Chapter 13: Word Consciousness

Teaching Reading Sourcebook 2nd edition

Word Consciousness

Word conscious students are curious about language, like to play with words, and enjoy learning about the origins of words.

A word-rich classroom fosters word consciousness through: dictionaries, thesauruses , word walls, word games and puzzles, literature and poetry books, and word play and joke books.

Adept Diction

Adept diction involves the skillful or artful use of words in speaking and writing.

Teachers can model adept diction by their own choice of words; drawing attention to the skillful use of words in texts that

students are reading; encouraging students to expand their own range of word

choice in their speech and writing; motivating students to recognize how words are used and

where they appear outside of class. (e.g. Word Wizard)

Word Consciousness

Knowing categories of words helps students make finer distinctions in their word choice. Synonyms: words very close in meaning Antonyms: words that are opposite or nearly

opposite in meaning Homographs: words spelled the same with

different meanings and different origins Figurative language: similes, metaphors, idioms

These distinctions involve knowing words have Denotations: literal meaning; and Connotations: feelings associated with a word.

(e.g. positive, negative, neutral)

Word Play

Word and language play engages students in active, social, learning and provides motivation to improve their language skills.

Word play is accomplished through Names: eponyms, toponyms Expressions: proverbs, slang Word formations: acronyms, portmanteaus Word games: puns, riddles, tongue twisters Word manipulations: anagrams, palindromes

See Categories of Word Play on page 575.

Word Histories and Origins

Structure and origins of English Anglo Saxon: Short everyday words used

frequently in ordinary conversation. (book, table) Latin: Longer, more formal words used in content

area textbooks and literature. (instructor, predict) Latin is the basis for the Romance languages.

Greek: Specialized words used mostly in science and technology. (astronomy, grapheme)