Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Boy Who Loved Words


 S.O.L. #21/31


 
WooHoo!!!  I saw someone mention the book The Boy Who Loved Words somewhere recently.  The minute I heard the title I knew I needed to grab the book and check it out for myself.  
I immediately checked our school library but nope, didn’t have it.  So I emailed our Primary (k-2) Elementary Librarian.  She had it and sent it home with my son last night.  I voraciously (That is a word from the book) read it as soon as I got home and it was  perfect!!!
All year long, my students have been gathering words to “expand our vocabulary”.
We study the vocabulary words that our reading series introduces each week.  My students squeal with glee (ok the boys don’t actually squeal) when they find one of our  vocabulary words in their own personal reading books. For the first semester,  we gathered these vocabulary words on a huge “I SPY my vocabulary words” poster.  They wrote the vocabulary word, the title of the book they found it in and then sign their name.  The kids filled this poster up quickly and loved it!  
Now for the second semester, I switched it up on them.  We are still word collectors but now we are gathering interesting, intriguing, new, important words in our own independent reading. The can share and write their words on our new “Word Collector” poster.  They keep a personal word collector page in their notebooks as well.  So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered a there was a book about a boy who collected words. Along with being a really cute story, it contained many new, tantalising (yeah that’s another one)  words!!! I hope it inspires my students to continue being word collectors and to have a purpose for their words. I want them to be awakened to words, notice vocabulary.  Eventually,  I hope to see them weaving these new words they’ve discovered into their writing as well.  The Boy Who Loved Words is a gem I know I will be ordering it for my classroom library to share with my 4th graders every year!!!

Note: I grabbed the word mellifluously from the book .  I swirled it around my head practicing its pronunciation all day.  Then would you believe while we were reading a fable from our reading series-------the word mellifluously was used?!!!! Weeeeee!!! (That is ME squealing!!)

9 comments:

  1. Building vocabulary is so important! It sound like your doing a great job encouraging your students' word-awareness. Have you read Donovan's Word Jar? It's a short chapter book about a boy who collects words. Thanks for the recommendation!
    Catherine

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  2. Kudos for your vocabulary teaching! Might have to "steal" your I Spy Vocabulary sign idea...

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  3. I love this!!! I'm a fellow word nerd :). I have this book and love your idea about making kids word collectors too. If you go to my blog's quote page, I think I have a few quotes about collecting words. I also have a post called 'Incarnadine Seas' which is in response to Georgia Heard's affair with words. Keep it up!
    b

    www.livewriteteach.blogspot.com

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    1. I follow your blog now and visited your quotes page--I borrowed some great writing quotes. thanks :)

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  4. I want this book! It sounds fabulous, especially for this word nerd who used to read the dictionary for entertainment and can still get lost on dictionary.com. I'm adding it to my wish list now!

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  5. I need this book! We are really working on building kids' vocabulary and I think this would be something people would love!

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  6. I love this book ! Some other books you might want to check out is
    Miss Alaineus by Debra Frasier
    Donovan's Word Jar by Monalisa DeGross
    Max's Words by Kate Banks

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  7. After reading this, I went to the library and got the book! What a cute read! I've been a voracious work collector over the years and I love your idea for inspiring your students! They will appreciate it and remember you forever!

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