Vocabulary is a challenge to all of us...students especially. Here is a great article. Courtesy Choice Literacy. Enjoy!

March 15, 2014 - Issue #374 If you are having trouble reading this newsletter, click here for a Web-based version. Reframing Despair To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.                                       Stephen Covey A budding third-grade scientist was required to record the status of trying to light a lightbulb. Here's what he and his partner recorded: Status: Can't get it to work . . . Status: Still can't get it to work yet. Status: Still trying to get it to work. Status: This stinks. Status: It just did a spark. Status: This stinks. Status: We did it! Yay! Special thanks to Choice Literacy contributor Michelle Kelly and her colleague Alicia for this gift in my inbox. The young scientists' status report is an accurate paraphrase of my own coaching, parenting, or teaching notes. In the second observation, I love how the word yet is included and then dropped after that point. By the fourth status report, things have started stinking, and despair that they'll never succeed sets in. Then there's a spark! Ah, but the spark dies quickly and it seems that all is forlorn. Of course, that's when the bulb lights up. Yay! Reframing despair as a "positive sign" instead of the "shape of things to come" is not only comforting, but true. When I'm working with teachers, I've learned to say "Good!" when they wail, "I can't do this anymore!" Then I follow up with, "If you've made it to this place of despair, you are already on your way out and you just don't know it yet." Each time they've looked at me like I was a little crazy, but I subscribe to musical artist Seal's belief that "We're never gonna survive unless we are a little crazy." When my crazy statement becomes sane reality over the course of weeks or months I hear back from them, "You know what? That was my breaking point. I had to get to despair so I could be here." And so another light ignites. This week we look at vocabulary instruction. Plus more as always -- enjoy! Heather Rader Contributor, Choice Literacy Heather Rader is an instructional coach in Washington State. Her Choice Literacy publications include the book Side by Side: Short Takes on Best Practice for Teachers & Literacy Leaders and the DVD On the Same Page. You can find her Coach to Coach blog at www.heatherrader.com. Free for All [For sneak peeks at our upcoming features, quotes and extra links,  follow Choice Literacy on Twitter: @ChoiceLiteracy or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChoiceLiteracy or Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/choiceliteracy/]   Here are two features from the archives on vocabulary instruction. Katie Doherty describes how she implemented a student-selected vocabulary program in her middle school classroom: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1502 Andrea Smith uses the Living Words activity to integrate word study, technology, and content literacy with her fourth graders: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=513 In a new podcast, Katie DiCesare talks about the word study program in her first-grade classroom: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1953 Pernille Ripp shares some lessons from her favorite mentors: http://pernillesripp.com/2014/02/16/lessons-from-my-mentors/    Franki Sibberson's new online course Text Complexity in Grades 3-5: Minilessons, Nonfiction Text Sets, and Independent Reading runs April 2 - 13. The course includes three webcasts, personal response from Franki, a DVD, Franki's newest book, and many print and video resources. For details on registering, click on the link below: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/workshops-detail.php?id=60