This semester, we were asked to keep track of vocabulary terms. I'll be honest, when I first heard about this assignment I might have groaned inside. I thought about all of the mundane vocabulary assignments I have had throughout my years of school and dreaded yet one more. As it turns out, this assignment was different. Not only did I learn many new words, but this assignment made a very significant difference in the way I thought about words. Metacognitively speaking, I have memorized many definitions in the past, but I have never learned words in as purposeful and focused of a manner as this past semester.
I learned a few things about myself and my reading strategies. At first, I struggled to come up with words that were from my literacy-related readings. I found that my natural inclination when I came across words that I did not know was to use context clues and just keep reading. I was mostly unaware when I hit words that I did not fully understand. I am sure that it compromised my reading in the past, however I was able to get the main idea, so I never really focused on individual words unless a teacher drew my attention to one. As the semester went on, I began to find more and more words. I realized that it wasn't that more 'difficult' words were embedded in readings, but rather that my attention was now drawn to vocabulary learning. I was beginning to see words that could be used for the vocabulary blog. About midway through the semester, I began to see the true benefit of this assignment. No longer could I read something, anything, and skim over words I didn't fully know. I even started to question words that I did know, to think about the extent to which I knew them!
Keeping the vocabulary journal helped me stay accountable to consistent word learning. Even if I didn't have time while I was reading to seek out the definition of a word, I wrote it down for further investigation. Having the assignment helped me form the habit of being a conscientious reader. Now that the habit is formed, I hope to always be a word learner, not just a word reader.
The vocabulary tests added to my learning in many ways. First, I had to know more words than just my own. I had to learn each word well enough to be able to spell it and use it correctly in a sentence. Second, to find the definition of each word I had to get into my fellow students' vocabulary blogs. While looking for each person's chosen word, I inevitably found other words that I was curious about. This led me to learn new words that I had not come across before, or at least words that did not pop into my radar while I was reading. Third, I began to reflect on my study habits. I figured out the best ways that I learn, and realized that just memorizing a definition was not going to work for me with these tests. Finally, these tests really made me think about how we teach vocabulary to students. Too often, students are just assigned a list of words, and then tested on them. Students have no input into this process. As a class, we determined which words would be on the test. Each of us had control over our own vocabulary 'lists', and then we were tested on words of our choosing. From this process, I learned how I want to test my future students on vocabulary.
Throughout this semester, I have noticed my inclinations while reading have changed. I am not as inclined to skip over unknown words. I am much more inclined to further investigate words that I thought I knew a meaning to, but my meaning does not make sense in context. I use the words that I am learning in my speech as well as in my writing. As a literacy specialist, I feel that this is an important habit. I will continue along my path of word conscientiousness by being aware as I encounter new vocabulary (and sometimes even commonly used vocabulary, such as the word words).
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