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The Reading Universe. To access the writing resources, select the taxonomy tab on the right side.  Scroll down to the bottom and select the plus sign to expand the writing tab.

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The Reading Universe. To access the writing resources, select the taxonomy tab on the right side.  Scroll down to the bottom and select the plus sign to expand the writing tab.

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Reading Universe: All About Reading and Writing

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Explore ready-to-use teaching strategies, resources, and concrete answers to common questions about teaching reading and writing -- developed by experts.

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Reading and Writing SOS: William Van Cleave. 

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Reading and Writing SOS: William Van Cleave. 

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Reading and Writing SOS: Expert Answers to Family Questions

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In this special Reading Rockets video series, experts answer real questions from families about reading and writing, and how to support their children's literacy at home.

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March 21, 2026

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PA Branch | The International Dyslexia Association

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Raising Readers: Promoting Executive Functioning - PA Branch | The International Dyslexia Association

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Jump to: Keynote Information Schedule Speakers CEU & Certificate Information Registration Location Keynote: Cheryl Chase, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Independence, Ohio (near Cleveland), specializing in diagnostic […]

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Sentence Scrambles: Integrating Vocab, Syntax, Fluency, and Knowledge

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Sentence scrambles are easy and engaging, and they integrate many important concepts including vocabulary, syntax, fluency, and knowledge into one activity.

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✨📗 Calling all Literacy Educators Grades 2-11 📗✨

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Move From Main Idea to Background Knowledge

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Move From Main Idea to Background Knowledge

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"In a fit of anger, Moses smashed the tablet against the ground."

A group of young students reading that sentence will come to different conclusions. Depending on how familiar they are with the Bible, some may recognize it as a parable. Others may reel at the thought of an expensive electronic device being destroyed in a fit of pique. For linguistics and literacy researchers Carsten Elbro and Ida Buch-Iversen, coauthors of a landmark 2013 study on background knowledge, the difference between the two interpretations has little to do with a student's reading comprehension skills.

Students who properly decode the words and understand the basic structure of a text may still come up short in measures of comprehension because they fail "to activate relevant, existing background knowledge," Elbro and Buch-Iversen explain in the study. That's because students constantly make inferences and seek connections to their lives to make sense of what they're reading-understanding what Moses was actually doing depends more on whether you were raised as a Christian than on your ability to grasp the sentence's literal meaning.

In their study, Elbro and Buch-Iversen separated 236 sixth-grade students into two groups. One group of students used concept maps to connect related ideas-an exercise that helped them build a lattice of intertwined knowledge across subjects like biology, technology, sociology, and history. The second group participated in business-as-usual instruction centered around reading strategies such as summarizing and making predictions. After eight 30-minute sessions, the background knowledge students scored twice as high on tests of general reading comprehension, compared with their peers, with sizable improvements across fiction and nonfiction texts.

A decade later, new research-this time encompassing more than 10 times the number of students-confirms those findings. A groundbreaking Harvard study published last year investigated the benefits of a 10-week, knowledge-rich approach to building reading comprehension in elementary students. Instead of emphasizing traditional skills like identifying the main idea or citing evidence from the text, the researchers asked the youngsters to read widely on a topic in order to develop "generalized schemas that can be accessed and deployed when new, but related, topics are encountered." Students read about dinosaurs, for example, and thus build a deeper understanding of how scientists collect data to study past events. Those students scored 18 percent higher on later, science-related reading comprehension tests, compared with their peers.

Here are six prereading activities to help students build background knowledge and fill in conceptual gaps before tackling new texts.

1. Sustained inquiry. "When I started looking into what's called the achievement gap in education, I was told that the problem was high school," Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap, told Edutopia in 2022. "But the problems that become really obvious in high school, for the most part, have their roots in the way we teach elementary school." In successful elementary schools, Wexler noticed that English language arts (ELA) lessons often looked like they belonged in science classrooms-in one example, fourth graders studied detailed anatomical diagrams in ELA and learned words like cardio and circulatory. By committing content knowledge to long-term memory, these students were able to continue exploring the topics while devoting more working memory to comprehension, Wexler discovered.

Wexler's observations align with what experts recommend: a sustained, thoughtfully sequenced, content-oriented approach to building strong reading skills. When planning for the academic year, "consider the topics to be covered for the year and then ask yourself, 'How can we integrate instruction around a coherent schema?'" suggest James Kim and Mary Burkhauser, who led the Harvard study on background knowledge. Instead of covering one topic and then moving on to something unrelated, look for ways to tie broader themes together, and revisit and reinforce them often: "Consider larger schema (the trees) that connect the topics (branches) you are expected to cover."

If students are going to read about Roman emperors, for example, you can prepare them by exploring and reading widely across related, universal themes like civilization-building, governance, and codes of law, helping to build a rich foundation of vocabulary and thematic knowledge that students can access as they read future texts that touch upon the same concepts.

2. Vocabulary games. In a 2019 study, students who were familiar with less than 59 percent of core terms in a topic struggled to understand the reading material. But quickly memorizing new terms in isolation won't result in lasting recall.

Consider spending more time on vocabulary acquisition, be multimodal, and make connections to other learning, writes Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA's Teacher Education Program. She recommends using photos to introduce new words to kids or connecting the words to things they're familiar with, are interested in, or have learned before. Students can also draw the words or work in small groups to talk about them. The dictionaries shouldn't come out until students have worked hard to discover the definitions on their own, Alber suggests. As the list of foundational vocabulary grows over the course of the year, try word sorts-grouping words with related meaning together-or pick five terms from the course and ask students to chat quickly about how they are interrelated before they each write a quick paragraph linking the terms.

Instructional coach Hannah Bradley builds engagement by playing word games-an approach that works across subjects and age groups. "In my experience, the lighthearted nature of these games provides students with a fun, safe, and low-stakes environment where they feel more confident to just have a go," she writes. A great starter activity is From A to Z, a five-to-eight-minute game in which students work in small groups to brainstorm words related to a topic being studied for every letter of the alphabet. Word-association games like Just One or Telephone Pictionary can help students see how concepts are interrelated, building a more robust network of interrelated ideas.

3. Station rotation. Before jumping into a new lesson, you can set up several tables with related reading materials-comics, photo collections, poetry, introductory videos, or news articles, for example-to give students multiple entry points while building familiarity with key events and people, says high school social studies teacher Tim Smyth. When Smyth starts a unit on World War II, he sets up seven tables, each with a central theme-Holocaust, leading women, and key battles, for example-which students dig into while taking notes. They also answer reflection questions such as, "Describe one image you saw that jumped out at you. Why did you choose this one?" or "What are three questions you have/want to know more about?"

"As we delved more deeply into World War II content in the weeks following book study, students made powerful connections between new content and the texts they explored at the start of the unit," writes Smyth. "And they were better able to retain the information and see the bigger picture by referring back to the texts they explored."

For topics that students learn at a younger age, you can use materials they're already familiar with-using clippings from National Geographic to explore different ecosystems, for example, or short YouTube videos that delve into an interesting topic like how cavities form or what germs are-to build engagement and introduce complex ideas. Graphic novels can be used to introduce challenging concepts, says middle and high school teacher Jason DeHart, while excerpts from your students' favorite sci-fi or historical fiction novels can be entry points to reading more complex texts. By starting with materials that students are already familiar with, you're helping students make connections to new ideas that may otherwise be elusive.

4. Hexagonal thinking. An engaging pre-lesson activity that doubles as a way to refresh what students have learned and help them make new connections, hexagonal thinking uses cut-out hexagons-each covering a single term or concept-to explore novel insights. Working in small groups, students first create or are given a list of key ideas, which are then written on separate hexagons made digitally or from paper, card stock, or sticky notes. Students then connect the hexagons, linking related ideas together. For example, if students are learning about animal habitats, they can arrange animals by biome (forest, plains, desert) and investigate similarities and differences. Each group may have a completely different configuration of hexagons, providing fodder for a creative discussion.
Courtesy of Betsy Potash / Cult of Pedagogy
5. Tools to map the conceptual terrain. If you've ever jumped into a book (or television) series midway, you know that it can be disorienting. That's because a good story relies on familiarity with past events to keep the audience from getting bogged down. Similarly, students with ample prior knowledge are more likely to keep pace with a lesson.

When starting a new lesson, students unfamiliar with the topic are often overwhelmed by the amount of new information they need to process. Using graphic organizers-anchor charts and concept maps, for example-can help them map the conceptual terrain, bringing into sharp focus the difference between main ideas and support details, or how big concepts relate to each other. In a 2021 study, middle school students who used graphic organizers to organize their thinking around the topic they were learning about-the seasons-improved their factual recall by 45 percent and comprehension by 64 percent, compared with students who had simply studied the material.

For fictional texts, K-8 special education teacher Dianne Stratford recommends using story maps -an activity that helps young readers "understand the elements of a story, such as characters, setting, problem, and solution, or sequential points of the story, such as beginning, middle, and end." Not only will it help students remember the story, but it'll help provide a framework for understanding any future texts they encounter.

6. Pretending to learn. In Oscar Carillo's kindergarten class, students learn about the different parts of a car-the pedals and wheels, for example-while dashing around the room making "Vroom, vroom!" sounds. In another story, they pretend to be sharks and turtles swimming through water. Not only does it strengthen oral language skills, says Principal Sarah Bartels Marrero, but also it helps them "understand the shape of a story."

Asking young learners to imagine story events and engage in pretend play as a prereading activity helps them build "world knowledge," according to a 2018 study. When preschoolers spent 10 minutes pretending that they were chefs in a restaurant cooking pizza-rolling the dough, adding toppings, and then baking the pizza, for example-they predictably outperformed their peers (who had played with unrelated toys) on tests on pizza-making knowledge. The pretend-play kids were also able to make better inferences-reading between the lines to answer questions around a character's goal or motivations, for example-outperforming their peers by more than double.

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How to Move From the 'Main Idea' to 'Background Knowledge'

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Traditional approaches to reading instruction-such as finding the "main idea"-are less effective than a knowledge-rich approach, the research shows.

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think SRSD (self-regulated strategy development)

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Enjoy these free 'Science of Writing' resources that form the core of Releasing Writers. We ask that copyright be respected, that they not be used for commercial gain, but be used directly with students you teach.
These materials were created by Dr. Leslie Laud. They are registered in her name at the U.S. Copyright Office. TIDE is a derivation of TDC which Dr. Laud created in March, 2012 and was thrilled to see researchers then adapt to TIDE and study extensively. POWER comes from Dr. Carol Sue Englert, adapted to POWRE then POWeR by Dr. Laud.

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Free SRSD Resources for Teachers: Share & Implement | Think SRSD

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Access free SRSD resources created by experts. Ideal for classroom use and sharing with colleagues. Subscribe for instant access and stay updated.

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Writing By Hand is Better for Memory and Learning

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Writing By Hand is Better for Memory and Learning

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Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory

By Charlotte Hu

Handwriting notes in class might seem like an anachronism as smartphones and other digital technology subsume every aspect of learning across schools and universities. But a steady stream of research continues to suggest that taking notes the traditional way-with pen and paper or even stylus and tablet-is still the best way to learn, especially for young children. And now scientists are finally zeroing in on why.

A recent study in Frontiers in Psychology monitored brain activity in students taking notes and found that those writing by hand had higher levels of electrical activity across a wide range of interconnected brain regions responsible for movement, vision, sensory processing and memory. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that has many experts speaking up about the importance of teaching children to handwrite words and draw pictures.

Differences in Brain Activity

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The new research, by Audrey van der Meer and Ruud van der Weel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), builds on a foundational 2014 study. That work suggested that people taking notes by computer were typing without thinking, says van der Meer, a professor of neuropsychology at NTNU. "It's very tempting to type down everything that the lecturer is saying," she says. "It kind of goes in through your ears and comes out through your fingertips, but you don't process the incoming information." But when taking notes by hand, it's often impossible to write everything down; students have to actively pay attention to the incoming information and process it-prioritize it, consolidate it and try to relate it to things they've learned before. This conscious action of building onto existing knowledge can make it easier to stay engaged and grasp new concepts.

To understand specific brain activity differences during the two note-taking approaches, the NTNU researchers tweaked the 2014 study's basic setup. They sewed electrodes into a hairnet with 256 sensors that recorded the brain activity of 36 students as they wrote or typed 15 words from the game Pictionary that were displayed on a screen.

When students wrote the words by hand, the sensors picked up widespread connectivity across many brain regions. Typing, however, led to minimal activity, if any, in the same areas. Handwriting activated connection patterns spanning visual regions, regions that receive and process sensory information and the motor cortex. The latter handles body movement and sensorimotor integration, which helps the brain use environmental inputs to inform a person's next action.

"When you are typing, the same simple movement of your fingers is involved in producing every letter, whereas when you're writing by hand, you immediately feel that the bodily feeling of producing A is entirely different from producing a B," van der Meer says. She notes that children who have learned to read and write by tapping on a digital tablet "often have difficulty distinguishing letters that look a lot like each other or that are mirror images of each other, like the b and the d."

Reinforcing Memory and Learning Pathways

Sophia Vinci-Booher, an assistant professor of educational neuroscience at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the new study, says its findings are exciting and consistent with past research. "You can see that in tasks that really lock the motor and sensory systems together, such as in handwriting, there's this really clear tie between this motor action being accomplished and the visual and conceptual recognition being created," she says. "As you're drawing a letter or writing a word, you're taking this perceptual understanding of something and using your motor system to create it." That creation is then fed back into the visual system, where it's processed again-strengthening the connection between an action and the images or words associated with it. It's similar to imagining something and then creating it: when you materialize something from your imagination (by writing it, drawing it or building it), this reinforces the imagined concept and helps it stick in your memory.

The phenomenon of boosting memory by producing something tangible has been well studied. Previous research has found that when people are asked to write, draw or act out a word that they're reading, they have to focus more on what they're doing with the received information. Transferring verbal information to a different form, such as a written format, also involves activating motor programs in the brain to create a specific sequence of hand motions, explains Yadurshana Sivashankar, a cognitive neuroscience graduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies movement and memory. But handwriting requires more of the brain's motor programs than typing. "When you're writing the word 'the,' the actual movements of the hand relate to the structures of the word to some extent," says Sivashankar, who was not involved in the new study.

For example, participants in a 2021 study by Sivashankar memorized a list of action verbs more accurately if they performed the corresponding action than if they performed an unrelated action or none at all. "Drawing information and enacting information is helpful because you have to think about information and you have to produce something that's meaningful," she says. And by transforming the information, you pave and deepen these interconnections across the brain's vast neural networks, making it "much easier to access that information."

The Importance of Handwriting Lessons for Kids

Across many contexts, studies have shown that kids appear to learn better when they're asked to produce letters or other visual items using their fingers and hands in a coordinated way-one that can't be replicated by clicking a mouse or tapping buttons on a screen or keyboard. Vinci-Booher's research has also found that the action of handwriting appears to engage different brain regions at different levels than other standard learning experiences, such as reading or observing. Her work has also shown that handwriting improves letter recognition in preschool children, and the effects of learning through writing "last longer than other learning experiences that might engage attention at a similar level," Vinci-Booher says. Additionally, she thinks it's possible that engaging the motor system is how children learn how to break " mirror invariance " (registering mirror images as identical) and begin to decipher things such as the difference between the lowercase b and p.

Vinci-Booher says the new study opens up bigger questions about the way we learn, such as how brain region connections change over time and when these connections are most important in learning. She and other experts say, however, that the new findings don't mean technology is a disadvantage in the classroom. Laptops, smartphones and other such devices can be more efficient for writing essays or conducting research and can offer more equitable access to educational resources. Problems occur when people rely on technology too much, Sivashankar says. People are increasingly delegating thought processes to digital devices, an act called " cognitive offloading"-using smartphones to remember tasks, taking a photo instead of memorizing information or depending on a GPS to navigate. "It's helpful, but we think the constant offloading means it's less work for the brain," Sivashankar says. "If we're not actively using these areas, then they are going to deteriorate over time, whether it's memory or motor skills."

Van der Meer says some officials in Norway are inching toward implementing completely digital schools. She claims first grade teachers there have told her their incoming students barely know how to hold a pencil now-which suggests they weren't coloring pictures or assembling puzzles in nursery school. Van der Meer says they're missing out on opportunities that can help stimulate their growing brains.

"I think there's a very strong case for engaging children in drawing and handwriting activities, especially in preschool and kindergarten when they're first learning about letters," Vinci-Booher says. "There's something about engaging the fine motor system and production activities that really impacts learning."

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Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

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Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory

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Why should you attend? With structured literacy recognized as a critical evidence-based reading approach for all students, this conference comes at an important moment for improving literacy outcomes .

What is it? The 2024 PaTTAN Literacy Symposium is a premier professional learning event that brings together leading national and state-level literacy researchers in the field of the science of reading, structured literacy, and reading instruction and intervention, along with classroom teachers who have successfully implemented structured literacy approaches.

Who should attend? Elementary Educators, Secondary Educators, Reading Specialists, Special Educators, School Psychologists, School Leaders/Coaches, Speech Language Pathologists

Where does it take place? This is a virtual symposium that will utilize the PaTTAN Events web platform for access to all sessions. More information about this will be provided when you register.

When is it? (All times are in the EASTERN TIME ZONE )

June 11, 2024 8:30am - 3:00pm

June 12, 2024 8:30am - 3:15pm

June 13, 2024 8:30am - 12:30pm

Presenters include: Natalie Wexler, Deb Glaser, Laura Stewart, Margie Gillis, Lindsay Kemeny, Daryl Michel, Mitchell Brookins, Stephanie Stollar, Maria Murray, Joan Sedita, Nancy Chapel Eberhardt, Carolyn Strom, Michael Hunter, Linda Farrell, Lynn Kuhn, Nancy Hennessy, Michelle Trostle, Lyn Stone, and many others!

Can't Attend June 11 - 13?

No worries! Sessions will be recorded and posted on the PaTTAN YouTube channel as soon as possible once the symposium has concluded. Please DO NOT REGISTER for the symposium if you cannot attend during the dates listed above. Everyone will have access to the sessions for free on our YouTube channel and an annoucement will be made on social media when the videos have been posted.

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PaTTAN Literacy Resource Hub - 2024 PaTTAN Literacy Symposium

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Registration Opens February 28, 2024 The 2024 PaTTAN Literacy Symposium: SORing Into Structured Literacy will take place virtually June 11 through June 13, 2024. This symposium is open to EVERYONE. Sessions will be recorded and available on the PaTTAN YouTube Channel after the conference

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Welcome to our Free Literacy Resources Pages

We do our best to include articles, links and templates that we feel are of value to educators interested in advancing their literacy knowledge, district/building strategies, and classroom practice. Please note that these files are copyright protected - contact us for permission to reproduce or distribute any of this content.
Videos & Webinars Templates & Printables Websites & Organizations

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Articles, links and templates for educators interested in advancing their literacy knowledge, district/building strategies, and classroom practice

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Reading Universe: All About Reading and Writing

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Explore ready-to-use teaching strategies, resources, and concrete answers to common questions about teaching reading and writing -- developed by experts.

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LETRS Webinar Unit 7 Participant Handouts Fillable (1)

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PaTTAN - The Essential Bulletin for Educators

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PLEASE NOTE: PaTTAN has implemented a single-sign-on system for both the new website and our online registration system for events. If you already have a user name and password to register for trainings, use those same credentials here to login.

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Institute for Multi-Sensory Education Email Forms

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IMSE | institute for multi-sensory education

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Orton-Gillingham is a sequential, multi-sensory approach to teach literacy. Our program breaks reading and writing into smaller skills, and builds on them.

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LETRS Unit 8 Participant Handouts Fillable

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Dr. Karen R. Harris, SRSD creator and educational psychologist, along with scores of prominent literacy researchers, spent over 30 years researching SRSD. Today SRSD strategies are internationally recognized and validated by over 100 successful studies.

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SRSD or Self-Regulated Strategy Development is an evidence-based, classroom proven, approach to teaching K-12 students. Watch the best teacher training videos and tap into a rich database of SRSD tools and strategies in the self-paced online teacher training course: Writing to Learn™

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I hope all of these resources are helpful. Please let me know if there is something specific you are looking for. Click on the title to download or go to the link.

Updated on 9/22/21 Be sure to check back often for updates

POW TIDE Resources (informative/explanatory writing)

POW TREE Resources (argumentative/opinion writing)

SRSD Training Pictures

Self-Talk

Scoring : Informative Writing

Scoring : Persuasive Writing

Revising and Editing Resources

Article Resources: (Where to find articles)

Summary Writing Resources:

Narrative Writing Resources

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I hope all of these resources are helpful. Please let me know if there is something specific you are looking for. Click on the title...

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Edtomorrow- Supporting Today's Educators through Restorative Practices PD

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Sign Up for the First Five - Edtomorrow- Supporting Today's Educators through Restorative Practices PD

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LETRS Webinar Unit 5 Participant Handouts Fillable.pdf

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Want to Improve Children's Writing? Don't Neglect Their Handwriting

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Want to Improve Children's Writing? Don't Neglect Their Handwriting

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Clay, M.M. (1991). Introducing a new storybook to young readers. The Reading Teacher, 45(4), 264-273. doi:10.1598/RT.45.4.2

Fountas, I.C., & Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Honig, B., Diamond, L., & Gutlohn, L. (2000). Teaching reading: Sourcebook for kindergarten through eighth grade. Novato, CA: Arena.

Kelley, M.J., & Clausen-Grace, N. (2007). Comprehension shouldn't be silent: From strategy instruction to student independence. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kelley, M.J., & Clausen-Grace, N. (2008). From picture walk to text feature walk: Guiding students to strategically preview informational text. Journal of Content Area Reading, 7(1), 9-31.

Kibby, M.W. (1995). The organization and teaching of things and the words that signify them. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 39(3), 208-233.

Lubliner, S. (2001). A practical guide to reciprocal teaching. Bothell, WA: Wright Group.

Nagy, W.E., & Scott, J.A. (2004). Vocabulary processes. In R.B. Ruddell & N.J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 574-593). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Recht, D.R., & Leslie, L. (1988). Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers' memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 16-20. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.80.1.16

Ruddell, R.B. (2009). How to teach reading to elementary and middle school students: Practical ideas from highly effective teachers. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Rupley, W.H., Logan, J.W., & Nichols, W.D. (1998). Vocabulary instruction in a balanced reading program. The Reading Teacher, 52(4), 336-346.

Spencer, B.H. (2003). Text maps: Helping students navigate informational texts. The Reading Teacher, 56(8), 752-756.

Stahl, K.A.D. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise: Comprehension strategy instruction in the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 57(7), 598-609.

Taylor, B. (2002, July). The CIERA school change project: Supporting schools as they translate research into practice to improve students' reading achievement. Paper presented at the third annual Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement Summer Institute, Ann Arbor, MI.

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Guiding Students Through Expository Text with Text Feature Walks

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The text feature walk guides students in the reading of text features in order to access prior knowledge, make connections, and set a purpose for reading expository text. Results from a pilot study illustrate the benefits of using the strategy, and practical suggestions for implementation are offered.

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Podcast: More Than a Few Words About Vocabulary

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Podcast: More Than a Few Words About Vocabulary

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Once students can master decoding, their vocabularies can blossom. In this episode of Literacy Talks, our trio of literacy experts tackles the challenges and joys of helping students build their vocabulary skills, along with the how’s and why’s of using the techniques of vocabulary-rich teaching.

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Hundreds of thousands of teachers have used this highly practical guide to help K-12 students enlarge their vocabulary and get involved in noticing, understanding, and using new words. Grounded in research, the book explains how to select words for instruction, introduce their meanings, and create engaging learning activities that promote both word knowledge and reading comprehension. The authors are trusted experts who draw on extensive experience in diverse classrooms and schools. Sample lessons and vignettes, children's literature suggestions, "Your Turn" learning activities, and a Study Guide for teachers enhance the book's utility as a classroom resource, professional development tool, or course text. The Study Guide can also be downloaded and printed for ease of use (www.guilford.com/beck-studyguide).

New to This Edition
*Reflects over a decade of advances in research-based vocabulary instruction.
*Chapters on vocabulary and writing; assessment; and differentiating instruction for struggling readers and English language learners, including coverage of response to intervention (RTI).
*Expanded discussions of content-area vocabulary and multiple-meaning words.
*Many additional examples showing what robust instruction looks like in action.
*Appendix with a useful menu of instructional activities.

See also the authors' Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples , which includes specific instructional sequences for different grade ranges, as well as Making Sense of Phonics, Second Edition: The Hows and Whys , by Isabel L. Beck and Mark E. Beck, an invaluable resource for K-3.

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Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

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Amazon.com: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction: 9781462508167: Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, Linda Kucan: Books

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Join Nancy Hennessy, past president of the International Dyslexia Association, as she unwinds vocabulary, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Nancy defines the role of vocabulary and elaborates on the nuanced structures of comprehension in literacy instruction. She also highlights how to explicitly teach vocabulary to students through her research-backed, four-pronged approach.
Quotes:
"Every one of the strands of the rope is important. If any strand frays, then reading is in jeopardy. "

"Vocabulary instruction is really getting our students interested in words as the building blocks of our language."

Resources:

The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text by Nancy Hennessy

Daniel Willingham-Science & Education

Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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S3-09. Deconstructing the Rope: Vocabulary with Nancy Hennessy - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Join Nancy Hennessy, past president of the International Dyslexia Association, as she unwinds vocabulary, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Nancy defines the role of vocabulary and elaborates on the nuanced structures of comprehen...

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Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2008). Creating robust vocabulary: Frequently asked questions and extended examples. New York: Guilford.

Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Omanson, R.C. (1987). The effects and uses of diverse vocabulary instructional techniques. In M.G. McKeown & M.E. Curtis (Eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition (pp. 147-163). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Graves, M.F. (2000). A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle-grade comprehension program. In B.M. Taylor, M.F. Graves, & P. van den Broek (Eds.), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades (pp. 116-135). New York: Teachers College Press; Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Graves, M.F., & Watts-Taffe, S.M. (2002). The place of word consciousness in a research-based vocabulary program. In A.E. Farstrup & S.J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed., pp. 140-165). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

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The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth

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The teacher's use of language provides an important model for children's vocabulary development. By modeling the use of sophisticated words, teachers can promote students' vocabulary growth and word consciousness. In this article, the research support for this approach is explained, suggestions are provided for how teachers might accomplish this goal, and examples are shared from teachers who have done it successfully.

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE

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Longman English Dictionary - the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.

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LETRS Unit 5 Supplemental Handouts Fillable

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Learn about the science behind these brain-building interactions.

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FableVision Learning's Words and Their Stories is an award-winning web-based vocabulary program that engages students in grades 5-12 with the stories behind words. The web-based program, Words and Their Stories, requires students to apply etymology and critical thinking skills (application, analysis, synthesis) in a sequential, inductive process to develop true understanding of word meaning. Learn more here.

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FableVision Learning's Words and Their Stories is an award-winning web-based vocabulary program that engages students in grades 5-12 with the stories behind words. The web-based program, Words and Their Stories, requires students to apply etymology and critical thinking skills (application, analysis, synthesis) in a sequential, inductive process to develop true understanding of word meaning.

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In 2019, LENA reached the milestone of serving over 10,000 children in just one year . T hat was cause for celebration, but it was also a call to action .

Caregivers - parents and child care w orkers alike - so often rely on intuition when it comes to deciding in the moment what's best for the children in their care. We want to see our data offer concrete guidance based on objective data. And more than anything else, we want to see that concrete guidance change adults' habits for the better.

That's the kind of thinking that set our newest report into motion. It's called Inside Early Talk, and it's .

We don't intend for Inside Early Talk to be an exclamation point on the data we've collected. To the contrary, this is a starting point. It's our first foray into digging into this data on an aggregated scale .

Have we been able to land on some intriguing and definitive findings about early language environments already? Yes. Do we want these findings to prompt questions that will lead us to dig even deeper into the data and draw ou t still more findings? Absolutely.

This isn't just a numbers game, and we're not just speaking the language of statisticians. W e want Inside Early Talk to make it easier than ever to translate big-picture science into individual action.

In short, children's brains need more talk. What can caregivers do to ensure they're getting that talk? Where do the opportunities and the challenges lie? What actions can policymakers, funders, and program implementers take?

What do we say in Inside Early Talk?

Finding 1: 40 conversational turns per hour is a new benchmark for caregivers.

Conversational turns are those back-and-forth interactions between a child and an adult - from speech-like, non-cry sounds in infants to full words and sentences in 2, 3, and 4 year olds . They're simple, but they're also incredibly important for a child's brain development. Looking at this new data tells us there's something particularly significant about reaching 40 turns per hour.

Finding 2: High-turn families demonstrate attainable patterns of talk.

After zeroing in on 40 conversational turns , we turned to the question of what "high-turn" families were doing to achieve that number.

It turns out that their behaviors, while impressive, are wholly attainable:

They're not talking nonstop. Rather, there are peaks and valleys throughout the day.

Even during hours with more than 40 turns, they're not talking for the whole hour.

They're successful because they double down. If they get one turn, they try to go for one more.

This is where translating research into practice comes into play. Adults may already have an inkling that they should be talking to the children in their care, but giving them data-driven goals makes improvement both easier to accomplish and more likely to actually happen .

Finding 3: Home settings are consistently higher in interactions than child care settings.

It's undeniable, and even unsurprising, that children generally experience more conversational turns at home - 73% more . After all, that's where they're with familial caregivers, that's where interactions with adults tend to be spread across fewer children, and that's where conversational interruptions aren't likely to occur as frequently.

In addition to policy resolutions, we need more immediate interventions - actions that both improve quality for individual children and add up to statistically significant improvements for all.

Finding 4: In child care , interactions are the lowest when they matter most .

In a 10-year longitudinal study we conducted in 2018, we concluded that the period between 18-24 months is a key window for adult-child language interaction. No other age range between birth and 3 years shows a greater correlation between conversational turns and verbal skills in middle school. Alarmingly, though, this is the precise window in which children in child care settings experienc e the least amount of back-and-forth interaction.

Finding 5: There are large disparities in the language environments children are experiencing in child care.

Every experience of each of the over 10,000 children whose early talk data contributed to Inside Early Talk is important. We don't want that reality to get lost amid all the statistics. Even in classrooms that have high levels of back-and-forth interactions between adults and children overall, some children spend large portions of their day in relative language isolation.

Finding 6: The effects of COVID-19 reveal reduced turn taking in child care .

We've already told several stories about how our partners have found success amid the pandemic's challenges. In this new report, we also face up to some of the stark realities. Among other things, we can point to an even more critical need to reduce child-to-teacher ratios, especially when teachers are facing new challenges or additional responsibilities.

What now?

At LENA, we're more convinced than ever that early talk is our most scalable and cost-effective point of leverage for improving children's academic futures. We also think that the case for investment has never been clearer. We've come out of the process of producing Inside Early Talk both optimistic and determined.

We want to reiterate that this analysis is a starting point, not a finish line. Greater collaboration and aggregation of early childhood data need to take place. That's how we'll come to understand the factors that drive differences in early language experiences. We also want to see LENA's data inform policy decisions that increase equitable access to rich language environments for all children. And we want to encourage large-scale partnerships between organizations that are in the position to create a tipping point of impact.

We invite your to read and share Inside Early Talk. We also invite you to let us know what you think and what questions you have - and we mean that.

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Inside Early Talk: Our point of greatest leverage for improving children's futures

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LENA has collected and analyzed its most expansive data set to date through the 10,000 children annually impacted by our programs for families and early childhood teachers...

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IES Practice Guide: Support Reading for Understanding in K-3

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IES Practice Guide: Support Reading for Understanding in K-3

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Background

The Semantic Feature Analysis strategy engages students in reading assignments by asking them to relate selected vocabulary to key features of the text. This technique uses a matrix to help students discover how one set of things is related to one another. Use this strategy to help students:

understand the meaning of selected vocabulary words

group vocabulary words into logical categories

analyze the completed matrix

Benefits

A Semantic Feature Analysis improves students' comprehension, vocabulary, and content retention. This strategy helps students to examine related features or concepts and make distinctions among them. By analyzing the completed matrix, students are able to visualize connections, make predictions, and better understand important concepts.

Teachers can use this strategy with the whole class, small groups, or individually. Monitoring each student's matrix provides teachers with information about how much the students know about the topic. This allows teachers to tailor instruction accordingly.

Create and use the strategy

Select a passage of text for students. Model the procedure for using the matrix as a tool for recording reading observations. Provide students with key vocabulary words and important features related to the topic. Assist students as they prepare their matrix. Vocabulary words should be listed down the left hand column and the features of the topic across the top row of the chart. Once the matrix outline is complete, review all the words and features with the students and have them carefully read the text selection.

Follow the steps below for using the Semantic Feature Analysis strategy:

1. Have students read the assigned text.

2. As they read, have students place a "+" sign in the matrix when a vocabulary word aligns with a particular feature of the topic. If the word does not align students may put a "-" in the grid. If students are unable to determine a relationship they may leave it blank.

3. After reading and completing the matrix, have students analyze their completed graphics by:

sharing their observations;

discussing differing results; and/or

writing a summary of what they learned

Further reading

References

Johnson, D. D. & Pearson, P. D. (1984). Teaching reading vocabulary. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Lenski, Susan D., Wham, Mary Ann, & Johns, Jerry L. (1999). Reading and learning strategies for middle and high school students. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

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The Semantic Feature Analysis strategy engages students in reading assignments by asking them to relate selected vocabulary to key features of the text. This technique uses a matrix to help students discover how one set of things is related to one another.

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Using the POSSUM Approach in Vocabulary Instruction

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Using the POSSUM Approach in Vocabulary Instruction

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Iowa Reading Research Center - The University of Iowa

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Vocabulary acquisition is an essential part of language learning. A robust vocabulary equips students to comprehend and write texts that are complex, detailed, and specific. On the flip side, students who lack foundational word recognition skills often struggle to comprehend what they read (Gough et al. 1981; Stanovich 1980). Thus, it is important that we empower students with the tools they need to successfully decode and understand unfamiliar words. And according to the large body of evidence that makes up the science of reading, there is more to vocabulary learning than simply memorizing new terms with flash cards or guessing words from context. Vocabulary must be taught explicitly and systematically, in a way that engages all of the parts of the brain associated with word recognition. One way to do this is through the POSSUM (phonology, orthography, syntax, semantics, understanding, and morphology) approach, a vocabulary instructional tool that supports the development of word recognition skills in the brain.

Word Recognition in the Brain

For many strong readers, the process of seeing and recognizing a written word is automatic. However, our brains actually have to activate a complex series of neural pathways in order for word recognition to occur. These neural pathways are associated with several areas of the brain.

One of these areas is the phonological processor, which is located in the back part of the frontal lobe of the brain (Moats & Tolman, 2009). Its job is to process the speech sounds of language, which are called " phonemes." This region of the brain is necessary for oral language to be produced and received.

Next is the orthographic processor, which is located in the occipital lobe in the lower back of the brain (Moats & Tolman, 2009). The orthographic processor allows us to recognize and recall the letters and letter sequences, or graphemes, of written words. Without it, we would be unable to make sense of printed text.

Situated between the phonological and orthographic processors is an area called the " angular gyrus," or, neurologically speaking, the temporal-parietal-occipital junction (Moats & Tolman, 2009). While this region of the brain is not a language processor in and of itself, it works alongside the orthographic and phonological processors, enabling us to associate spoken phonemes with the written graphemes that represent them. In the classroom, these associations should be taught and reinforced through explicit phonics instruction.

Our ability to recognize words is also facilitated by meaning and context processors, which are located in the temporal lobe of the brain (Moats & Tolman, 2009). The meaning, or semantic processor, allows us to interpret the meaning of words both in and out of context. Just because we can decode a word using our orthographic and phonological processors does not necessarily mean we can understand the word's meaning. This principle is demonstrated by nonsense words, or sequences of letters that follow the spelling constraints of English but have no known meaning. For example, we can decode and pronounce nonsense words like "ip" and "glo" based on our knowledge of English spelling patterns. However, we cannot derive any meaning from them because we have not associated those letter patterns with any real-world concepts, as we have with patterns like "cat" or "pot." The brain's retention of a word's meaning is tied to a number of features, including synonyms, spelling features, root words, related words, and more.

The context processor works alongside the meaning processor to facilitate comprehension. Context can come in a variety of forms, including syntactic context, or the way a word is used grammatically, and content-based context, or the subject matter surrounding a given word. For example, syntactic context could help us differentiate between words like "duck" (noun) and "duck" (verb). In a sentence like "the duck swims in the pond," our context processor would allow us to recognize that the word "duck" is being used as a noun, meaning it could not have the definition "to lower the head or body." Content-based context would allow us to differentiate between words like "pool" (swimming) and "pool" (billiards). For example, in a sentence like "When it is hot out, I swim in the pool," we can use the surrounding context to understand that the word "pool" here is referring to a body of water, not a game played with balls and cues.

All that said, it is important to note that context plays a limited role in word recognition. While it can support this process, it cannot replace the role of the phonological and orthographic processors, which are vital to fluent and accurate decoding.

Together, the four language processors-phonological, orthographic, meaning, and context-make up something called the " four-part processing model for word recognition." This idea was first hypothesized in 1989 by researchers Mark Seidenberg and James McClelland and has since been referenced by numerous reading researchers (Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989). In this model, the phonological and orthographic processors work together to decode a written or spoken word. Then, the meaning and context processors work to attach meaning to the word that makes sense in context.

Notice that in this model, all four parts of the brain work together to support word recognition. This means that effective literacy instruction should engage all four processing systems and encourage them to be used in tandem.

One strategy that educators can use to ensure that all four processing systems are used during vocabulary learning is the POSSUM approach.

The POSSUM Approach

The POSSUM approach is a tool that educators can use to support explicit vocabulary instruction in the classroom. Dr. Maryanne Wolf is the author of this approach, which has been the basis for her evidence-based RAVE-O program in both its original and new iterations. The approach itself is based on two decades of cognitive neuroscience research on the developing reading brain (M. Wolf, personal communication, June 26, 2023). In this post, we will use the POSSUM acronym to describe six different elements of word recognition: phonology, orthography, syntax, semantics, understanding, and morphology. Engaging these six elements of word recognition during vocabulary instruction equips students to learn and retain new words.

P-Phonology

Phonology describes the sounds, or phonemes, that make up a word. As children develop phonological awareness, they learn how to pronounce unfamiliar words by breaking them down into their respective phonemes and blending those sounds together to produce a word. Not all students will innately understand how to segment a word, or break it into its individual phonemes. In fact, it is estimated that most children will need explicit instruction in phonological segmenting in order to successfully master the skill (Liberman & Shankweiler, 1985).

O-Orthography

Orthography describes the letters and letter sequences, or graphemes, that represent the sounds in a word. In order to read a word, students must be able to convert the graphemes they see into phonemes that they can pronounce. In order to spell a word, students must convert the phonemes they hear into graphemes that they can write down. Sometimes, graphemes are made up of more than one letter. For example, in the word "trash," the /sh/ sound is represented by two letters. When two adjacent letters combine to represent one speech sound, the resulting sound is called a " digraph." Graphemes can also be made of three adjacent letters, which is called a " trigraph," or four adjacent letters, which is called a " quadrigraph." Graphemes that are made up of more than one letter can be difficult to decode. Students should be explicitly taught different syllable types and spelling rules to reinforce their understanding of these words. The six major syllable types are: closed, open, r-controlled, vowel team, silent -e, and consonant -le. Note: Some educational materials categorize diphthongs as separate from vowel teams, resulting in seven major syllable types. The same principles of explicit instruction still apply. For more information on each syllable type, see our Reading Glossary.

S-Syntax

Syntax describes how a word functions grammatically within a sentence. In order to understand words syntactically, students must receive explicit instruction in the different parts of speech and how to recognize them. For example, understanding that the word "child" is a noun and that nouns generally precede verbs in English sentences would be a type of syntactic knowledge.

S-Semantics

Semantics describes an understanding of what a word means. This includes both the word's definition in context, as well as other meanings the word can have. Students with a high semantic knowledge have a large and nuanced vocabulary.

U-Understanding

Students may also use background knowledge from outside the text to understand a word. For example, they may have seen the word before in another context, or they may be able to associate the word with something they are exposed to in their daily lives.

M-Morphology

Morphology describes all of the parts that make up a word, including prefixes ("un-," "re-," "anti-"), suffixes ("-ly," "-acy," "-able"), and root words ("astro," "script," "phobia"). An understanding of a word's etymology-the origin of the word and how its meaning has changed over time-can be helpful when dissecting its morphology.

Practical Application

Educators can implement POSSUM when teaching new vocabulary words in the classroom. Students may benefit from the use of graphic organizers, such as our downloadable POSSUM Graphic Organizer (see "Supplemental Resources for Teachers and Families"), to keep track of new vocabulary terms. Caregivers can also use the POSSUM Graphic Organizer with their child when reading at home. Here are two examples of how the six elements of POSSUM can be used to support the learning of both simple and complex words. Note: strategies and applications may vary slightly from program to program.

Example 1

Core Word

"stop"

Example Sentence

"Melissa told her friend to sit down and stop talking."

Phonology

Review sounds: /s/ /t/ /o/ /p/

Orthography

Review spelling: s-t-o-p

Syllable types: closed syllable

Spelling rules: short-vowel rule

Syntax

Parts of speech:

Noun → "Soon, the music came to a stop."

Verb → "Please stop bothering me." (used in the example sentence)

Adjective → "She hit the stop button to pause the movie."

Semantics

Possible meanings:

Stop (noun): a pause or breaking off; something that impedes or obstructs

Stop (verb): to get in the way of; to cease or quit (used in the example sentence)

Stop (adjective): designed to stop

Understanding

Use background knowledge to make connections:

Have I seen or heard this word used elsewhere?

"stop sign"

"stop, drop, and roll"

"to put a stop to"

Morphology

Explore word parts: n/a

Additional conjugations:

stopped → past tense verb

stops → present tense verb

stopping → present progressive verb

Example 2

Core Word

"inaudible"

Example Sentence

"Her friend's reply was practically inaudible."

Phonology

Review sounds: /i/ /n/ /au/ /d/ /i/ /b/ /l/

Orthography

Review spelling: i-n-a-u-d-i-b-l-e

Syllable types: closed syllable, vowel team, open syllable (schwa), consonant -le

Spelling rules: "au" makes the "aw" sound, open "i" with schwa pronunciation, -le syllables always end in silent "e"

Syntax

Parts of speech:

Adjective → "Her words were inaudible through the glass."

Semantics

Possible meanings:

Inaudible (adjective): unable to be heard

Understanding

Use background knowledge to make connections:

Have I seen or heard this word used elsewhere?

Have I seen or heard parts of this word used elsewhere?

Morphology

Explore word parts:

Prefix: in → not

Root word: audi → to hear

Suffix: ible → to be capable of

Additional conjugations:

Why It Works

Breaking down unfamiliar words using the POSSUM approach equips students to learn and retain new vocabulary terms. As we saw above, the brain's ability to recognize words relies on several different systems and requires phonological, orthographic, semantic, and contextual input. The reason the POSSUM approach works is that it encourages educators to explicitly teach new vocabulary in a way that systematically engages all four systems of language processing. Because these areas are interconnected and interrelated, activating them at the same time can lead to a ripple effect of literacy benefits.

For example, it has been demonstrated that explicit instruction in morphology can lead to increased proficiency in grapheme-phoneme mapping, as it provides an additional connection in the brain that supports rapid word recognition and comprehension (Bowers et al., 2010). When students receive explicit instruction in phoneme-grapheme relationships, as well as the ways in which morphology, syntax, and other variables can affect these relationships, they are also better equipped to become proficient spellers than if they are taught to spell through memorization alone (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Berninger et al., 2002). A greater awareness of orthography, or spelling, can in turn increase the depth of students' vocabulary, as well as their reading and writing proficiency (Graham, 2000; Graham et al., 2018). For example, a student who has been taught that the root "geo-" in the word "geography" means "earth" may be able to apply this knowledge to understand other words, like "geology" or "geocentric."

Additionally, studies have shown that curricula that use the POSSUM approach have more significant effects on students' reading fluency and comprehension than those that use only isolated phonics instruction or repeated reading (Morris et al., 2011; Lovett et al., 2017). While POSSUM originates from the RAVE-O curriculum, this evidence-based approach can be integrated into any classroom as a way of providing systematic and explicit vocabulary instruction.

The number of words in the English language is almost incalculable. There are around 600,000 words listed in the Oxford English Dictionary alone. Developing a thorough and useable understanding of these words through memorization and context clues alone would be an impossible task. However, when vocabulary learning is supported by a systematic approach, such as POSSUM, and also paired with explicit instruction in decoding and language comprehension skills, guesswork and memorization are taken out of the equation. Instead, students are taught the practical knowledge they need to break down new and unfamiliar words, taking their literacy skills to new heights.

Supplemental Resources for Teachers and Families
POSSUM Graphic Organizer
Educators can use this graphic organizer in the classroom to structure vocabulary learning and help students work through all six elements of the POSSUM approach. Caregivers may also use this resource to support vocabulary learning while reading with their children at home.

References

Gough, P. B., Alford, J. A. Jnr., & Holley-Wilcox, P. (1981). Words and contexts. In O. J. L. Tzeng and H. Singer (eds.). Perception of print: Reading research in experimental psychology. Erlbaum Associates.

Graham, S. (2000). Should the natural learning approach replace spelling instruction? Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 235-247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.2.235

Moats, L. & Tolman, C. (2009). Language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling (LETRS): The challenge of learning to read (Module 1, 2nd e.d.). Sopris West.

Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.2307/747348
Editor's Note: This post was edited on June 26, 2023 to clarify that Dr. Maryanne Wolf is the author of the original POSSUM framework.

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Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Using the POSSUM Approach

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Teach students to use phonology, orthography, syntax, semantics, understanding, and morphology in the process of learning new vocabulary words.

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Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.

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Reading Rockets: 5 Key Principles for Effective Vocabulary Instruction

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Reading Rockets: 5 Key Principles for Effective Vocabulary Instruction

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Effective vocabulary teaching has five key principles.

1. Focus on rich meanings, not just dictionary definitions.

Too often vocabulary instruction is no more than kids copying definitions from the dictionary. But researchers have identified a number of instructional approaches that outdo any learning that may accrue from copying definitions.

One of those key principles is that students work with more extensive or complex definitions or explanations of word meanings. Encourage the encyclopedia explanation over the dictionary meanings.

When I teach vocabulary, I often have the kids engage in trying to provide several different versions of a word's definition.

1. Dictionary definition

2. Synonyms for the word

3. Antonyms (if there are any)

4. Part of speech

5. Classification (what semantic group does it belong to, like tools or ways of talking)

6. Comparison (it is like____, but different because______)

7. Real-life examples

8. Graphic version (drawings, pictures, representations)

9. Acting it out

By the time you've come up with nine different explanations of a word you are more likely to remember it (and, of course, we can do more than just these nine if we want to get into analogies, part-whole relationships, and the like).

2. Emphasize the connections among words.

Many vocabulary programs introduce words by category, such as focusing on words from health and medicine or about transportation, including some that have research showing that they can be effective. However, direct research specifically on this aspect of teaching, suggest that word learning goes slower and without evident later advantage from the extra work that mastering these words entails needed to master these sets of words.

And, yet, evidence reveals that the lexicons in our heads are organized in various networks, not like dictionaries. When you remember a word, you draw from memory a plethora of related ideas-attributes, functions, and synonyms related to that word.

Start thinking diesel trucks and words like wheel, tire, dump truck, gasoline, and highway will not be far behind.

There are circumstances in which it is necessary to simultaneously introduce collections of closely related words that may require fine or subtle distinctions, such as when kids are learning about the structure of cells or atoms. I'll give that a pass, since such introductions are likely to be accompanied by a much deeper dive into the underlying concepts in such cases.

I also think it is quite reasonable when teaching words to get kids thinking about words about that concept that they may already have mastered. Linking a new word to a concept, is very different than trying to learn and link a whole collection of words.

I would avoid introducing together plethora, dearth, scarcity, cornucopia, shortage, plenty, sufficient, abundant, and liberal as some programs do. Collect such words over time as they are learned and then later you can have kids comparing the ideas or fitting them into continuum or network.

One teacher I know has her students classifying the vocabulary each week in bulletin board folders, and when a folder accumulates several related words, they revisit them as a set.

3. Promote usage of the words.

It is not enough that kids study word meanings, but they have to learn to use these words in their reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Instruction should create opportunities for kids to use words in all of these ways.

For instance, that rich vocabulary assignment that was described earlier can be done by groups of kids working together to come up with those multiple definitions. That kind of cooperation requires that kids talk with each other about the words. Additionally, I often assign small numbers of words to each group and then have them get together to teach each other the words that their groups studied... more speaking and listening.

One might reward kids for using the studied vocabulary in their writing - or that can be required in various ways.

Isabel Beck and Moddy McKeown came up with the idea of "word wizards," which gave kids extra points in vocabulary if they could bring in evidence that they had confronted or used the words of interest. Kids get very turned on if they run across some of the vocabulary when watching television or playing their favorite computer game.

4. Review is important.

It can be hard to retain vocabulary if you don't get a lot of opportunity to use it. We may teach vocabulary because certain words were prominent in the texts, we were reading this week, but then kids might not see them for a long time.

There are many ways to deal with vocabulary, such as having one day a week when you only work with words that have been taught (and supposedly learned) in the past - or perhaps entire weeks might be devoted to this throughout the year.

I'm a fan of including words from past weeks on vocabulary quizzes and for the use of vocabulary notebooks to help punch up kids' writing during revision.

Another way of ensuring the words stick, is to see how many additional words students can construct morphologically, adding prefixes or suffixes or altering parts of speech and so on. I've written about some of the important work being done on morphology by Peter and Jeffrey Bowers before (and you can search for that on my site or on Google).

5. Involve students in identifying some of the words to be studied.

I noted earlier that much vocabulary learning is incidental and, therefore, largely out of the province of schools. However, not all kids are equally good at such learning and even for those who it is easier, it can still be a tough slog requiring many experiences with a word to get it to stick.

One thing that we can do to help develop a "word consciousness" among our students is to involve them in identifying unknown words from their own reading - and to include these in your classroom curriculum. When readers get used to noticing their lack of knowledge of particular words, they will be more likely to try to resolve those gaps when reading. Kids will also be more motivated if they have some say so over the curriculum as well.

This article is excerpted from the longer blog post, Five Things Every Teacher Should Know About Vocabulary Instruction.

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Five Key Principles for Effective Vocabulary Instruction

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Much vocabulary is learned without formal teaching. We gain words from conversation, observation, television/media, and reading. However, research shows that explicitly teaching vocabulary can measurably improve reading comprehension - if we teach the right words well enough. Here are five key principles to effective vocabulary instruction.

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LETRS Unit 6 Participant Handouts Fillable 03-09-23

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Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
~Maya Angelou

As a child, reading was one of the things I loved most. I often wished I had more books with children who looked like me, talked like me, and whose lives mirrored mine. As a speech-language pathologist, I've found that books are the perfect anchor to foster strong language skills. Maya's Book Nook is the merging of two of my passions.

It is our goal to share books where young children of color can see themselves, and the stories they relate to, represented within the pages. Book reviews and resources will incorporate language-focused strategies that may be used by parents, educators, and speech-language pathologists. A strong language foundation is one of the pillars to future academic success. We'd like to support you in building that foundation, one book at a time.

Thanks to you for joining us on this journey!

~Lakeisha Johnson, PhD, CCC-SLP

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Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. ~Maya Angelou As a child, reading was one of the things I loved most. ...

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Professional Development That Makes a Difference!

Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country. Keys to Literacy trained teachers learn the research-based skills necessary to effectively teach reading and writing in all subjects across all grades. Our professional development approach is highly participatory and engaging!

Teacher Training, Coaching, Train-the-Facilitator

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Literacy Professional Development - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country.

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S3-06. Deconstructing the Rope: Background knowledge with Susan Neuman - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Join Susan Neuman, Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at the Steinhardt School at New York University, as she unwinds background knowledge, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In the sixth episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Susan explains the important link between back...

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Van Cleave - Syntax Matters: The Link Between Sentence Writing & Sentence Comprehending

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Join Sonia Cabell, assistant professor at the School of Teacher Education at Florida State University, in the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series as she unwinds language comprehension, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. Sonia explains the true definition of language comprehension in relation to the simple view of reading and highlights the role of parents and educators in the use of advanced language models in literacy development. She also reflects on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers and families and discusses how it has highlighted the importance of education today.
Quotes:
"Young children are very smart. They know a great deal more than we give them credit for and they can do a lot more than we understand."

"Parents are childrens' first teachers and so, to really embrace parents in childrens' learning process is really critical."

Show Notes:

Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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S3-08. Deconstructing the Rope: Language comprehension with Sonia Cabell - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Join Sonia Cabell, assistant professor at the School of Teacher Education at Florida State University, in the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series as she unwinds language comprehension, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. Sonia explains the true definition of language comprehe...

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Get the basics on why background knowledge is key to comprehension, and how we can support children's acquisition of knowledge about the world.

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Some of the research done that involves sentence combining comes from a whole language perspective. We"ve listed some of that research here. Our instructions for using sentence combining encourage a more explicit approach to using the strategy than what is included in some of the research listed below.

Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools - A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC Alliance for Excellent Education.

Robinson, L. K., & Howell, K. W. (2008). Best practices in curriculum-based evaluation & written expression. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best Practices in School Psychology V (pp. 439-452). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

Saddler, B. (2005). Sentence combining: A sentence-level writing intervention. Reading Teacher, 58, 468-471.

Strong, W. (1986). Creative approaches to sentence combining. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills & National Council of Teachers of English.

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Combining sentences encourages students to take two or more short, choppy sentences and combine them into one effective sentence - to make their writing more readable and engaging. Sentence combining is a skill that develops over several short practice sessions.

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Supporting All Learners with Complex Texts - Peers and Pedagogy

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Does this sound familiar? You design an exciting lesson to tackle rich and engaging complex texts with your students, then a voice in your head stops you in your tracks. The voice asks “but what about ____________?” You can fill in the blank with any of your struggling students. Perhaps it’s a 6th…

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Join Kate Cain, professor of language and literacy at Lancaster University, as she unwinds language structures, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Kate explores language structures in the simple view of reading and explains its connections across reading comprehension in literacy development. She also highlights the reciprocal relationship between books and conversation and underscores the importance of reading aloud to children from a young age to develop their vocabulary and semantics.
Quotes:
"Simply knowing the individual word meanings and the word order alone is not going to be sufficient to have accurate sentence comprehension."

"The language of books is different from the language of conversation."

References:

Professor Kate Cain's Publications Site

Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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S3-10. Deconstructing the Rope: Language structures with Kate Cain - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Join Kate Cain, professor of language and literacy at Lancaster University, as she unwinds language structures, a strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. In the latest episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Kate explores language structures in the simple view of reading and explains its con...

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Professional Development That Makes a Difference!

Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country. Keys to Literacy trained teachers learn the research-based skills necessary to effectively teach reading and writing in all subjects across all grades. Our professional development approach is highly participatory and engaging!

Teacher Training, Coaching, Train-the-Facilitator

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Literacy Professional Development - Keys to Literacy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country.