Vocabulary knowledge plays a critical role in supporting text comprehension and broader learning across the school day. While school offers opportunities to build vocabulary knowledge, studies have shown that very little time is devoted to vocabulary instruction at the elementary level. This may be, in part, because educators commonly report being…

Story Talk is an evidence-based language intervention that has produced significant increases in children's vocabulary (Wasik & Hindman, 2020). This paper begins with a discussion of the importance of language development in learning to read, which is the basis for Story Talk. Next, a description of Story Talk components and the strategies…

Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension. In this article, we discuss how teachers can use the…

Making personal connections to words is a strategy that can bolster young students' vocabulary learning. The personal connections strategy involves teacher-initiated prompts that propel teacher-student conversations that connect students' experiences with new word learning. In this article, we draw from complementary theoretical frameworks,…

Shared book reading is a common and effective way to support vocabulary knowledge. However, it is not the only pedagogy for supporting this learning goal. We propose a "toolbox" of activities that teachers can use to foster vocabulary acquisition in young children. We first discuss the science behind why these activities are effective…

This study explored the instructional potential of bilingual picturebooks for building word consciousness in bilingual elementary students. Word consciousness refers to knowledge about words as well as interest in and enthusiasm for learning new words. This disposition helps students build their vocabularies and learn more words from talk and…

Although development of young children's vocabulary knowledge is critical for their literacy, it often is neglected in classrooms, especially those pressed for time. In this article we explore a literacy coach's implementation of SAIL (Survey, Analyze, Interpret, Link), an instructional framework that integrates academic vocabulary (AV)…

The authors look back on their participation in three successful multiyear research studies focused on multifaceted vocabulary instruction and distill four overarching lessons that provide practical guidance to schools and teachers interested in implementing effective comprehensive vocabulary instruction. Specifically, they elaborate on the value…

In this manuscript we show how readalouds can significantly enrich student vocabulary and comprehension by demonstrating enhancements that will foster student learning and language development. We anchor our examples to empirical evidence demonstrating that the content of a readaloud (i.e., the what we teach) as well as the quality of the…

Vocabulary learning is an essential component of early literacy instruction. However, choosing appropriate words for instruction can be a challenge, with many resources encouraging the instruction of words that are either too easy or too obscure. This article, based on a systematic review of vocabulary interventions, presents research-based…

In this article, we explore how character perspective-taking can support students' reading comprehension, as well as opportunities to engage social-emotional learning (SEL). We start by defining character perspective-taking and SEL. Then, we present strategies for practicing character perspective-taking in classrooms, how these strategies are…

Competing theories are quite common in education. In spelling research, two general perspectives have emerged over the years: stage theory and repertoire/alternative theories. Exploring these perspectives is important because teachers need to understand how spelling knowledge is critical for learning to read words and to write them. Stage theory…

A group of words, labeled the core vocabulary, can be expected to be prominent across all texts. Scholarship made possible by digital databases of words and new analytic systems has shown that approximately 2,500 morphological families account for most of the words in texts--an average of 91.5% of all words in the Common Core State Standards…

Texts are an often-ignored element in studies of interactive read-alouds in early childhood settings. In this article, the author addresses this research gap by examining 60 preschool books for the vocabulary affordances they provide for young children. There were five types of books in the study: narrative, informational, interactive, alphabet,…

Activities that teach PreK-1 students the six components of emergent literacy and beginning reading and word study are presented for classroom settings. These activities are adaptable developmentally and they highlight four important aspects of teaching phonics, spelling and word knowledge that are often overlooked: the rhythm of literacy, Concept…