Vocabulary Development
Recommendations
Institute of Educational Science Practice
Guide
Improving Adolescent Literacy:
Effective Classroom and Intervention
Practices
Recommendation
1: Provide explicit vocabulary
instruction.
- Dedicate a portion of regular classroom lessons to explicit vocabulary instruction.
- Provide repeated exposure to new words in multiple contexts, and allow sufficient practice sessions in vocabulary instruction.
- Give sufficient opportunities to use new vocabulary in a variety of contexts through activities such as discussion, writing, and extended reading.
- Provide students with strategies to make them independent vocabulary learners.
Four-Part Vocabulary Program
Michael Graves, The Vocabulary Book
- Providing rich and varied language experiences
- Teaching individual words
- Teaching word-learning strategies
- Fostering word consciousness
Five-Step Vocabulary Model Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey Word Wise and Content Rich
- Make it intentional: select words for instruction; use words and up-to-date website lists wisely
- Make it transparent: model word-solving and word-learning strategies for students
- Make it useable: offer learners the collaborative work and oral practice essential to understanding concepts
- Make it personal: give and monitor independent practice so students take ownership of words
- Make it a priority: create a schoolwide program for word learning