Teaching General Academic and Content-Specific
Vocabulary Across the Disciplines
Presented by Laura Heflin
Importance of Vocabulary
 Contributes to comprehension, fluency, and
achievement.
 Research shows high correlation between vocabulary
knowledge and reading comprehension
 Academic language is difficult to learn as it is not used
in everyday language, but it is necessary for accessing
academic content
 Important to dual-code words in memory with print
and nonlinguistic forms (visual and sensory)
3 Tiers of Words
– Highly specialized, subject-specific; low
occurrences in texts; lacking generalization
◦ E.g., lava, aorta, legislature, circumference
–Abstract, general academic (across content
areas); encountered in written language; high utility
across instructional areas
◦ E.g., vary, relative, innovation, accumulate, surface, layer
– Basic, concrete, encountered in conversation/
oral vocabulary; words most student will know at a
particular grade level
◦ E.g., clock, baby,
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page 33
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
Why are “academic words”
important?
 They are critical to understanding academic texts.
 They appear in all sorts of texts.
 They require deliberate effort to learn, unlike Tier 1 words.
 They are far more likely to appear in written texts than in
speech.
 They often represent subtle or precise ways to say
otherwise relatively simple things.
 They are seldom heavily scaffolded by authors or teachers,
unlike Tier 3 words.
Common Core State Standards, Appendix A, page
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
Selecting Words to Teach
 Teaching fewer words in depth is more effective than
teaching many words at the surface level
 Focus should be on words that are key to
comprehension and that are frequently used by adults
in everyday conversation, reading, and writing
 Curious, gazing, mysterious, stingy, scrumptious,
drowsy
Choosing words
 Jose avoided playing the ukulele.
 Which word would you choose to pre-teach?
Which word?
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
Avoided
Why?
 Verbs are where the action is
 Teach avoid, avoided, avoids
 Likely to see it again in grade-level text
 Likely to see it on assessments
 We are going to start calling these useful words “Tier 2
words”
 Why not ukulele?
 Rarely seen in print
 Rarely used in stories or conversation or content-area
information
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
How do I determine that a word is
Word
Is this a
generally
useful
word?
Does the
word relate
to other
words and
ideas that
students
know or
have been
learning?
TIER 2?
Is the word
useful in
helping
students
understand
text?
If you
answer
“yes” to all
three
questions,
it is a Tier 2
word. If
not, it is
probably a
Tier 3 word.
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
What about Tier 3 Words?
 Words that are associated with specific domains or
content areas should be taught as they are
encountered, usually during content area instruction
 Morpheme, peninsula, similes, nucleus, protons
How Many Words?
 In school settings, students can be explicitly taught a
deep understanding of about 300 words each year.
 Divided by the range of content students need to
know (e.g., math, science, history, literature), of these
300–350 words, roughly 60 words can be taught
within one subject area each year.
 It is reasonable to teach thoroughly about eight to ten
words per week. (Chall, 1996)
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
Implications for Instruction
 Teach fewer words.
 Focus on important Tier 2 (high utility, cross-
domain words) to know & remember.
 Simply provide Tier 3 (domain-specific,
technical) words with a definition.
Illinois State Board of Education- English Language Arts Content Specialists
Wordle
 Creates a word cloud to indentify key vocabulary in a
digital text
 http://www.wordle.net/create
 Gettysburg Address
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/gettyb.asp
Wordsift
 Great pre-reading activity for digital or inputted text
 Sorts words in text according to difficulty
 Identifies academic words and most-represented words
 Shows a collected of related images, a word map, and lists
sentences from the text that present the word in different
contexts
 http://wordsift.com/
 http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3757754
Tag Galaxy
 Creates a 3-D orbiting galaxy of words and their
associations. You click on a word/globe to populate
images of that word from Flicker
 http://taggalaxy.de/
 Eg. Type “fossil”
Glossary
 Frayer Model
 Definition, use in a sentence, explanation of
importance, drawing, synonym, antonym, part of
speech
 Teacher can provide for unit/academic vocabulary
 Students can create to deepen understanding of
spelling words
Teacher Provided Glossary Entry
Student Created Glossary Entry
Flashcardstash
 Dictionary based website
 Sign up for a free account to create and store word lists
to support written text
 Can access definitions, example sentences from
context , and pictures to support the word
 Create a set of digital flash cards to practice the words
with no-nonsense games and quizzes.
 http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2011/07/wordstash-
is-online-vocabulary-building.html
Podcasts
 Use video (eg. Flip Camera) to define word, use it in

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context, explain its importance, and provide oral practice
activities
Teacher can create to introduce or reinforce vocabulary
Students can create to take ownership of their learning and
access higher-level thinking skills
Can be published online to extend learning beyond the
classroom
Research shows students who had access to podcasts were
more motivated to learn vocabulary and indicated that
podcasts helped them learn new vocabulary
Podcast Examples
 General Vocabulary Podcast – unanimous- LL Cool J
http://www.sesamestreet.org/play#media/video_82f54
b85-b421-4311-969b-56c693b38fa2
 Math Podcast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pmk1xLv8w0
Free Rice
 Provides a word with 4 synonym choices
 Adjusts difficulty based on your response
 Correct answers donate 10 grains of rice to needy
countries
 http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1426
Other Resources
 Common Core Math Vocabulary Cards to Print Out
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
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http://www.burke.k12.nc.us/curriculum/elementary/Pages/Com
mon-Core-Resources.aspx
Common Core Math Vocabulary Practice by Grade/Standard
http://www.spellingcity.com/math-vocabulary.html
English/Language Games
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/
Scientific Inquiry
http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spellinglist.html?listId=5601730
Wordia- videos to make personal connections
http://www.wordia.com/
Create Your Own Podcast
 I have vocabulary words and visuals for social studies,





science, reading, and math
Define word
Use it in context
Explain its importance or use
Provide oral practice activities
Think about how you could teach a vocabulary word
and provide students with a visual to create their own
podcast as reinforcement of their learning