Vocabulary Visits: Virtual Field Trips for Content Vocabulary Development

Blachowicz, C. L. Z. & Obrochota, C. (2005). Vocabulary visits: Virtual field trips for content
vocabulary development, The Reading Teacher, 59(3), 262-268.
Vocabulary is the foundation for all learning. Unfortunately, teachers everywhere are noticing a
significant lack of word knowledge and understanding in students. Knowing how beneficial field
trips can be for students, Blachwicz and Obrochta created Vocabulary Visits, virtual field trips
consisting of modeled reading, class discussions, and visual aids that can be used in any classroom.
Vocabulary development is increased by:
Read-alouds: Listening to books give students numerous opportunities to learn new
vocabulary and concepts. Whether its incidental or through scaffolding, research has
shown a significant increase in word knowledge by just sharing a story.
Active Learning: Students learn best when they hear, see, and do. By asking questions,
adding information, and encouraging student involvement students pay more attention
and begin making connections between new concepts or words with what they already
know.
Steps to a Vocabulary Visit:
Planning: Brainstorm for possible topics by browsing the standards, the human body,
weather, or recycling are just a few suggestions given in the article. Then consult with a
librarian to select at least five texts to the used during the Visits, varying in reading levels.
Once you have chosen your books, find a list of basic vocabulary you would like to focus
on by illustrating them on poster board.
Jump Start/First Write: Introduce the topic to the class and active prior knowledge by
asking students to talk with each other about what they might know. Then have each
student make a list of words they think are connected to the subject as a First Write.
Group Talk: Begin discussion by asking, What do you see? Use sticky notes to add their
responses (mainly significant words) to the previously mentioned poster illustration.
Brainstorm as a class for 5 to 10 minutes.
Reading & Thumbs Up: While reading aloud, ask students to give a thumbs up when they
hear or see words they are unfamiliar with. This reading should be similar to how a parent
might read to their child, stopping occasionally to clarify or question what is happening in
the story.
Follow-up: Leave the poster hanging in the classroom and further this unit with various
activities like word games or semantic sorting.
Final Write: After reading all five books, ask students to make a list of all the words they
can now connect with topic. Also an opportunity to evaluate how well the Visit went for
students and to see exactly what they learned.
Vocabulary Visits will most definitely be a part of my future classroom. Virtual field trips are a new
spin on the typical classroom vocabulary instruction, which is not only successful with improving
word knowledge but exciting for students too. Breaking it down step by step shows just how easy
it would be to implement in the classroom!