Using objects to teach vocabulary words with multiple meanings

Encourage your students to compile an illustrated class glossary or to create their own object boxes for words with multiple meanings, similar to our students' example shown in Table 2. The creative and critical thinking skills involved in generating ideas, constructing definitions, and locating appropriate objects are valuable. Students might choose a theme (our students focused on space-related words) such as theatre (possible words: play, stage, act, light, left) or animals (horn, trunk, body, leg, head, hide). Soon students will realize that many common English words have multiple meanings and will be prepared to encounter new understandings of words in their independent reading, thereby becoming more proficient readers.

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