In this article we identify ways to scaffold content-specific instruction to support your multilingual learners' academic language development. With the definition that academic language compromises of vocabulary, linguistic functions, and syntax, we share ways to integrate three instructional practices across your instruction. These practices…

This article addresses a growing call for the use of more culturally relevant texts and pedagogy in classrooms. We present how a teacher sharing power with emergent bilingual (EB) students during read-aloud discussions with culturally relevant texts supports EB students' literacy opportunities. These opportunities include (1) initiating new topics…

Gamification uses game elements such as quests, challenges, levels, and rewards to motivate and engage students in the classroom. Given the engagement that students feel during gameplay, it is sensible to include elements of game design to motivate students and create a space for comprehensive vocabulary instruction. Designing a gamified…

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.

Students who can use a term conversantly in academic environments know how to use it precisely in their writing and in their interactions with others; they can be said to deeply know, not just the word term in alphabetic or spoken forms, but the connections to ideas the term embodies. When students are intrigued by words and ideas, they want to…

Content vocabulary is essential for children's comprehension of informational text. Teachers will need to support children in developing the technical or specialized words they need for informational text and in linking these words to key concepts in content area instruction. This article describes the vocabulary instruction that was observed…

This study examines the effect of morphological instruction and synthesizes instructional methods from 30 morphological interventions into four recommended morphological instructional strategies. Results suggest children receiving morphological instruction performed significantly better on measures of literacy achievement, especially in the areas…

Spanish-English cognates have been used for decades to facilitate the acquisition of English by Latino English learners (ELs). Using the online program, WordSift, in tandem with the online Find-a-Cognate database, teachers can identify important Spanish-English cognates and noncognate words in text. With this information, teachers can plan and…

Constrained skills theory is a reconceptualization of reading development that suggests a continuum of skills, with some, such as letter knowledge and decoding abilities, more tightly constrained than others, such as phonological awareness and oral reading fluency. The most constrained skills consist of a limited number of items and thus can be…

A study of 25 expert teachers and their shared reading lessons in grades 3-8 suggests that teachers focus their modeling during shared reading in four categories: comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features. (Contains 1 figure.)

Research has documented the large differences in young children's vocabulary knowledge. In light of the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, this gap is particularly worrisome and points to the critical need for well-articulated vocabulary instruction across the grades. The author describes character trait…

For this content analysis study, the author examined and cross-compared the various ways in which eight informal reading inventories (IRIs) published from 2004 to 2008 address key issues relevant to new U.S. federal guidelines and the National Reading Panel's five critical components of reading instruction. Results suggest the IRIs range in…

Discusses techniques for teaching meaning vocabulary and describes the advantages of one commercially produced vocabulary program. (DD)

Discusses three major differences between the vocabulary of reading lessons and content area lessons. Discusses the implications these differences make in instruction. (MG)

Describes the Said Web, an instructional strategy that encourages students to examine clusters of words and the words' linkages to one another so that vocabulary study does not occur as lists of isolated words, but rather as meaningful groups. Outlines eight instructional steps for the Said Web, which can be used with young children and modified…