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How do we teach vocabulary in a way that makes words stick for our students? For starters, we need to think of teaching vocabulary as going deeper than just giving students words and dictionary definitions. We also need to be smart about the words we choose to teach, because it is impossible to teach every word in the English language during the short and precious time we have with our students. The words we choose to teach should be useful words that will carry into the lives of our students. To determine words to teach, it is helpful to look at words in three tiers:

Tier 1: These are common words that students can usually acquire the meaning of through incidental exposure.

Ex) lose, silent, exist, safe, middle

Tier 2: These are useful words that students will encounter throughout their lives and in texts frequently and should be the primary focus of our vocabulary instruction. We should teach tier 2 words directly.

Ex) culture, opposite, invitation, unusual, predict

Tier 3: These are academic terms that are specific to the content being taught and may need to be taught directly.

Ex) molecule, tundra, legislature, isotope, hyperbole

The tiers shift based on grade level, so I recommend looking to your knowledge building or comprehension curriculum texts to select terms from and gauge the tiers. This is best practice: the words we choose to teach to our students should come from the texts we are reading to our students.

The number of words you choose to teach each week depends on the amount of instructional time you have, as well as what your administration requires. However, I recommend teaching no less than five and no more than ten words each week. Then, it is important to spiral the previously taught words into the following weeks so that students continue to have experience and exposure using these words- as that is how we really make words stick.

After introducing the word and giving a student friendly definition, there are ways we can help kids familiarize with the target words we teach. The 5 activities below encourage students to go beyond the surface of words and gain a deeper understanding of how words are related. These activities can be adapted for K-2 or 3-5. In K-2, do these activities orally. I use the templates shown in the pictures for my planning purposes, but if I taught 3-5 I would use the sentence stems and word connections activities to incorporate writing.

1. Examples & Non-examples
Our students really need an opportunity to be able to identify examples and non-examples of words. This is not to say they need to write them or create them on their own, simply identifying the difference will help words stick for kids. With the target word, create 2-3 statements that consist of examples and non-examples which represent the meaning of the word.

For example, let's look at the word "inspiring". Say to kids:

If I say something that would inspire you, say "I am inspired!" If not, say nothing. Then, read the examples and non-examples:

I cooked dinner and then watched a show. (kids should say nothing)

The woman climbed to the top of a mountain in record time. (kids should say "I am inspired!")
2. Word Connections
She traveled alone to a remote island in the jungle to explore a rare ecosystem. (kids should say "I am inspired!")

In this activity, give your students two target words and ask them how the two words are related to each other.

Let's look at the words "conserve & volunteer".

Say to kids: Turn and talk to your partner about how the two words might be related to each other.

Then, you might have kids write a sentence linking the two words together.

For example:

One might volunteer to support a charity that stands for conserving Earth's natural resources.

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5 Activities for Teaching Vocabulary with Any Word - Reading Rachel

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How do we teach vocabulary in a way that makes words stick for our students? For starters, we need to think of teaching vocabulary as going deeper than just giving students words and dictionary definitions.

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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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An important strategy to help students build their vocabulary is use of context - i.e., using the clues or hints provided in the text that surround an unfamiliar word to help guess the meaning without depending on a dictionary. This can include words, phrases, or sentences that appear before, after, or close to the word. It can also include visuals or headings embedded in the text - basically anything that helps a reader understand the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Expository, non-fiction text tends to offer more context clues than narrative text.

The main goal for developing students' ability to use context is to aid comprehension, not to teach words in-depth. When students encounter and "stumble" over unfamiliar words that are essential to making meaning of a passage, their comprehension suffers. If the context provides clues to the meanings of these words, comprehension is aided.

Use of context does not come naturally to many students. It takes time to become proficient with this strategy - students benefit from explicit instruction and guided practice. Studies have shown that when students are taught to use context clues they become better at figuring out the definitions of words compared to students who are not directly taught this skill (Kuhn & Stahl, 1998). The first step is helping students recognize when they don't know the meaning of a word and the need to make reasonable judgements about how to address that lack of knowledge.
Types of Context Clues
There are categories of types of clues that are useful for teachers to know, described below with examples from classroom texts. Knowledge of these types of clues benefits the teacher in terms of finding examples in text to use for explicit instruction and practice. However, it is not helpful to expect students to identify the type of clue provided in text. Shanahan (2022) points out that the research synthesis noted above by Kuhn and Stahl determined persuasively that students benefit from instruction for use of context, but it was not category training that helped, only the actual practice in figuring out word meanings from context.

Synonym Clue: A word that is similar to he word is provided.

Example: Water soaks into the ground pores, or spaces, among the fragments of soil.

Example: It was a triptych, or three-paneled, painting.

Contrast Clue: The word is contrasted with another word, usually an antonym.

Example: Unlike a compound, an element cannot be broken down into simpler materials.

Example: Volunteering to join the army offers the choice that a draftee does not have.

Instruction Using Classroom Text Examples
Rather than using contrived examples on worksheets to practice use of context, instruction works best when explicit instruction and guided practice is provided on a regular basis using examples from text that is already being used in the classroom. Teachers should review text and be on the lookout for examples where context clues are provided prior to assigning text for student reading.

Graves (2006, p. 99) suggests teaching students the following four-step strategy for inferring words from context:

1. Read carefully and ask yourself, "Does this make sense?"

2. Notice when you don't know the meaning of a word and slow down. Read that sentence at least once more, looking for clues.

3. If necessary, go back and reread the sentences before and after, looking for clues that help you figure out what the word might mean.

4. When you figure out what the word might mean, substitute your guess for the difficult word and see if it makes sense. If it does, keep on reading. If it doesn't, try again.

Context Doesn't Always Provide Clues
It is important to emphasize with students that use of context doesn't always work! Research shows that sometimes when readers attempt to derive the meanings of words in context they may get them wrong (Pressley et al., 2007). This may be because the student does not have enough prior knowledge to make sense of the clues in the text, or it may be that the clues are misleading. Contexts vary in how much information they provide a reader. Sometimes the context provides a direct explanation of the meaning of a word as shown in the examples of types of clues above, and in this example where the meaning of photosynthesis is directly stated in the previous sentence:

Up to this point we have been referring to the process in which light energy is used to make food simply as the food-making process. But this important process has its own special name: photosynthesis.

Sometimes the context provides some information about an unfamiliar word, but not enough for the student to be aware of its full meaning, as shown in the example below where the student may guess that a vaccination has something to do with preventing disease, but there is not enough information to discern just what a vaccination is.

In order to gain active immunity to a disease, one of two things must occur - either you come down with the disease, or you receive a vaccination.

Beck, McKeown, and Kucan (2002) identified some text as "misdirective" (i.e., leading to a misunderstanding). Here is an example of a misdirective from their book Bringing Words to Life where the students might wrongfully assume that Ginny admired Sandra's dancing:

Sandra had won the dance contest, and the audience's cheers brought her to the stage for an encore. "Every step she takes is so perfect and graceful," Ginny said grudgingly as she watched Sandra dance." (p. 4)

Shanahan (2022) suggests including examples sometimes from real text where words can't successfully be figured out from context, rather than using contrived examples to avoid what he calls "over consistency". He points out that this is being realistic with students about how use of context really works in most reading situations.
Using Word Parts
Another strategy for determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word is to use knowledge of meaningful word parts (roots, prefixes, suffixes), which is the subject of a blog post I wrote in 2018 titled Using Morphology to Teach Vocabulary. Carlisle (2007) maintains that incidental word learning through contextual clues and morphological analysis is the primary means through which students acquire new vocabulary. Frey and Fisher (2011) suggest teaching students to "Look inside the word and outside the word to see what you know." When used in tandem, use of word parts (inside the word) and use of context (outside the word) can be very helpful.
Additional Resources References

Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: The Guilford Press.

Carlisle, J.F. (2007). Fostering morphological processing, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. In R.K. Wagner, A.E. Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: The Guilford Press.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Word wise and content rich: Five essential steps to teaching academic vocabulary. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graves, M.F. (2006). The vocabulary book. New York: Teachers College Press.

Kuhn, M.R., & Stahl, S. A. (1998). Teaching children to learn word meanings from context: A synthesis and some questions. Journal of Literacy Research, 30, 119-138.

Pressley, M., Disney, L., & Anderson, K. (2007). Landmark vocabulary instructional research and the vocabulary instructional research that makes sense now. In Richard K. Rosenshine, B., & Stevens, R. (1984). Classroom instruction in reading. In P.D. Pearson, R. Barr, M.L. Kamil, and P.B. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, 745-799. New York: Longman.

Shanahan, T. (2022). Blog post: Teaching Students to Use Context

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Vocabulary Strategy: Use of Context - Keys to Literacy

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An important strategy to help students build their vocabulary is use of context - i.e., using the clues or hints provided in the text that surround an unfamiliar word to help guess the meaning without depending on a dictionary. This can include words, phrases, or sentences that appear before, after, or close to the word.

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Podcast- Whole Class Lessons to Make Words Stick

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Podcast- Whole Class Lessons to Make Words Stick

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Hello, hello! Anna Geiger here with Episode 77 of the Triple R Teaching podcast. Today we're talking vocabulary. We're going to talk about what it looks like when you're introducing vocabulary in the context of your whole class read alouds, and then we'll talk about some simple, easy activities that you can do during the rest of the week to help students embrace these words and really make them part of their own vocabulary.

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I really think it's important to teach new words in the context of a read aloud or text that students are reading, rather than refer to a list of tier two vocabulary words for grade one or whatever grade you teach. I think it makes much more sense to teach in context, because as much as we might like to have one, there is no list of words for first grade, second grade, third grade, etc., it just doesn't exist.

What we're really going for is to teach those tier two words. Tier two words means words that are words you're going to hear - perhaps in conversation, or you're going to read, but they may not be words you're familiar with. These are high utility words, but they're not basic words. They're a little more advanced, but they're also not technical.

A tier three word would be a word like "baleen" if you're studying whales. Those words certainly have their value, but typically when you're teaching vocabulary from a read aloud, unless it's a very specific nonfiction text, you're going to be teaching those tier two words.

The cool thing is the words don't actually have to be in the book. Sometimes when you're teaching kindergarten or first grade, there's a really great book you want to read aloud with a good message and a lot of good things to discuss, but there isn't really any advanced vocabulary in the book. You can choose words that are related to the content.

For example, I was reading aloud to my little guy a number of months ago, and we were reading a book called "The Art Lesson" by Tomie dePaola. I believe it's a true story about the author when he was young and his experience in art class in school, but there's no advanced vocabulary, so I put the words "excited," "frustrated," and "disappointed" on sticky notes and we used those to mark how he was feeling in different parts of the book. First, I discussed what the words meant, then we applied their definitions to the text, and at the end we went back to look at the different parts of the book when he was feeling those emotions.

So your first step then after you've chosen your read aloud is to pick your vocabulary words and consider related words if there are no specific words in the text you want to teach. Before you do the reading, introduce the words, talk about them a bit. It's up to you how much in detail you want to go about their meanings, if you're going to be using words whose meanings can be figured out using context, you may want to wait.

You might say, "One of the words we're going to be learning about today is 'damp.' Keep your ears open for that word, I'm not going to tell you what it means. When we get to it I want you to think about what it could mean based on the context." Then as you read you'll stop briefly to talk about each of these words, and when you're finished reading you'll discuss them again.

So that first step is to choose the words based on the read aloud you're reading and introduce them.

But, of course, that may not be enough. It's also good to have review activities throughout the week, perhaps throughout the year, that come back to these words so that students can really make them a part of their own speaking and writing vocabulary.

One that I like to do that's very, very simple is Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. I ask a question or maybe make a statement using one of the words, and if students agree, they put a thumb up, if they disagree, they put a thumb down.

For example, let's say the word is "delighted." I might say, "I was delighted when I found out that we were having mashed potatoes for supper." Now, everyone can have a different opinion, right? Actually my little guy can't stand mashed potatoes, he can't stand potatoes of any kind which I think is really odd, but it's been like that since he was a baby. I always make him have a tiny bit of one, which is always too much. Regardless, he would put his thumb down for that sentence.

You could just have a few of those example pre-written and ready to go so that when you finish the read aloud it could be your review activity, or you could put it on a clipboard and do those the next day when you have a couple of minutes.

Something else to do is to have a simple discussion using the word. Let's say the word is "cautiously." You could say, "If you're walking through a dark cave, you need to do it cautiously. What are some other things that you should do cautiously?"

Another activity that I like to do is Fill in the Blank. Let's say you've got three words that you're working on with a read aloud, which I think is a good number. You could have a set of three sentences where each one needs a blank filled in, and it would be one of those three words. I like to have the three sentences relate to each other, to kind of tell a story. I do multiple sets, maybe three sets of sentences, so that's nine examples where we're going to fill in the blank. You could put those sentences up on the board if you want and have the words on cards and students use sticky tack or something to put them in their spot, or you could put this on a screen and have them move the word, or you could just do it orally. Although I think it's really good to have the sentence displayed for kids, it really helps.

Something else you can do is have your students complete a semantic gradient activity. A semantic gradient is a list of words in order by degree, and it's somewhat subjective, there's not always one exact answer.

For example, let's say you've taught your students the word "dart." As in you "dart" somewhere, as in a synonym for "walk" or "run." You could put a whole bunch of other words that are related to that on little index cards and have students work together in groups to put them in order from slowest to fastest. So there might be words like "crawl," "meander," "stroll," "walk," "jog," "dart," "run," "sprint." See what I mean?

When they work together with that they really have to think about the meanings of the words and the benefit of doing it in a group is that some students may not know some of the words but others may. Semantic gradients can be useful, it won't work with every word, but that's just something to keep in mind.

You could also have students act out the word if possible. I was recently reading aloud "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my youngest two, they're in kindergarten and second grade. We were reading the chapter where the grandpa in the 1800s had to walk solemnly to church. He could not smile. He could not laugh. He could hardly even talk. I had my kids show me what that would look like to walk solemnly. We acted out what it would be like to sit solemnly in church and stare right at the preacher and not turn or anything. This, I think, really helped them solidify the words. So acting out is another good one.

Finally, this is something I heard about somewhere, I can't remember, it was a particular blog years ago and they called the vocabulary words they had taught brain words. Whenever students heard the word in a different read aloud or a different context or maybe even in conversation in class, they would tap their brain as a signal to say hey, we know that word! That just promotes awareness around the words that you've already taught.

So there you go. Those are some ideas for helping your students really master the new vocabulary that you're teaching them. You can get the show notes, including the transcript, so you have all of these at your fingertips at themeasuredmom.com/episode77. I'll also include some links to some of my favorite books for vocabulary activities.

Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again next week!

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Whole class vocabulary activities to make those words STICK

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Hello, hello! Anna Geiger here with Episode 77 of the Triple R Teaching podcast. Today we're talking vocabulary. We're going to talk about what it looks like when you're introducing vocabulary in the context of your whole class read alouds, and then we'll talk about some simple, easy activities that you can do during the rest of the week to help students embrace these words and really make them part of their own vocabulary.

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Read Aloud Routine | Small Steps Video #1: Make the most of the time you spend reading to your class. | By Stephanie Stollar ConsultingFacebook

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Small Steps Video #1: Make the most of the time you spend reading to your class.