As students advance to and through middle school, teachers expect them to meet higher academic expectations. Students' ability to meet these expectations depends, in part, on their use of effective study skills. Using notecards represents one study skill that students can use flexibly in many subjects to prepare for upcoming assessments. With some…

This teaching tip identifies ways to "WIN" at vocabulary learning. Specifically, the approach conveys three morphological strategies in the mnemonic "WIN." These three strategies remind students to find smaller units of meaning within bigger words, look for those units in other words that they know, and notice the context. Each…

Due to the need of the closing the vocabulary gap between struggling and non-struggling readers, many school districts across the nation are faced with the extensive growing rate of students, falling behind their grade level peers. To meet this goal, administrators and teachers seek word study strategies to incorporate in their small group…

Students' knowledge of vocabulary affects their reading comprehension. Despite abundant research findings in vocabulary learning, practical instructional methods for use in schools are typically underdeveloped. This article proposes a research-based method for teaching the meanings of base academic vocabulary (i.e., Tier 2) words. The method…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to carry out a systematic review of literature of effective reading intervention for students with -- intellectual disabilities (ID), intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and multiple disabilities (MD). Findings and recommendations for future research are discussed. Background and rationale:…

Teachers of English are often in search of authentic audio and video materials that promote learners' listening comprehension and vocabulary development. TED Talks, a set of freely available web presentations, could be a useful resource to promote vocabulary instruction. The present replication study examines the lexical coverage of TED Talks by…

Based on its coincidence with a significant period in language development for children, preschool provides a favorable setting to foster vocabulary growth. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two instructional conditions and an incidental exposure condition for teaching targeted vocabulary words to preschool students…

The purpose of this teaching tip is to share a new tool for identifying high-utility academic words from instructional texts. The Word and Phrase Tool, when paired with teacher knowledge about students and objectives, can help teachers promote the academic vocabulary development of their students.

Word sorts are standard practice for aiding children in acquiring skills in English language arts. When included in the general music classroom, word sorts may aid students in acquiring a working knowledge of music vocabulary. The author shares a word sort activity drawn from vocabulary in John Lithgow's children's book "Never Play…

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue discusses planning and using interactive word walls to support science and reading instruction. Many classrooms have word walls displaying vocabulary that students have learned in class. Word walls serve as visual scaffolds to support instruction. To…

This article describes the gathered experience in using corpora in an IELTS preparation course. The practice demonstrates an attempt to reduce negative washback effects occurring when preparation courses just concentrate on the test format neglecting the importance of development of learners' language skills and general study skills. Some…

Children with hearing loss who are developing spoken language tend to lag behind children with normal hearing in vocabulary knowledge. Thus, researchers must validate instructional practices that lead to improved vocabulary outcomes for children with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to investigate how semantic richness of instruction…

Giving additional learning materials such as Chinese fantasy novel to non-native learners can be strenuous. This study seeks to render empirical support on the usefulness of the use of new words in Chinese fantasy novel to enhance vocabulary learning among the non-native learners of Chinese. In general, the students agreed that they like to learn…

This article describes a year-long reading intervention with a first-grade English-learner who began the year as a non-reader. Systematic instruction from a literacy specialist and her classroom teacher included familiar re-reading, word study, and teacher-guided reading with carefully matched texts, within the context of English language and…

It is common to see word walls displaying the vocabulary that students have learned in class. Word walls serve as visual scaffolds and are a classroom strategy used to reinforce reading and language arts instruction. Research shows a strong relationship between student word knowledge and academic achievement (Stahl and Fairbanks 1986). As a…