Product Details

• Author: Brenda J. Overturf, Leslie H. Montgomery, Margot Holmes Smith
• Year: 2013
• Grade Range: K-6

• Media: 184 pp/paper
• ISBN: 978-157110-954-5
• Item No.: WET-0954

Word Nerds takes you inside classrooms at a high-poverty urban school and shows how two teachers implement creative, flexible vocabulary instruction that improves their students' word knowledge and confidence, enhances classroom community, and increases achievement. Leslie Montgomery and Margot Holmes Smith weave vocabulary into each school day using multisensory instruction that includes music, art, literature, movement, games, drama, writing, test-taking skills, and technology. Along the way, they turn every student into a lover of language.

With support from literacy specialist Brenda Overturf, Leslie and Margot have developed a five-part plan—introducing new words in context, adding related synonyms and antonyms, engaging students in several days of active learning, celebrating new words, and assessing vocabulary development—that teaches all students to learn and love vocabulary.

This easy-to-read reference explains how to plan, teach, and assess based on the latest research in vocabulary instruction and learning. Forget copying definitions from the dictionary and completing boring worksheets! Word mastery comes from intimate knowledge of language. From prediction to practice to performance, students from all backgrounds can discover how to make words their own. After incorporating Leslie's and Margot's vocabulary plan into your daily instruction, you and your students can become word nerds, too!

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: What's the Big Deal About Vocabulary Instruction?
Chapter 2: Classrooms That Foster Word Confidence
Chapter 3: Making Introductions
Chapter 4: Squeezing the Juicy Words -- Adding Synonyms and Antonyms
Chapter 5: Active Vocabulary Practice
Chapter 6: Celebrating to Validate
Chapter 7: Spreading Vocabulary Wings
Chapter 8: Learning Through Assessment
Epilogue: End of the Year
Appendixes
References
Index

Leslie Montgomery
Leslie Montgomery is an intermediate-grades teacher at Atkinson Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Louisville, Kentucky. After beginning her undergraduate degree in California and working for the Homes for the Homeless Residential Camping Program in New York City, Leslie returned to Louisville and earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in teaching from the University of Louisville.
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Brenda Overturf
Brenda J. Overturf began her career as a classroom teacher, working for eighteen years at the elementary and middle school levels, before she coordinated K-12 reading for Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Margot Holmes Smith
Margot Holmes Smith is a reading and math intervention teacher for fourth and fifth grades at Atkinson Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to becoming an intervention teacher, she taught third and fourth grades at Atkinson.
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