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Traditionally, interactive notebooks were organized in such a way that the right side of a notebook had information given by the teacher (notes, discussions, handouts, etc.). On the left side, students personalized the information given by the teacher in forms of drawings, cartoons, personalized wording of vocabulary, etc...

As interactive notebooks have trickled their way down into the elementary level, interactive notebooks have evolved and don't always follow the right side/left side rule (although some still do and work great!).

Students now often glue in notes sheets, foldables, timelines, vocabulary flaps and more into their interactive notebooks. The notebooks can take on a variety of looks depending on the age level, abilities, and needs of the students. Many teachers use interactive notebooks for all subjects, while some use it for only one or two subjects.

And - although Pinterest may make you think otherwise - the elements that your students glue in to their notebook do NOT need to be fancy, overly creative, or crazy complicated.
To set up your interactive notebooks, you will need:

spiral/composition notebook

white glue (I think white glue works better that glue sticks as the adhesive lasts longer)

crayons or colored pencils (not markers - they will bleed through the pages)

As with anything in teaching, we must start with the standards and the scope and sequence/curriculum map. It is not suggested to design the elements of your interactive notebooks as you go through each unit. Instead, use the standards and your scope and sequence outlines to planning out the pages of your interactive notebooks for each unit BEFORE you teach that unit. Each page within your interactive notebooks should aim to cover your standards and evaluate your students understanding of those standards.

Planning ahead of time will also help your interactive notebooks to have a stream-lined, cohesive look and will help you plan out a variety of interactive notebooks cutouts and elements.

When I used interactive notebooks for the first time in my classroom, it was chaotic to say the least. Learn from my mistakes. Take time to teach (and reteach) and practice (and practice some more...) not just the information going into your interactive notebooks, but how to actually use their interactive notebooks.

Spending ample time at the start of the year (or whenever you begin using interactive notebooks with your students) setting up routines and procedures for using their interactive notebooks.

You May Also Like to Read: SETTING UP CLASSROOM ROUTINES & PROCEDURES

Here are some routines and procedures you'll want to cover:

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Getting Started With Interactive Notebooks - THE CLASSROOM NOOK

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Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute

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Open Ended Prompts for Authentic Conversations

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Open Ended Prompts for Authentic Conversations

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Strategic Questioning Open Ended Prompts

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Marzano Six Steps to Teaching Vocabulary

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Marzano Six Steps to Teaching Vocabulary

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Free & Interactive Audience Engagement Platform. Check out all the features that can help you to engage your audience.

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Ideas of when to use Nearpod/Nearpod Collaboration Space 

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Creating "Roles" for successful small groups. 

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Creating "Roles" for successful small groups. 

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Tier 2 Vocabulary Using Marzano Strategies

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Strategies to Promote Oral Language with Collaborative Conversations

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Stratgies for Oral language Collab Conv. 

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Literacy Snippet:  Tiered Vocabulary Instruction

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The Importance of Vocabulary Development

According to Steven Stahl (2005), "Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world." We continue to develop vocabulary throughout our lives. Words are powerful. Words open up possibilities, and of course, that's what we want for all of our students.

​ Teaching words and vocabulary-learning strategies with Read Naturally programs

Key Concepts

Differences in Early Vocabulary Development

We know that young children acquire vocabulary indirectly, first by listening when others speak or read to them, and then by using words to talk to others. As children begin to read and write, they acquire more words through understanding what they are reading and then incorporate those words into their speaking and writing.

Vocabulary knowledge varies greatly among learners. The word knowledge gap between groups of children begins before they enter school. Why do some students have a richer, fuller vocabulary than some of their classmates?

Language rich home with lots of verbal stimulation

Wide background experiences

Read to at home and at school

Read a lot independently

Early development of word consciousness

Why do some students have a limited, inadequate vocabulary compared to most of their classmates?

Speaking/vocabulary not encouraged at home

Limited experiences outside of home

Limited exposure to books

Reluctant reader

Second language-English language learners

Children who have been encouraged by their parents to ask questions and to learn about things and ideas come to school with oral vocabularies many times larger than children from disadvantaged homes. Without intervention this gap grows ever larger as students proceed through school (Hart and Risley, 1995).

How Vocabulary Affects Reading Development

From the research, we know that vocabulary supports reading development and increases comprehension. Students with low vocabulary scores tend to have low comprehension and students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores tend to have satisfactory or high comprehension scores.

The report of the National Reading Panel states that the complex process of comprehension is critical to the development of children's reading skills and cannot be understood without a clear understanding of the role that vocabulary development and instruction play in understanding what is read (NRP, 2000).

Chall's classic 1990 study showed that students with low vocabulary development were able to maintain their overall reading test scores at expected levels through grade four, but their mean scores for word recognition and word meaning began to slip as words became more abstract, technical, and literary. Declines in word recognition and word meaning continued, and by grade seven, word meaning scores had fallen to almost three years below grade level, and mean reading comprehension was almost a year below. Jeanne Chall coined the term "the fourth-grade slump" to describe this pattern in developing readers (Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, 1990).

Incidental and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

How do we close the gap for students who have limited or inadequate vocabularies? The National Reading Panel (2000) concluded that there is no single research-based method for developing vocabulary and closing the gap. From its analysis, the panel recommended using a variety of indirect (incidental) and direct (intentional) methods of vocabulary instruction.

Incidental Vocabulary Learning
Most students acquire vocabulary incidentally through indirect exposure to words at home and at school-by listening and talking, by listening to books read aloud to them, and by reading widely on their own.

The amount of reading is important to long-term vocabulary development (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). Extensive reading provides students with repeated or multiple exposures to words and is also one of the means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts (Kamil and Hiebert, 2005).

Intentional Vocabulary Learning
Students need to be explicitly taught methods for intentional vocabulary learning. According to Michael Graves (2000), effective intentional vocabulary instruction includes:

Teaching specific words (rich, robust instruction) to support understanding of texts containing those words.

Teaching word-learning strategies that students can use independently.

Promoting the development of word consciousness and using word play activities to motivate and engage students in learning new words.

Research-Supported Vocabulary-Learning Strategies

Students need a wide range of independent word-learning strategies. Vocabulary instruction should aim to engage students in actively thinking about word meanings, the relationships among words, and how we can use words in different situations. This type of rich, deep instruction is most likely to influence comprehension (Graves, 2006; McKeown and Beck, 2004).

Student-Friendly Definitions

The meaning of a new word should be explained to students rather than just providing a dictionary definition for the word-which may be difficult for students to understand. According to Isabel Beck, two basic principles should be followed in developing student-friendly explanations or definitions (Beck et al., 2013):

Characterize the word and how it is typically used.

Explain the meaning using everyday language-language that is accessible and meaningful to the student.

Sometimes a word's natural context (in text or literature) is not informative or helpful for deriving word meanings (Beck et al., 2013). It is useful to intentionally create and develop instructional contexts that provide strong clues to a word's meaning. These are usually created by teachers, but they can sometimes be found in commercial reading programs.

Defining Words Within Context

Research shows that when words and easy-to-understand explanations are introduced in context, knowledge of those words increases (Biemiller and Boote, 2006) and word meanings are better learned (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986). When an unfamiliar word is likely to affect comprehension, the most effective time to introduce the word's meaning may be at the moment the word is met in the text.

Using Context Clues

Research by Nagy and Scott (2000) showed that students use contextual analysis to infer the meaning of a word by looking closely at surrounding text. Since students encounter such an enormous number of words as they read, some researchers believe that even a small improvement in the ability to use context clues has the potential to produce substantial, long-term vocabulary growth (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson, 1985; Nagy, Anderson, and Herman, 1987; Swanborn and de Glopper, 1999).

Sketching the Words

For many students, it is easier to remember a word's meaning by making a quick sketch that connects the word to something personally meaningful to the student. The student applies each target word to a new, familiar context. The student does not have to spend a lot of time making a great drawing. The important thing is that the sketch makes sense and helps the student connect with the meaning of the word.

Applying the Target Words

Applying the target words provides another context for learning word meanings. When students are challenged to apply the target words to their own experiences, they have another opportunity to understand the meaning of each word at a personal level. This allows for deep processing of the meaning of each word.

Analyzing Word Parts

The ability to analyze word parts also helps when students are faced with unknown vocabulary. If students know the meanings of root words and affixes, they are more likely to understand a word containing these word parts. Explicit instruction in word parts includes teaching meanings of word parts and disassembling and reassembling words to derive meaning (Baumann et al., 2002; Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, and Kame'enui, 2003; Graves, 2004).

Semantic Mapping

Semantic maps help students develop connections among words and increase learning of vocabulary words (Baumann et al., 2003; Heimlich and Pittleman, 1986). For example, by writing an example, a non-example, a synonym, and an antonym, students must deeply process the word persist.

Word Consciousness

Word consciousness is an interest in and awareness of words (Anderson and Nagy, 1992; Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Students who are word conscious are aware of the words around them-those they read and hear and those they write and speak (Graves and Watts-Taffe, 2002). Word-conscious students use words skillfully. They are aware of the subtleties of word meaning. They are curious about language, and they enjoy playing with words and investigating the origins and histories of words.

Teachers need to take word-consciousness into account throughout their instructional day-not just during vocabulary lessons (Scott and Nagy, 2004). It is important to build a classroom "rich in words" (Beck et al., 2002). Students should have access to resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls, crossword puzzles, Scrabble® and other word games, literature, poetry books, joke books, and word-play activities.

Teachers can promote the development of word consciousness in many ways:

Language categories: Students learn to make finer distinctions in their word choices if they understand the relationships among words, such as synonyms, antonyms, and homographs.

Figurative language: The ability to deal with figures of speech is also a part of word-consciousness (Scott and Nagy 2004). The most common figures of speech are similes, metaphors, and idioms.

Once language categories and figurative language have been taught, students should be encouraged to watch for examples of these in all content areas.

Teaching Words and Vocabulary-Learning Strategies With Read Naturally Programs

Take Aim at Vocabulary: Build Vocabulary in the Middle Grades

These intentional vocabulary learning strategies can be efficiently and effectively implemented using Read Naturally's program Take Aim! at Vocabulary. Take Aim is appropriate for students who can read at least at a fourth grade level. Take Aim is available in two formats:

The semi-independent format provides differentiated instruction for students working mostly independently.

The small-group format is designed for small-group instruction-up to six students.

Each Take Aim level teaches 288 carefully selected target words in the context of engaging, non-fiction stories. The target words are systematically taught using the research-based strategies described above. The intensive and focused lesson design helps students learn the target words and internalize the skills and strategies necessary for independently learning unknown words.

Learn more about how Take Aim teaches vocabulary and word-learning strategies:

Splat-O-Nym: Vocabulary Word Game for iPad

Read Naturally also offers a Splat-O-Nym app for iPad that teaches vocabulary using game-based technology. Splat-O-Nym quizzes students with synonym questions, antonym questions, and meaning-from-context questions and awards points for correct answers.

Learn more about the Splat-O-Nym app:

Other Programs That Support Vocabulary Development

These other Read Naturally programs do not focus on vocabulary but include activities that support vocabulary development:

Read Naturally® Live
Cloud-based software that develops fluency and phonics and also provides support for vocabulary with audio-supported definitions of key words.
Learn more about Read Naturally Live

Bibliography

Anderson, R. C., & Nagy, W. E. (1992). "The vocabulary conundrum," American Educator, Vol. 16, pp. 14-18, 44-47.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Boland, E., Olejnik, S., & Kame'enui, E. (2003). "Vocabulary tricks: effects of instruction in morphology and context on fifth grade students' ability to derive and infer word meanings," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 447-494.

Baumann, J. F., Edwards, E. C., Font, G., Tereshinski, C. A., Kame'enui, E. J., & Olejnik, S. (2002). "Teaching morphemic and contextual analysis to fifth-grade students." Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 37, pp. 150-176.

Baumann, J. F., Kame'enui, E. J., & Ash, G. E. (2003). "Research on vocabulary instruction: Voltaire redux," in J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, and J. M. Jensen (eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts, 2nd ed., Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 752-785.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, New York: Guilford Press.

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life. Robust vocabulary instruction, 2nd ed., New York: Guilford Press.

Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). "An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in the primary grades," Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 44-62.

Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V. A., & Baldwin, L. E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor children fall behind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cunningham, A. E. & Stanovich, K. E. (1998). "What reading does for the mind," American Educator, Vol. 22, pp. 8-15.

Graves, M. F. (2000). "A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle-grade comprehension program," in B. M. Taylor, M. F. Graves, and P. Van Den Broek (eds.), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades, New York: Teachers College Press.

Graves, M. F. (2004). "Teaching prefixes: As good as it gets?," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 81-99.

Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book, New York: Teachers College Press, International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English.

Graves, M. F. & Watts-Taffe, S. M. (2002). "The place of word consciousness in a research-based vocabulary program," in A. E. Farstrup and S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children, Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Heimlich, J. E. & Pittleman, S. D. (1986). Semantic mapping: Classroom applications, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kamil, M. L. & Hiebert, E. H. (2005). "Teaching and learning vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

McKeown, M. G. & Beck, I. L. (2004). "Direct and rich vocabulary instruction," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 13-27.

Nagy, W. E., Anderson, R. C., & Herman, P. A. (1987). "Learning word meanings from context during normal reading," American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 237-270.

Nagy, W. E., Herman, P. A. & Anderson, R. C. (1985). "Learning words from context," Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 233-253.

Nagy, W. E. & Scott, J. A. (2000). "Vocabulary processes," in M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, and R. Barr (eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 3, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769), Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 13-14.

Scott, J. & Nagy, W. (2004). "Developing word consciousness," in J. Baumann & E. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction, research to practice, New York: Guilford Press, pp. 201-215.

Stahl, S. A. (2005). "Four problems with teaching word meanings (and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction)," in E. H. Hiebert and M. L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stahl, S. A. & Fairbanks, M. M. (1986). "The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 56, pp. 72-110.

Swanborn, M. S. & de Glopper, K. (1999). "Incidental word learning while reading: A meta-analysis," Review of Educational Research, Vol. 69, pp. 261-285.

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Vocabulary development supports reading and increases comprehension. Students need to be explicitly taught words and vocabulary learning strategies.

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It should be easy to partner up students or put them in groups, right?

Well yes, yes it should. But any teacher who has been in the classroom knows that's not always the case. To make the process fun, easy, and as pain free as possible, we put together our favorite ideas for choosing partners and putting students into groups. You can also check out tips from Bridget Spackman of The Lettered Classroom in this video. We love them!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLVHhhrxG0M[/embedyt]

1. Make it easy with Post-its.

Source: The Lettered Classroom

Grab two colors of sticky notes and then place them around the room. Different colors make a pair-students can grab a sticky note and choose a partner who has the other color. Or you can write down students' names on the notes and still have them find a partner with a different color sticky note. You can also use this trick to create groups. You'd just need more colors of Post-its.

2. Draw rocks.

Sounds simple, right? It's definitely simple, which is the beauty of it. Just gather rocks and paint them different colors. Then you can have students who draw the same color rock form groups or become partners.

3. Match up math questions and answers.

Source: Southern Fried Teaching

You'll have to make sure you don't have multiple answers to the same problem, but you can use this trick time and time again to partner up students.

4. Find your opposite.

Source: The Lettered Classroom

Use opposite cards to match up students. Just pass out the cards and then challenge students to find their match.

5. Use pipe cleaners.

Pipe cleaners are so inexpensive! You can sort out the colors you want to use to divide students into as few or as many groups as you'd like. Just count out the number you need, and you're ready to go.

6. Use paint swatches to divide up students.

Source: Upcycled Education

There are so many good uses for paint swatches. This teacher recommends using different colors as a way to divide groups. She has several ways to do this if you're looking for ideas. Take a look.

7. Add curriculum challenges to a deck of cards.

Source: The Lettered Classroom

You can definitely use playing cards as-is for dividing up students or picking partners and groups. But take it up a notch by including a recent curriculum question or problem to solve on the card. This is a good way to review material and put students together.

8. Try Scrabble tiles.

You can do this in multiple ways. You can just use certain letters and have students draw them. Or use Scrabble tiles to spell out certain words on the chalkboard and then group students once they've found the other tiles to spell out their word.

9. Use sticks with numbers and draw as you go.

Source: My Love of Teaching

Many classrooms will assign students numbers at the beginning of the year, which students eventually memorize. So for a quick way to divide up students, just draw numbers at random. We love these pencil designs from My Love of Teaching.

10. Designate group colors and then draw crayons.

Here's another one that's easy to do because you have access to so many crayons. Write down the different group colors on the board and then have students choose crayons randomly (or hand them out) to form those groups.

11. Redefine the way you use puzzle pieces.

Source: The Lettered Classroom

Whether you use a real puzzle with matching parts or create your own, this is a fun way to group or partner students in a random way. Just pass out all the pieces and have students find the right fit.

12. Use school colors.

Source: The Lettered Classroom

This is an easy one. Just cut out circles from construction paper-we recommend using your school's colors, but it's up to you-and laminate them. Place them on the floor as a quick way to sort students into two groups. You can also add more colors to create small groups.

13. Play a game of pick-up sticks.

Look at the games you already have in your classroom that can be repurposed. Pick-up sticks might be the perfect way to group students by color. Plus, they get to play at the same time. Also look at using a deck of Go Fish or Old Maid cards for partner grouping.
What are your favorite ways to group or partner students? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook! Plus, get our tips for classroom management, according to the wonderful Mary Poppins.

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13 Clever Ways to Pick Student Partners or Groups

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It should be easy to partner up students or put them in groups, right? Well yes, yes it should. But any teacher who has been in the classroom knows that's not always the case. To make the process fun, easy, and as pain free as possible, we put together our favorite ideas for choosing partners and putting students into groups.

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Clapping out syllables of vocabulary words while saying them helps students remember multisyllabic words.

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Clap It Out - Learn Syllables | Songs For Kids | Dance Along | GoNoodle

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Learning new vocabulary involves learning a word and it's meaning(s). When children learn new vocabulary words, this furthers their word knowledge, helping them grow as readers. Reading requires both the ability to decode words as well as understanding what is being read. When a child continues to learn new vocabulary, this helps them recognize the words as they decode them and gives them an understanding of the word's meaning (Silverman & Hartranft, 2015, p. 3).

There are different strategies to help your child learn new vocabulary, two ways to help children learn new words is through reading and conversation (Reading Rockets). This blog post will address how you can use both to help your child's vocabulary grow!

Storytime is a great opportunity to introduce new words. This can be done before, during, and after the story. If you are able to read the story ahead of time, you can choose several wordstointroduce. These words can be chosen based on the story's topic and how the word affects the child's understanding of the story.

(Silverman & Hartranft, 2015, p. 59)

During the reading, briefly point out the words that were introduced as they occur in the story.

After the reading, revisit the words so that the child can continue to develop their understanding of the word (Silverman & Hartranft, 2015, p. 62). This can be done through conversation. For example, if the story being read is about a butterfly and you introduced the word, caterpillar, you could revisit this word by asking, "What was that creepy crawler in the story?" If the child needs further reinforcement, use illustrations, hand motions, and supporting words to prod their memory. Hand motions, illustrations, and conversations can also help the child understand the context of the word. When a child begins to understand the context in which a word is used, this helps them understand how they can use the word (Reutzel & Cooter, 2008, p. 208).

After having taught the child some new words, try and remember to keep using them in conversation throughout the day so that the child continues to receive exposure (Reading Rockets).

Make learning active! A fun way to make vocabulary learning active is by creating hand motions to help represent the word and its meaning. For example, if the story being read is about butterfly stages and the word caterpillar has been introduced, you could represent the caterpillar by inching your finger along. After the story, act out the words together. You can extend this activity by playing a game like charades where you or the child acts out a particular word and each person takes turns guessing the vocabulary word (Silverman & Hartranft, 2015, p. 105).

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Teaching Vocabulary - Cultivating Literacy

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Learning new vocabulary involves learning a word and it's meaning(s). When children learn new vocabulary words, this furthers their word knowledge, helping them grow as readers. Reading requires both the ability to decode words as well as understanding what is being read.

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Choose Vocabulary Words with Intentionality

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8 Mathmatical Practice whole group cards

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Language Interaction cards (Academic discourse sentence starter)