Frontloading

Frontloading is an interesting activity to use with students when working with vocabulary. Frontloading is basically a mini-lesson that teachers can do at the beginning of a lesson in order to discuss vocabulary. We know that students who know less than 95% of what they are reading really struggle to comprehend it. This is what frontloading helps to do -comprehension through the focus of vocabulary. 

Without knowing it, I have done frontloading activities in my field experience courses before doing guided reading lessons. This also includes just seeing how much students know already in order to effectively teach the lesson. When I did this in the past, I did not use one of the models that we have studied in this class -I just used chart paper and the guided reading books. Students seem to learn a lot through discussion, too, so I also directed the vocabulary mini-lesson around small-group discussion. In order for students to learn, they have to be able to chat. 

My thoughts?

I really like frontloading activities. I think they are straight forward and are pretty clear. However, I do not think these models should be relied upon so heavily or implemented as busy work, but I think they do really help with vocabulary and increased comprehension.