ROCK ON!
September 14-18
Annoucements
North River Ruritan Dinner is Tuesday at 7:00
SCA Speeches will be Friday at 2:00 for Grades 3rd-5th
Envelope for Relay for LIfe is in the office
Oct 1: End of First Six Weeks
Monday, Sept 14
Tuesday, Sept 15
Appreciation Dinner at 7:00
Wednesday, Sept 16
Thursday, Sept 17
Friday, Sept 18
Next Week
Vocabulary Instruction
Dictionary definitions may actually cloud a word's meaning rather than help a student learn it. Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) discussed studies asking students to create sentences using dictionary definitions of words. Miller and Gildea (1985) found that 63% of the students' responses were judged to be "odd." Scott and Nagy ((1989) found that students frequently interpreted one or two words from a dictionary definition as the entire meaning, and McKeown (1993) found that 60% of students' responses using dictionary definitions were unacceptable.
One important caveat is worth noting: Introducing words using student-friendly definitions in plain, everyday language does help students learn new vocabulary (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan 2002).