ELA Practice #7

The purpose of this document is to elevate the urgency of attending to intentional, systematic language instruction for all adolescent learners in order to support higher levels of reading proficiency. This document aims to provide research-supported approaches to effective language instruction for adolescent learners.

The Digital SAT® Suite and Classroom Practice: English Language Arts/ Literacy aims to inform secondary English language arts teachers as well as teachers in other subject areas of evidence-based instructional practices supporting college and career readiness for all students. 

This NCTE article describes an approach to grammar instruction that focuses on language in use.

This resource supports learning about the building blocks of words in order to enrich vocabulary and support understanding of unfamiliar words in reading. Membean offers a free resource, and there is also a subscription option.

This Research Gage article describes commonly-used vocabulary terms in each discipline and focuses on morphology.

This resource can be used to look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts.

Academic Word Finder is a digital tool from Achieve.org that helps educators identify Tier II vocabulary terms in any text.

Word Generation is a set of Tier 1, research-based curricular resources designed for use across content areas in grades 4–8.

This page provides research and four practice exercises for teachers to use.

Lexipedia shows the connections and relationships between words through a visual, animated web. It displays nouns, verbs, synonyms, antonyms (a word opposite in meaning from another), adverbs, adjectives and fuzzynyms (a word closely linked/related to another). It is essentially a language road map.

This short article details authentic vocabulary instruction that includes student choice, a focus on tier two words, specific steps for teaching vocabulary, and additional resources.