Teaching “Shades of Meaning” for Improved Vocabulary Development

This school year I have been focusing on teaching many of my students to use a greater variety of vocabulary in their spoken and written language through a multisensory strategy called “Shades of Meaning.” I picked up some paint swatches from the hardware store to demonstrate this concept. We took common or “weak” words and wrote them on the lightest shade of the swatches. Then we brainstormed similar words that grew in strength, intensity and meaning and wrote them on the darker shades. These visuals are an engaging and effective way to teach my students how to use an assortment of words when expressing ideas. We also had fun reading all the creative paint colors on the swatches and discussing why they thought the names were fitting. (We discovered that “fudgesicle” is a shade of brown and orange has shades named “roasted squash”and “apricot honey.” Who knew paint could be so delicious?! )

We took the paint swatches and cut them into pieces, mixing them up into a pile and then reassembling them as we continued to get more familiar with the various meanings of common words. We practiced using the words in sentence examples that reflected accurate usage of the word’s intensity (i.e., When differentiating between the words “happy,” “content” and “ecstatic,” we made sure to use the proper emotion to match the sentence example/situation: (“I am happy that we don’t have homework tonight.” “I am content after eating a delicious meal.” “I am ecstatic that we have a snow day!”)

We have also been using the cards to play a “Go Fish” style game that my big kids absolutely LOVE! We shuffle the cards well, then distribute seven cards to each player. First we look to see if we have any sets in our hand containing two or three of the cards that belong together (three cards were needed to complete each set.) Next, each player takes turns asking “Do you have a match for _______.” If another player has a word that belongs to that shade, they must give it to the player asking for it. If the player doesn’t have a match, the player asking must Go Fish—-although we decided a better phrase might be “Go Paint ” since we are working with paint chips. The player to get the most sets of matching paint swatches at the end of the session is declared the winner. This is a fun way to interact with the vocabulary and get multiple exposures to the words.

You can find tons of resources on the internet that provide examples of words that grow in intensity by Googling “shades of meaning.” Here are some of the references I used when creating my word sets. (There are also many great lists on Pinterest!)

k12reader.com,

spellingcity.com

readingrockets.org

This strategy can be tailored to fit the needs of younger students as well, depending on the complexity of vocabulary that you chose—and best of all, paint swatches are FREE! So make a visit to your local big box home improvement store and have fun picking out some great shades of meaning to use in your therapy room!