When middle school literature teacher Kathy Zimbaldi first pitched the idea of Vocabulary.com to her principal at St. Vincent de Paul School in Houston, TX, she was pretty sure the tool would bring meaningful word learning to the literature curriculum. What she didn't realize? It would also help her hack Summer Reading...and land her students a David-beats-Goliath feel good monthly leaderboard win. Continue reading...
Teachers: One of the best ways to motivate your students on Vocabulary.com is to show them evidence of their own success. But how do you define "success"? Set a goal. Here, we share eight strategies we've observed from real teachers using Vocabulary.com in their classrooms. The strategies can be used in schools and classrooms large and small, and range from goals for individual learners to leaderboards that put word learning in a national, and highly competitive, context. Continue reading...
There's no nice way to put it: as we reach the peak of temperature and humidity levels in much of the northern hemisphere, we all too often find ourselves confronted by things — and yes, people — who smell. And even if we'd like to turn up our nose, for once let's take a giant whiff. Or at least an etymological one. Continue reading...
The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which appears this weekend in all its thrilling spy story glory, might leave the non-nindoctrinated among us wondering: What does U.N.C.L.E. stand for? And why did the show's creators select that particular word? Continue reading...
Alphabet, Google's new parent company, has generated lots of business buzz this week. But the choice of "Alphabet" for the company's name is equally newsworthy. Not only does it signal a departure from Google's blandly descriptive naming style — Google Plus, Google Maps, Google Mail, and so on — but it also takes an imaginative flight away from geek-speak and toward a universe of names inspired by language and literature. Continue reading...
The words that and which point to something — which one? That one! Before a clause or phrase, a that clause goes with the flow, but a which clause starts with a pause. American English makes a big deal out of the distinction but British English doesn't, which may be why it's so dang confusing. Continue reading...
You're is short for "you are" and your shows ownership. If you're getting them mixed up, your secret is safe with us. Better yet, here's help! It's your secret. And now you're about to know more. See? Continue reading...
In an opinion piece in Education Week, research neuropsychologist Steven L. Miller argued that education technology should be used to close "30 million word gap." Its ability to personalize learning makes it faster than anything a teacher can do in a classroom, and with the gap ever-widening, speed is key. Continue reading...
In a rapid-response survey of candidates' vocabulary in the first GOP debate, broadcast last night on Fox News, Vocabulary.com analyzed the transcript to identify each candidate's most relevant vocabulary word. And the data-driven approach yielded some interesting results about the candidates' language use. Continue reading...
When English-language Scrabble champ Nigel Richards, who does not speak French, won a French-language Scrabble championship, analysts rushed to analyze how much memorization that actually entailed. Ben Zimmer explains that to get a full understanding of Richards' achievement, a simple counting of words in the dictionary only gives a partial picture. Continue reading...