Instructional design is an integral part of a balanced approach to teaching vocabulary instruction. This article presents several instructional procedures using research-based vocabulary strategies and explains how to design and adapt those strategies in order to reach desired learning outcomes. Emphasis is placed on research-based principles that…

In our concern to improve the quality of reading, we have neglected vocabulary development; in our zeal to teach children to pronounce words, we have neglected teaching them word meanings. Vocabulary can be developed by using all the communication processes: reading, writing, speaking, listening, visualizing, and observing; and vocabulary deserves…

A no-cost, easy to use technique for increasing the reading vocabulary of beginning readers is described in this report. A large number of common words can be elicited from children in a word-association game, to which children respond with words that are highly meaningful to them, and often to their culture. The children then use these words to…

A study explored a potential aptitude-by-treatment interaction associated with the keyword method of vocabulary acquisition. This method is a two-stage mnemonic process whereby an unfamiliar term is first transformed into a familiar concrete stimulus and then a thematic relationship is created between the transformed stimulus and the information…

Summarizes and updates original study done on reading and writing development of a preschool child. (SRT)

Outlines diverse strategies (contextual clues, palindromes, figurative language/idioms, etc.) for increasing vocabulary skills of gifted readers in the lower primary grades, using children's literature to supplement good tradebooks. (NKA)

If a student is to develop reading comprehension, he must possess and activate a number of linguistic and cognitive skills. He comes to the text with certain expectations and uses a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming to understand it. The overall goal of reading instruction is to produce motivated, independent,…

Ways in which semantic mapping can be used for general vocabulary development, as a prewriting and prereading activity, as a postreading activity, and as a study skill strategy are presented in this teaching guide. The first two sections provide an introduction to semantic mapping, and outline the three most common uses of semantic mapping as an…