Teaching Academic Vocabulary

Change Idea Overview:

Growing MLs’ vocabulary is critical to ensure progress with reading comprehension. They must engage actively with the words in a variety of ways and with all four modalities (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Support MLs in acquiring the new academic Tier 2 & Tier 3 words central to a unit of study that they will need to actively produce and use correctly in both speaking and writing; this support will come in the form of explicit teaching of the new terms and providing ML students with multiple opportunities to practice using those terms through low-stakes activities throughout the unit.

The Change Idea

THE PROCESS

STEP 1: Create a list of 3-5 key Tier 3 vocabulary words.

STEP 2: Differentiate between “Concept” and “Label” words.

STEP 3: Explicitly teach students the new Tier 3 vocabulary.

STEP 4: Plan multiple exposures to the vocabulary.

Click here to access the full guide and supporting resources.

Measurement Tool

This data tracker is a tool for capturing student data (including their scores on the measurement tool) throughout the PDSA cycles you run, so you can responsively plan the next steps and track focus student progress over time.

Change Idea In Practice

You can draw from these change packets, which were created by our schools to share the way they used this change idea to lead to promising improvement, as you plan out how to implement and measure the change idea in your school.

09X232 - Building Academic Background Knowledge Through Vocabulary Acquisition

10X020 - Targeted Scaffolds for Use of Academic Vocabulary in Writing

10X020 - Creating Access to Content by Building Academic Language

10X020 - Building Tier 2 Vocabulary Through Targeted Exposure

10X390 - Incorporating Explicit Academic Language Activities into Classrooms

21K096 - Vocabulary Watch: Measuring Teacher Influence on Writing

21K238 - Increasing Academic Concept Language by Connecting to Students’ Cultural Identity

Practice In Action

Click the video below to learn how teachers preview academic vocabulary to support students' understanding of content; and hear from students why it works for them!