Word Harvesting— Helping Students Become Word Connoisseurs

Tim Rasinski is a renowned professor of literacy education whose research on reading fluency and word study has made him a literacy hero to many. Below, he shares his thoughts on vocabulary instruction. 

More often than not, vocabulary instruction is characterized by teaching words that the instructor has pre-selected, or words that are featured in a reading or vocabulary program. What would happen if we gave students a say in the words they would like to learn and use in their own language? In my time as an educator, I have seen that when given this option, students take greater ownership of their word learning, make a greater investment in learning words, and become word connoisseurs.

One easy way to do this is through an activity I have come to call word harvesting. Simply put, word harvesting invites students to notice interesting words wherever they may find them. One of the best places to find interesting words as a class is during the teacher read-aloud time.

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