Allyson Atchity

Allyson Achity and I met on April 27 to review her progress on her new goal which was to identify Tier 2 words in the new novel that her students are reading and then to research strategies that would be effective in teaching the words. The strategies will then be implemented with the students and by May 6 she will reflect on the efficacy of the strategies.

Allyson has accomplished the first part of her goal which is to identify Tier 2 words in the novel, “When You Reach Me.”  Allyson has developed a list of approximately 15 words, but we made the decision to only teach five of the words at a time.  Allyson has also researched and found two strategies that she will be using to teach the vocabulary words.

The first strategy that Allyson will implement is called Photo Gallery. A photo gallery strategy for vocabulary instruction involves using pictures of images to try to guess the vocabulary word.  Students are presented with a picture on a poster and with one color of marker, they write the word that they think the image represents.  They are then presented with a list of the vocabulary words they will be studying and with another color of maker they try to match the word with the image.  This not only engages the students in learning the vocabulary word, but provides an idea of synonyms that match the new vocabulary word.

After our meeting, Allyson sent me pictures of the student work that resulted from the strategy being implemented.  She stated that the students were enthusiastic about the strategy and were better able to define the word.