just using the class reading resources, this blog forced me to seek out "words of the day" or listen for interesting words in my environment.
Due to this blog I began to monitor my listening and reading of everything. Because I knew I had this assignment, I was much more careful and always looking for new words. I can remember reading a menu at the Cheesecake Factory looking for a "zesty" word to add to my blog.
Also, because my peers and professor were keeping the same blog, I would learn even more words a week. I enjoyed looking at everyone's blog and it helped me gain even more word knowledge.
Due to my new found monitoring of my reading of everything, I really became a reflective and careful reader---all aspects of reading to learn. I was very in-tune with this assignment and I knew I had to find at least two words a week so I was always on the look out. The way I read changed for the better and I became a lot more aware.
The same can be said about my writing of the blog each week. As a writer, I had to be reflective and really pause and think "is this an important word"? From this blog, my writing became more reflective.
I am not a fan of tests, especially vocabulary tests. I had flashbacks to both ELA and Spanish classes in my secondary education. I have always had a hard time remember words for a test---especially spelling. I am not a good speller and my phonemic awareness (until recently) was not necessary high. Having to take a spelling test in grad school was very hard for me to wrap my head around.
After taking two of these tests, they weren't that bad. Due to the fact we got to pick the words made the words more personal and meaningful. I had to study similar to how I studied in high school for vocabulary tests, but I was successful.
If I use the VSS strategy in my social studies classroom I might use a similar assessment with my students. I am not a fan of memorizing for a test and I sometimes feel this is what a vocabulary test is, but the VSS allows for a more personal approach which could lead to long -term memory of the words.
I am not sure I'll keep a blog or journal of news words I find, but I am much more aware of words around me. I have now trained myself to monitor my reading and actually stop and ponder or learn a word I might not know. I have become more reflective in the words I pick and this will stick with me. From this blog I have learned to take time and expand my knowledge of words.
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