Picture books in middle school? Absolutely! Discover how these treasures can captivate your students and make vocabulary lessons a breeze.

Ever thought picture books were just for little kids? Think again! In this exciting episode, former elementary teacher and current consultant Liz shares her passion for read-aloud time and how it became a powerful tool for vocabulary instruction. Imagine your students' eyes lighting up as they connect new words to stories they love, all while you seamlessly integrate vocabulary into your daily routine. Ready to transform your classroom?

In our chat, Liz reveals her top three picture books that not only enrich vocabulary but also teach valuable life lessons. From Peter H. Reynolds' beloved The Word Collector to Stacey Abrams' inspiring Stacey's Extraordinary Words, and the whimsical Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon, these books will become your new classroom favorites. Plus, Liz offers practical tips on choosing the perfect words and activities to keep your students engaged and learning all year long.

Don't miss this episode packed with actionable strategies and heartwarming anecdotes. Tune in now and discover how to make vocabulary instruction the highlight of your ELA class. Let’s bring the magic of picture books to your students!

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More episodes on vocabulary:

25. Seven Tools for Powerful Vocabulary Instruction & How to Use Them

24. Liz Puma from Vocabulicious: How to Create a Word Conscious Community of Learners in Upper Grades

23. Four Tips for Creating a Rich Verbal Environment

22. The Problem with Teaching Context Clues and How to Fix It

21. Vocabulary Instruction: How to Help Students Make Meaning

Follow along on Instagram @annotatedela

Melissa 0:00

Hi, Liz, I'm so happy to have you here today. How are you doing?

Liz 0:04

Hey, Melissa, I'm great. How are you?

Melissa 0:06

Good, thank you. So you are here to talk all things vocabulary. What got you into focusing on vocabulary instruction with your students?

Liz 0:15

Melissa 1:23

I think that's so great. Vocabulary is so overlooked. It's easy just to focus on the reading and writing, and while there's vocabulary in there, we might touch on the actual direct instruction of vocabulary, it's easy to overlook and keep moving with all the demands on teachers time. So that's wonderful to have one stop shop to go to and find vocabulary help.

Liz 1:43

So true. And I really just realized that it doesn't have to be hard. It can, you know, you can just start with simple activities. You can find a lot of good word lists online, and really just choosing words that are actually relevant for kids and words that they'll use again, was kind of like a mind blown moment like, oh, okay, I don't have to be teaching, you know, tier three science vocabulary. Every time I'm teaching, vocabulary can be just simple words that they're going to use in everyday conversations.

Melissa 2:10

That's so true. That's something else we get caught up in, that we're making it harder than it needs to be, and trying to find all these difficult words that matter to the content that may not matter to them in everyday class and outside of school. So that's a really good point. You've mentioned using picture books before. What got you into using picture books to teach vocabulary with your students?

Liz 2:32

Read aloud Time was always my favorite time of day with my students. I'm no longer a teacher. I'm now a consultant, but back when I did teach elementary school that was like the best 20 to 30 minutes of our day. And at the time, picture books for upper elementary were kind of becoming like a hot thing. Now it's even moved into picture books for middle school, which is great. So yeah, just like, really, that was a time I really loved anyway, and I just felt like I already was doing that really well, so why not add this vocabulary challenge, personal challenge, to my read aloud? Time to just really make it a whole good experience for the kids. It just felt more focused that way. I could choose a word from the book. Keep it simple. Keep the kids engaged with the story. Have them make connections to the book in the word. So it's just a nice way to to dip my toes into teaching vocabulary, and that makes sense, and it keeps your the kids focused too.

Melissa 3:31

I mean, it makes your planning so much easier. But then they have an anchor place for that word, a story to help them remember it, considering that we're getting ready, or some people might already be in back to school season. Do you have three or a few favorite picture books that you liked to use at the beginning of the year to kick off your vocabulary time and reading time?

Liz 3:52

I absolutely do. I it was hard to choose only three for this conversation, so I have lots more in my back pocket, but the three that I chose are going to be good ones, I think. And you've probably heard of a few of them, and maybe not, maybe not the third, typically in the beginning of the year, I know for upper elementary at least, people suggest reading aloud, maybe a book a day, a new picture book a day, or several in a week. But again, I just want to reiterate, like, keep it simple. It the goal of the vocabulary instruction that you should be doing in your classroom, in general, is helping kids to develop a deep knowledge on each word, not just trying to teach a large quantity of words just to check a box. I personally would only choose one word per picture book when I when I taught, but now, as I'm making resources for teachers, I realize that there's some really high demands on y'all. So I usually suggest three words per picture book. When I make resources to for my blog or to sell, I would say, don't worry about more than three words in the picture book, because you do too many. And then that's it's so distracting that the kids don't hear the story you're reading. So the three that I have today to share two of two of the books are have some great vocabulary in them, but are actually about kids who love words. Because I think the most important thing when you're teaching vocabulary, it can be a pretty boring and dry topic for everyone involved. But if you make it exciting, and you get excited about teaching new words and learning new words, so will the kids.

Liz 5:29

Two of the books are the word collector by Peter H Reynolds. He's by by far, my favorite children's book author. He actually retweeted me once on Twitter, and it was like I felt so, felt like famous for a day that Peter H Reynolds knew I was alive. That's the cutest book. Most people have heard of that one. Most people own that one. So I did want to choose that one because it's one you probably already have on your shelf, or if you don't, you're familiar with him as an author. Another one that's kind of on the same theme, but a newer book, and great to add some diversity to your characters that you're reading too, is Stacy's extraordinary words, and that's by Stacey Abrams. She's an activist and political figure, and she's really inspirational, similar to Jerome and the word collector, Stacey collects words and has a whole word notebook, and she's actually part of a spelling bee. Kind of teaches perseverance. And you know, when you don't win the spelling bee, we try again for next year. And then the third book is not related to words at all, but it's just a fun story. And it's Ralph tells a story by Abby Hanlon. And I was actually just reading her bio this morning when I was when I pulled the book out and she this was her first picture book she ever wrote. She used to be a first grade teacher in New York City, so I love that. I think that's like such an important thing to know about. Some of these authors. In Ralph tells a story. There isn't necessarily high level vocabulary, but you can, I would always come up with, like, character traits of the characters. And Ralph's a really interesting, a really cute, personality filled kid that you can come up with some good character traits for him, but basically it just talks about, as writers, you don't have to have the most exciting, detail filled story to tell a story. You really just need to tell about one small moment. And it could be a small moment like brushing your teeth, or, in Ralph's case, an inch worm climbing on his leg at the park. If you tell a story write, it can be about a very simple topic, and it's just a really nice message for kids, and especially for boys who are apprehensive to write.

Melissa 7:31

I think those are great choices. And I wanted to circle back for a minute to a couple of things that you said. One is that you also liked to pick character traits of the characters to use as vocabulary words. And I think that's really important, that it doesn't necessarily have to be words that are in the book that you're teaching, especially as a middle school teacher, because I came today too with some books for middle school teachers to use, picture books, but my choices, none of them are about actual words in the book, but about our content area and unit themes and what we might be learning. So when you brought up Ralph tells a story as a great way to teach what we call exploding that small moment in your story, it would be a really great way to teach how to write narrative, and maybe some of those words that go with writing a narrative. So I'm glad you brought that up, because we can get stuck in well, this book isn't going to work because there's no high level actual words in the story. But it doesn't necessarily have to be words in the story.

Liz 8:27

Absolutely, and more times than not, when I would choose a word related to the picture book, I would call it the word of the week, it was almost always not a word from the story, because of that, it was more like around the theme of the story than it was a word from the story. So great point, Melissa, like you don't let that be a barrier to you when you're intentionally planning your read aloud. Don't skip over a book just because it doesn't have high level vocabulary, like you can use a different word, but just relate it to that the book's theme or the character.

Melissa 8:59

Absolutely, in seventh grade, we used a bad case of stripes this year for them to be able to plot out, you know, how a narrative flows, and do a plot diagram. We also really love the Bernstein bears when we do that, along with vocabulary words. So I think that, like you said, intentionally picking your picture book and not worrying about if a word is inside of it, just using it for what your unit is and how it can all tie everything together

Liz 9:25

Absolutely. And I think too, I really focused on one picture book a week. Maybe you could do two a week if, if you're really proficient with your read aloud time, but because I would go back to it, we would reread sections of the book later in the week, we would for Stacy's extraordinary words. I connected it to growth mindset, for perseverance, for Ralph tells a story like you already kind of alluded to. I would bring it up during writing time, because it was all about that personal narrative in the small moment, both the words you teach and also the books you're reading shouldn't be one offs or one and dones. You should really be coming back to those hopefully, at least at the end of the week, if not later in the year, too.

Absolutely. And I know, you know, for us middle school teachers, when we're doing that, that's our mentor text, and so it's so much easier for kids to digest that. So when you're coming back to author's craft, like you said when you were talking about, you know, narrative technique with a personal narrative, and for us memoirs, they would write stuff in their notebooks, we would read passages that seemed powerful or that captured some sort of Writer's Craft that they could then emulate. And whether that's nonfiction, because there are some great nonfiction picture books that kids can use when they're writing informational text. So it doesn't just always have to be about narrative, but I agree it really should encompass everything you're doing, and I think that's mind blowing for secondary teachers, because we're so used to short stories and novels, which they need, because we have to build that like reading stamina and endurance, but sometimes just giving them a picture book and something easily digestible that you focus on for a week helps them like you said, it's all about learning, actually learning it and taking it in and not just checking boxes.

Yep. And it makes the world of a difference, especially for students, especially at middle school level. When students are below grade level and maybe the novel you're reading in class, you know, you're scaffolding the novel and helping them through it, but it's really hard for them. Well, they see a picture book show up in class that day, and it's like, Whew, okay, yeah, I can do this. And all of a sudden they're way more engaged.

Yeah, they can feel successful. So we've kind of touched on it, but what are like the top three or four benefits you think to using picture books as opposed to something else to teach vocabulary?

Well, I think there's a lot of benefits to it, and I did use picture books all year long to teach vocabulary, but I do just want to state the obvious, like you should be teaching vocabulary more than just during read aloud time, but it is a really easy way to kick off vocabulary instruction and to really just dip your toe in. If you're like me, and you haven't even started vocabulary teaching, that's okay. So some benefits would be the obvious one, kids love read aloud time, even in middle school, their their parents aren't reading to them anymore, or maybe they never did. They just love it. They're more engaged. They're actively participating. You're hopefully picking books that are funny and, you know, have good stories. So that would be one. It's an easy way to expose kids to new words in a meaningful context, where you know the words, if you're choosing words from the book, or even the theme of the book, you know they're seeing it used in context like, oh, okay, that's that's how I relate this word to other words I know, or just other stories. And I think most important of anything you do with word learning and with read aloud too is getting kids talking, whether they're talking about the story, they're talking about the new word, they're using the new word in conversation. That is really the golden ticket with any type of word learn, word learning and vocabulary teaching, absolutely, and I was going to say, especially at the beginning of the year when you said that read aloud is a great way to kick off vocabulary instruction. It would be a really great way for the students to get into a routine as well, if you start vocabulary instruction during that time and then expand it into other areas as the year goes on. But that's something that becomes a routine from them from the very start, exactly, and they have, because at least in my classroom, read aloud time was like the I never skipped it. It was always like the sacred time. And by upper elementary and middle school, like they know how to act during read aloud, because they've done it now for many years, because you're kicking off vocabulary teaching during read aloud and read aloud time is a time that hopefully everybody loves. It's giving them, like, good vibes and good memories about learning new words, so that when you start to teach new words in more advanced subject areas, they're not so scared away, and it doesn't seem so daunting, because, like, Oh, I've already done this activity with a with a word from the word collector last week. So when I'm now in science class and learning this really complex vocabulary word, I already, at least know how to do the activity in front of me, so it's not, not so scary.

That's a good point. You just said, I've already done this activity. So keeping your activities the same, like, just because it's not read aloud time, it's science time, doesn't mean that the activity or the template or whatever they're using has to be different. There's no need to make a new way to learn the word. You're just learning it somewhere else in the same way. And I think that's powerful, especially in secondary if, as ELA teachers, we can get our other content area teachers to kind of use the same graphic organizers and templates that's going to make everyone's lives so much easier.

100% if you happen to listen to my podcast episode with Melissa last fall, I think it launched in September. She I was explaining this whole, you know, use the same activities over and over, and she should trademark the phrase. She's like, Oh yeah, that's what I call rinse and repeat activity, and now I've totally been using that on my blog and in my, you know, messaging. So thanks to Melissa for that term, but that's exactly what we're talking about here. Is choosing say a handful of vocabulary activities that you rinse and repeat all year. I would start by kicking them off with the words we learned and read aloud, but you could kick them off in a different way, and that way, when they see think pair, share or list, group, label, they know what to do by week three. By the time you're doing it, it's a lot quicker than when you're explaining the directions for each new activity every time that just takes up too much time. So it's just way more efficient and helps build a routine.

Absolutely and I think that they're not trying to learn the new activity. They're focused on learning the words, and that is where you're really going to get that big bang for your buck, like go slow to go fast in the beginning, teach all the different rinse and repeat activities that you're going to use as you use them. And then, like you said, By week three or week four, they're ready to go. You're just introducing the word, and then they can take it and run with it. And that makes it easy for our planning purposes.

At the beginning of the year, if you get them going, then when you're planning and doing other things, it's so much easier just to be like, they already know how to do this. I'll plug this in, or, you know, we kind of need an easy day. I'll plug this one in, because they know what they're doing, and that is so helpful, I think too, just on that, on that note of we could talk all day about this, but about building a routine like you. It can be as well oiled or not as you want it to be. Like I got it to the point where on Monday, we would do word Web. On Tuesday, we would do think pair share. On Wednesday, we would do another activity. Then by Friday, they're right, they're using the word in writing, and they knew that over and over each week. So they would come in, you know, Wednesday morning, they knew exactly what page we're on in our vocab notebooks, exactly what we're working on. And it's just so much faster and more efficient, because I know vocabulary, like we said at the very beginning, it always feels like an extra thing, but if it only takes five to 10 minutes because they're already kind of oiled to know what to do each day, it just makes it a lot less overwhelming for you.

Yeah, so, so helpful. And I think for secondary teachers. You know, we may not be able to do it every day, but I know, like, if you pick a day of a week, just one day a week, depending on what your schedule looks like. You know, Monday is vocab day, and we're going to review it, and of course, we're going to touch on it throughout our other lessons, because depending on how you structure your class time in the secondary classroom, you can have them roll in with vocabulary the same way. And it's just beneficial for everyone,

Definitely, definitely, and I think too, just the whole theme of this conversation before we move on to the middle school picture books. Like, I'm promoting one word a week, Melissa's promoting one day a week. Like, you just need to find what works for you and keep it simple and then just rinse and repeat it. It doesn't have to be this whole rocket science curriculum for vocabulary, you can really just pick a good word list and a relevant word list and run with it.

Absolutely, absolutely. I know that we've done it as like Bell work. Bell Ringer work for them once they get going, and then we do use it. We're continuing to bring it up and we're using it, but the work can be done in 10 minutes once you have them going. So I think that's really important. I'll just mention my books quickly, but I do want to get to when I'm done. How you keep those words that you might teach at the beginning of the year? Since we're talking about kicking off beginning of the year, how do you keep those words going all year long in the classroom, I would even before I mentioned my books, I would like to talk about that, because I think that's important. So okay, great. We're kicking it off at the beginning of the year. How do I keep that word relevant all year long?

This is really hard, and this took some time for me to really figure out, and it does take some legwork for you, because you have to keep organized about what words you've taught and keep them, you know, recorded or collected in a certain way. To me, I really leaned on the word wall for the most part. I didn't refresh my word wall because, again, I'm only, I'm only teaching a handful of words a week, maybe three. The word wall didn't fill up too quickly, and it made it a little more digestible when they would look up there. So my first tip would be, use a word wall if you have the space, and keep it organized and neat and refer back to those words that are hanging on the word wall. Don't just leave them to collect dust. And number two, provide kids with a way to collect words and keep a record of words, whether it's the words you learn as a class, or words they collect on their own through their independent reading, or just, you know, fun words they've come across. Whether you want to do a binder, an interactive notebook, I've had teachers that, you know, want to keep it paperless and they keep do. A digital Google slide notebook, just like Melissa said, I wrote it down because I love the term go slow at the beginning of the year to then go fast later. It's going to take some time to set these things up, but once you do, they're going to be so trained to go write down this new word in their notebook, or go open the Google slides to add it, that it's just an easy way, and then they they have that as like their own personal dictionary all year to refer back to. But I think the main thing is that you as a teacher, don't teach so many words that you forget to wrap back around to them later on in the year. You've got to keep it simple and and remember the words you teach and keep them relevant, to keep bringing them up in conversation

Absolutely, once they're trained, it becomes a habit for them, so they'll be noticing words without it being any work for them anymore at all, which is, ultimately where you want them to be, is they're picking up new words and tracking it for themselves, so that you don't have to teach so many, like you said, one a week is plenty for them to be able to remember and take it in. And then once they're loving words, they'll find more that they can add to their own little dictionary, and you don't have to have that on the word wall for them. So I think that's important.

And as you're going down through the year and adding more words to everyone's repertoire, there's just naturally the way that words work. There's gonna be a lot of words that are connected to each other and that mean have similar meanings. So start to explicitly make those connections for kids and help them realize, like, Oh, these five words we've learned throughout the last six months are actually all connected, and that just really helps them remember a larger number of words than choosing words that are unrelated, right? Which could always be an activity as the word wall list grows, and then their list in their notebook grows, just categorizing, get in groups and categorize the words we've learned, what goes together, what has similar meanings, what doesn't, depending on how high level your groups are.

So that just lends itself to other rinse and repeat activities, and as a shout out for secondary teachers, what I think upper elementary, most of my rinse and repeat activities came from Jan Jana Allen's book, Words, Words, Words. I've even made some of them like quizzes or assessments. So check that book out, for sure, because that saved my life when creating templates,

Me too. And honestly, it's an oldie, but goodie. It's still so helpful. And she was one of the people when I was so overwhelmed with, you know, the professional development books and trainings and all that stuff, she was one of the people that I felt like her books are super clear and just such simple tips and the reasons why each activity or worksheet is relevant. She's a great person to follow. Absolutely she does make it very digestible. It's not like this long, drawn out chapter about each template. It's here's how you might want to use it, here's why it's useful, and here it is. And that made it so easy to dig it and then take action. Definitely a good one, and I think we kind of touched on this, but just helping kids use that vocabulary outside of the classroom, right? That's ultimately where we want them using it. Do you have any tips we haven't mentioned about how they can continue to expand outside of our four walls when they're in class with us? Well, again, just wrapping back to using words, choosing to teach words that are relevant to their lives, that they're they'll naturally start to use more in conversation. So obviously, like high level scientific words are not in like character traits, like I would come, you know, a kid will come in from from recess or whatever, and say, you know, so and so is being so menacing at recess because he was just picking on people like, oh, okay, I guess they picked up that word Off, off the read aloud from three weeks ago. So using words that are just natural to them to use in conversation, but also like, give them explicit opportunities to to interact with these words. I know homework isn't always something that people do anymore, but for instance, like for at home, maybe you do like a word writing prompt of the week. I would do like a little short response writing prompt, and it would always be related to the Word of the Week. Ask a friend or have a parent help you, or if you're feeling comfortable with the word, you don't need help, and write a little story about themed around this word, or a character that's related to this word, or how this word relates to your life, and just again, making connections. And the more exposure to the Word and the more practice, the better.

I think so too. And I mean, I know, for me, middle schoolers are so apathetic that homework makes me want to, like, hide under the covers, because even getting them to do something in class, but something that works well is making it a competition for them, like they love gamifying and competition. So a lot of times it would be all right. Here's, you know, we're working on this writing unit, highlight any of our vocab words, and the person with the most properly and correctly used vocab words could win a prize or whatever, and then they're really all about trying to use that in their writing. And I think we definitely want words that they're gonna use. But with the older kids, I like to throw in some fun ones, like we just read the crossover, and one of the poems in the crossover is called pelchritudinous, and it means beautiful. And they learned that, and they could not stop using that word because it sounds so gross, but it means a woman who or a person who's beautiful. So I think sometimes just throwing in some fun over the top words keeps the fun in vocabulary.

I love that idea.

That's a yes, makes it exciting for them. And I mean, Liz is full of good stuff, but she did ask me to come with three books for middle school. So I did, and actually I only came with two, and then two authors that I really love, because I couldn't pick books from these two authors, but a bad case of stripes by David Shannon. I was actually reading reviews this morning. I hadn't ever read them. People are horrified by this book, like they're like, don't read it. It's so terrifying. Little kids should never read this book, but I love using it at the beginning of the year, a, because we usually work on narrative. But B, it's about belonging and self esteem and confidence. And Liz brought up that read aloud, time was so sacred, and I think that it's really important in any grade to build that community all through the year, but really make it clear what that is at the beginning. So I like to read that at the beginning of the year for community building. It teaches cause effect, character traits, plot elements, all the things. And then at the beginning of the year. I also like to read each kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, yes, you know. And there's also the invisible boy. Just those are some really good ones. And yes, my middle schoolers, especially at the beginning of the year, are like, we're too cool for this. They're really not. And if I just get through it and I'm silly with them, they've been asking me to read. We read. They're like, Miss Burch, we haven't read any picture books in a while. Are you going to read us some more picture books, so get over their coolness and just do it. And then I think any Patricia palaco or Eve bunting book, oh my gosh, those books are so deep on so many levels. The symbolism in them, while they can be for younger audiences, I think they're really great for the older kids too. So those are two authors that are kind of go tos in my classroom.

So I love those three great choices. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just to kind of reiterate what we're talking about about that the words don't have to show up in the book for them to be the word of the book, or the word of the day, the word of the week, whatever you want to call it. When Melissa was just talking about plot elements or different literary elements like that could be, that could be the word of the book, is the plot element or the theme of the book. Like, don't overthink it.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. This is how, at the beginning of the year I teach theme, like, theme is one of our words at the beginning of the year. I even used community, because, being at the upper level, we make our own class rules together. They come up with a class name like, I really want them to feel like they're in this together, and so community is one of our words. What does community mean to you? It's the connotation for you, because then we can talk about connotation. There's just so many ways that you can be teaching vocabulary, and it doesn't have to be in the book. So the sky is the limit.

Exactly once you get going and you realize different themes and different ways to mix in new, new vocabulary words, like, like most is saying, then, then you're off and running, and you'll, you'll be like, Oh, is this easy the whole time? Give me because it becomes habit.

Yeah, yes. I was just gonna say, keep it simple. But it becomes habit for you as the teacher, too, but you have to make it simple enough to get started. So I think that's the number one tip. Keep it simple,especially for back to school season.

Yes, absolutely, because it's so overwhelming. I mean, and even throughout the year, we all have the ebbs and flows where it gets crazy and vocab instruction might be like, Oh my gosh, I don't have time for this, but if you can keep it simple from the beginning, you'll be able to fit it in through all of the stress and the ups and downs of the school year.

100%

Anything else you want to leave the listeners with before we go?

Really, the whole message here is be intentional with the read aloud that you pick. Don't just pick a random book off the shelf. Know where you're going to stop. Know what the theme of the book is. Have vocabulary words picked out if you're going to relate them to some of your rinse and repeat activities. Have those ready to go and printed. And don't choose too many words from the book, because then that takes away from the story and the message of the story, and it gets confusing, so be intentional, but keep it simple.

That's right. Liz, where can they find you? Because you have so many great resources that they could use to get started.

So my blog is probably the first place to start, and that's vocab ulicious. Like Delicious.com and from there, I also have a teacher's pay teacher shop, which has a lot of my resources available. And also on Instagram, I am at vocabulary, underscore Liz, and I also have a Pinterest page. If you search vocabulary, you'll find me there as well.

And all of those links will be in the show notes. So go check it out, especially if you want to get started, there's some done for you, activities that can kick off everything for you. So definitely check Liz out and Liz, thank you so much for being here. I always love talking to you.

Thank you. You're so welcome. Always a pleasure.