Vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension and a critical instructional area to support a wide range of learners, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners. Vocabulary development plays a key role in building background knowledge and supporting students’ growth in content-specific instruction. Given the breadth of vocabulary across subject area domains (e.g., math, science, social studies), teachers often struggle to identify words to teach and the best instructional approaches to ensure student mastery of key terminology. In this practical session, participants will learn how to select valuable/Tier 2 words from grade-level texts and how to deliver targeted vocabulary instruction using four research-validated strategies: inferring meaning from context and morphemic analysis, providing brief explanations, and offering powerful, robust vocabulary instruction. This session would be most appropriate for teachers working with students in grade 4 or higher.
In this session you will:
- Define the three tiers of vocabulary in texts.
- Explore how to select useful vocabulary from texts.
- Practice instructional routines for explicitly teaching useful vocabulary to support students’ growth in vocabulary and reading comprehension.
