26 Word Association
Catherine Moen
Strategy Overview
- Word association is a fun activity that teachers can incorporate into their classrooms to support students’ vocabulary development. Teachers can model this game in many ways depending on what they are trying to focus on with their students.
- This activity is important because it allows students to share their vocabulary as well as learn new vocabulary words from their peers in the class.
- Word association can be used in the classroom during literacy block as a fun and engaging activity. Teachers can provide students with a word to start with and allow them to play from there. It opens the door for learning and sharing among students.
- “Word association games are a fantastic way to help students practice using their existing vocabulary and learn new English words” (Five Fun Word Association Games).
Strategy in Action
The teacher will have the students sit together either in a circle on the floor or at their seats. The teacher will then explain the game to the students. The teacher will tell the students that they will say a word and the first person will share the word that comes to their mind when they hear the word. For example, if the teacher starts by saying the word “game” the first student may say something like “win”. From there, each student will share a word based on the one they heard before. The teacher can intervene at any point to ask a student to share what their word means if it’s a word that other students may not know. Once all students have had a chance to share, the teacher can repeat the activity with a new word or have students play again with a partner or a small group so that students can practice more with their vocabulary.
Student Example
After participating in the whole group activity, a small group of students played word association on their own based on the text they were reading in class. The teacher provided the first word for the group, “rainforest”, since this was what their text was about. From there all students shared words.
Student 1: “Trees”
Student 2: “Canopy”
Student 3: “Can you give the definition of canopy?”
Student 2: “Of course. The canopy is an upper, dense layer of trees in the rainforest. It is where most of the wildlife lives in the rainforest.
Student 2: “Thanks for sharing”
Student 3: “You’re welcome”
The students then resume the game, repeating the process as necessary.
