Which of the following instructional strategies would be most beneficial when providing Tier Two vocabulary instruction to a group of struggling readers?

Did you know that typically, only 5% to 10% of instructional time is devoted to vocabulary instruction, yet students, especially struggling students and English learners (ELs), need between 12 and 14 exposures to words and their meanings to fully learn them (Durkin, 1978/79; Roser & Juel, 1982; Scott, Jamieson, Noel, & Asslin, 2003)? Teaching the meanings of important words before learning new content activates students' background knowledge and prepares them for learning and comprehending. In other words, teaching vocabulary provides the “Velcro” for new information to “stick to.”

What Research Says About Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary instruction must be explicit. Explicit vocabulary instruction includes an easy-to-understand definition presented directly to students along with multiple examples and nonexamples of the target word, brief discussion opportunities, and checks for understanding.

Vocabulary instruction must include multiple practice opportunities for using words within and across subjects. That is, instruction must be extended over time with opportunities for students to hear, speak, read, and write words in various contexts. This builds students’ breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge.

Vocabulary should be taught schoolwide and across all subject areas. Each subject has a unique set of vocabulary terms, and students need to know their meanings and how to use them in various contexts.

Word Selection

Instructional time is precious, and teachers are not able to address every unknown word students might encounter, so careful word selection is key. When deciding which words to target for explicit instruction, consider words that are

• essential to understanding the main idea of the text or unit,
• used repeatedly or frequently encountered across domains, and
• not part of students’ prior knowledge.

ELs may require even more careful word selection and extensive vocabulary instruction because they may be learning conversational language and academic language at the same time. Colorín Colorado provides additional information about selecting vocabulary words to teach ELs.

Some of Our Favorite Vocabulary Instructional Activities for ALL Content Areas

The five activities described below are effective ways to teach vocabulary for all students, but especially for struggling students, students with learning disabilities, and ELs.

1. Essential Words Routine

Teachers use a simple graphic organizer to preteach the meanings of important words in about 5 minutes per word. During this routine, teachers introduce target words with definitions, visual cues, and examples. Students engage in immediate practice using the words through collaborative student turn-and-talk activities.

Resources

One way to have students extend their knowledge of important words is through a Frayer model. This graphic organizer builds vocabulary and conceptual knowledge across content areas. The strategy requires students (not the teacher) to define a vocabulary word and then list its characteristics, examples, and nonexamples. Frayer models can be completed in collaborative groups using textbooks and other subject-matter materials while the teacher circulates around the classroom and assists students.

Resource

Online module, examples, and templates from the IRIS Center

Semantic maps visually display and connect a word or phrase and a set of related words or concepts. Implementing semantic map activities in your classroom will help students, especially struggling students and students with learning disabilities, recall the meanings of words and understand how multiple words or concepts “fit together.” Teachers will find that using a semantic map, combined with explicit instruction and practice opportunities, is an effective way of expanding students’ vocabulary and supporting their content knowledge.

Resources

Multiple opportunities to practice using new words is an important part of vocabulary instruction. In previous TCLD research studies, brief review activities were built into novel unit lesson plans to help students practice (and remember) the meanings of important words. Each of these activities takes 5 to 10 minutes and is easy to prepare.

• Partner Review Routine: Partners work together to quickly review words learned the previous day.
• Sentence Review Routine: Partners create sentences using words assigned by the teacher.
• Examples and Nonexamples: The teacher tells students scenarios or shows pictures and students respond chorally to each scenario, indicating whether it is an example or nonexample.
• What Word Fits? The teacher asks a question and student partners hold up an index card with the word that fits or answers the question.

Each activity is described in more detail beginning on page 33 of the TCLD booklet Reading Instruction for Middle School Students: Developing Lessons for Improving Comprehension

Explicit instruction of words is important, but it is impossible to teach all the unfamiliar words students will encounter. One way to help students develop strategies for approaching unfamiliar vocabulary is to teach morphemes (prefixes, roots, and suffixes). Students can be taught the following morphemic analysis routine to help them engage in independent word study.

Resource

Learn more about the morphemic analysis routine by reviewing this online learning module from the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies.

Have questions? Feel free to drop us a line!

Once a student has learned the alphabetic code, their vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. But how do we know which words to teach our students? And what is the best way to teach these words? Choosing rich vocabulary for instruction, preplanning vocabulary routines, and creating a vocabulary-rich classroom are all research-based ways to promote student vocabulary development.

Choosing Words for Instruction

It is impossible to directly teach all the vocabulary words that a student needs to learn in their academic career. So, we must be intentional about the words we teach directly, the words students encounter incidentally, and the skills we teach for learning vocabulary independently.

Research supports the idea that we can explicitly teach about 10 to 12 words per week and about three to five words per text. These are the words we teach in depth. Often called Tier 2 words, they share these characteristics:

• Students don’t already know them
• They are critical for understanding the central themes and main ideas in the text
• They are likely to come up in other books, subjects, grade levels, etc.
• They are difficult to learn from context and require more than a brief explanation

Each Voyager Passport® Read to Understand lesson includes three Tier 2 vocabulary words that are explicitly taught before reading.

In contrast to words we teach deeply, we can teach many other words quickly by giving a synonym, a quick definition, or an example. We don’t need to spend valuable instructional time on these words, but it is worth a brief explanation to help expand our students’ vocabulary breadth. Dr. Nancy Hennessy, in her book The Reading Comprehension Blueprint, calls this teaching style “incidentally-on-purpose” and I love the intentionality of that phrase!

As the demands for reading to learn increase, students will inevitably encounter new vocabulary in their independent reading. To support this, we can teach students to self-monitor for unknown words, and we can teach strategies for inferring their meanings. These strategies will serve our students long after they leave our classroom. They include:

• Modeling how to look for context clues, such as synonyms, antonyms, definitions, or examples, that give clues to a word’s meaning
• Modeling how to look for morphemes (prefixes, suffixes, and root words) that hint at a word’s meaning
• Teaching students how to look up words in physical or online dictionaries for times when context isn’t enough

Before reading in a Voyager Passport Read to Understand lesson, a student has identified the syllables and morphemes in their vocabulary words.

Planning for Instruction

Quality vocabulary instruction requires teachers to preplan the vocabulary words they will teach from the specific texts they are using in their classroom. When teaching words explicitly, a vocabulary routine is a helpful way for teachers to plan and deliver instruction. The routine below is one that I have adapted from my LETRS® training. You can find a copy to edit here.

Explicit Vocabulary Routine:

1. Pronounce it, write it, read it.
   • Call attention to the word’s pronunciation and spelling. Have students pronounce and write the word too. Check student pronunciation. Point out relevant regular and irregular spelling patterns and syllable types in the word.
2. Give a student-friendly definition.
   • Give a definition using words that your students will understand. Use concrete examples, pictures, videos, and gestures. Explain the word’s connection to other words. Point out any helpful morphemes.
3. Say more about the word.
   • Use the word in sentences. Explain any multiple meanings. Discuss the word’s part of speech and how to use the word in sentences. Give examples and nonexamples.
4. Ask students yes or no questions about the word.
5. Have students use the word.
   • Support students with sentence stems and questions. Have students talk with a partner and write, when possible.

The view of a student journal during whole-group explicit vocabulary instruction.

A student writes and pronounces vocabulary words during a Voyager Passport Read to Understand lesson.

Vocabulary sentences are included in a Voyager Passport Adventure Checkpoint.

A Vocabulary-Rich Classroom

Students need multiple exposures to words before they truly own them, so the importance of a vocabulary-rich classroom cannot be overlooked. To close out this post, I will share some of my favorite ways to boost vocabulary use in an elementary classroom.

• Be intentional about the words you use when speaking to students. When giving directions, use specific words and include rich vocabulary. Then rephrase the directions in simpler terms. Go ahead and use those fancy words when you talk to students. Then stop and ask them if they know what the word means. Compliment your students when they use fancy words in their speech and writing.
• Be thoughtful about students who struggle to decode words so you can provide them with opportunities to hear rich vocabulary. These students deserve opportunities to grow their vocabulary even if they can’t do it through independent reading (yet!). Incorporate read alouds, audiobooks, and podcasts into your classroom. Let students listen to books during independent reading times.
• Point out amazing vocabulary when you see it. Reuse vocabulary words often. I’ve made it a habit to wear a different vocabulary word on a lanyard every day. I challenge my students to use that word during the day and it reminds me to use it too.
• Incorporate vocabulary activities into other areas of instruction. When sorting words with a similar phonics pattern, ask students if they know the meaning of the words. Challenge them to sort the words by parts of speech. In science, have students classify or sort words based on their relationships. Or, have students create drawings, videos, or hand gestures to help remember key vocabulary. The vocabulary possibilities are truly endless.

I wear a different vocabulary word each day to encourage my students and myself to use rich vocabulary throughout the day.

References:
Hennessy, N. L. (2021). The reading comprehension blueprint: Helping students make meaning from text. Paul H. Brookes Publishing.

Moats, L. C., & Tolman, C. A. (2019). LETRS (3rd ed., Vol. 1). Voyager Sopris.

Such, C. (2021). The art and science of teaching primary reading. Corwin, a SAGE Publishing Company.

Hannah Irion-Frake

Hannah Irion-Frake is currently a third-grade public school teacher with more than 13 years of teaching experience in second and third grades. She is a graduate of Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell with master’s degrees in both reading and curriculum & instruction. She is LETRS trained and committed to spreading awareness about the science of reading. Irion-Frake shares actively about how she brings Structured Literacy practices into her own third-grade classroom on her Instagram account @readingwithmrsif and on Twitter @readingwithmsif. She is also an Epic! Master Teacher and Seesaw Certified Educator, bringing her love of reading and educational technology into her classroom. Irion-Frake lives in central Pennsylvania with her husband, also a teacher, and their three sons