Teacher and Student Use Ideas
Potential Teacher Uses
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. (4th/5th grade Language Standard 5)
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. (4th and 5th Grade Reading Foundational Skills Standard 3)
The pre-made lists that highlight phonics and syllable patterns, as well as the lesson plans related to figurative language, are a great resource for fourth and fifth grade teachers.
Potential Student Uses
- 4th and 5th grade Common Core standards call for these reading foundational skills that Vocabulary Spelling City can provide students practice with:
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. (4th/5th grade Language Standard 5)
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. (4th and 5th Grade Reading Foundational Skills Standard 3)
The pre-made lists that highlight phonics and syllable patterns, as well as the lesson plans related to figurative language, are a great resource for fourth and fifth grade teachers.
- Sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers also have many students are reading below grade level. Vocabulary Spelling City is a great remediation tool to help students master those lower grade-level Common Core Standards that they have not mastered yet. Furthermore, Special Education teachers in the higher grade levels can use the phonics and syllabification word lists to help their students build their phonics and fluency skills.
- For those Reading teachers who give weekly or every-other-week vocabulary and spelling lists ("Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression" (CCES Standard L.6) as well as spell correctly (CCES Standard L.2b)), this app is perfect for them. The teacher could assign the whole class to complete activities, or just students who struggle. If the teacher did not want to pay the premium membership to allow all kids to use the study games, the teacher could ask a few parents to sign up, give the parents her website and study lists, and ask that the kids practice at home or at school using the parent login.
- Teachers could keep a bulletin board that tracks student progress of the games that students complete. When a student completes a game or activity and scores over 80% or 90% on that activity and shows it to the teacher, the teacher can track that on the bulletin board. This promotes healthy competition and motivation for students.
- As with Quizlet, Vocabulary Spelling City games could be used as a class Do Now/ Warm Up/ Bellringer.
Potential Student Uses
- Students could log in under student, their parent, or their teacher's username to play the review games. The students could play these games on their tablet, phone, or laptop, on the bus, at lunch, at recess, at home, etc. The app does not require that students be "online" to play.
- Students could compete against one another in the speed and accuracy games either by competing with a partner or getting in a larger group and competing with another group.
- Students could come up with alternate definitions and new sentences using the words after they've played some of the games. Students could even design new games to learn their words and challenge their friends to these games.