Y.A.L.P 10 Minute System – Part 2

Here’s how it works in my class:

If you imagine two 10th grade students, Karen is the tutor and Tom is being tutored. Karen is a weak, struggling student and Tom is on 10th grade level and has just begun working on “connectors”. We have a designated table at the corner of the English room for the sessions.

1) Karen welcomes Tom to the table.

2) Karen “quizzes” Tom on the pack of flashcards. Each flashcard has English on one side and Hebrew on the other. Karen knows all the answers because they are written on the side of the flashcard facing her.

3) Together they count how many words Tom knew and mark it in the tracking sheet, in column A (they write the date, too).  See sample tracking sheet here:

tracking sheet sample

4) Then they play with the flashcards. They match them to pictures, play “disappearing word”, Tic-Tac-Toe, bingo (with buttons!) and more.

5) Once again Karen quizzes Tom on the same words. This time they mark the results in column B. The result is almost always higher for column B and the kids enjoy seeing it in graphic form.

6) Part with a quick feedback exchange.

* Tom repeats the same process with his speech and language clinician during their weekly session.

** Every time Tom triples the number of words he knows, we give certificates as opposed to achieving a certain number of words known).

The kids love it!

3 thoughts on “Y.A.L.P 10 Minute System – Part 2”

  1. Hi Naomi,

    thank you for sharing your experience ! I am interested in vocabulary teaching and I’m always looking for new ways to help students learn words. I will certainly try the method you suggest. This strategy is perfectly compatible with the word cards my students already use to test each other. I especially like the idea of students working at their own pace and the possibility of personalizing the learning process. I wrote about ways to store vocabulary in this post
    http://themachinegoeson.blogspot.com/2010/12/vocabulary-challenge.html
    I will let you know how it works with my students.

    Daniela

  2. Daniela!
    So glad to “meet” you! Vocabulary is a topic close to my heart (one that is very diffiicult for my students) and I’m always interested to hear more ways to work on this topic! Different pupils have different learning styles and I need to have a lot of “tricks up my sleeve” in order to find what helps each one!
    WELCOME!

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