Vocabulary Toolkit

Peer Reviewed Article

Fisher and Frey expressed the importance of vocabulary in elementary students. Due to

the increase in academic demands, students must learn 3,000 words per year from third grade to

get them closer to achieving proficiency. However, teachers can only teach about 400 words to

their students each year. Students do pick up new vocabulary during conversations, but we

should not rely on conversation alone to help close that gap of what students are getting to what

they should be receiving.

Although I have not come across a research article on the effect of teaching vocabulary in

a Tiered approach, many articles did mention this strategy. Vocabulary words should be

meaningful to content. Splitting words into three tiers ensures that the words being taught relate

back to the content. Tier I is a list of every day words that are basic and encountered

frequently. Words on this list could include: happy, clean, or fast. Tier II is a list of more

difficult words that can be seen in textbooks, but are not necessarily specific, academic words.

Tier II words require students to be aware of its multiple meanings. Some words on this list may

be: cluster, sympathy, or estimate. Tier III is list of low frequency, content specific words like

chasm and warp. When using this approach for students struggling with vocabulary, you must

focus on Tier II words rather than Tier III, as they are used more frequently and can be used in

more situations.

Words for the lists can be pulled from any fiction or non-fiction books that are being read

in class. The teacher can choose words by page or chapter. After reviewing the list with the

student or small group, students will create their own definitions based off what the story says,

using context clues. Then the students will create a more broad, student friendly definition.

Multiple exposure to the words and definitions will help reinforce their newly-learned
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vocabulary. Beck, Nelson, and Van Meter shared that this approach to vocabulary intervention is

beneficial for a variety of reasons. Putting words in Tiers allows students to learn words that are

relevant and tied to meaningful experiences, such as content.

Practitioner Article

Steele and Mill opened up their article saying that there is limited research on vocabulary

interventions, especially for students who have a Language Impairment (LI). Through their

findings, they shared that students with LI learn best from an environment that closely models a

Direct Instruction (DI) approach. DI allows students multiple exposure, immediate feedback,

and modeling. Many children without LI can pick up new vocabulary through normal

conversations or play, through incidental situations. Students with LI can also learn words from

incidental situations, but do not always reach the same level of proficiency in the same amount of

time. These students often need more practice to comprehend and produce new words. Both

groups of students, with and without LI, benefitted more from direct instruction of word

meanings compared to incidental situations.

It is important to choose target words that have a contextual meaning because words that

are tied to curriculum will have the most meaningful and functional impact on children. When

deciding which words to teach, it may help to create lists in three tiers. Tier I is a handful of

common words that students should know the meaning, as they are frequently used in day-to-day

conversations. Tier II is a list of academic words that students encounter during academic

discussions or reading. Tier III is a small list of words that are rarely used, but still beneficial to

the content. It is important not to exert so much time and energy into Tier I as those words can

be picked up incidentally; the intervention should focus mostly on Tier II.

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Overview of Practice
Focus and Outcome of Strategy:
The focus is to increase the vocabulary of students through various activities.

Pre-Requisite Skills:
Decoding grade-appropriate words
Comprehension strategies to read grade-appropriate text

Materials:
Word lists
Student definition worksheet

Critical Components of Implementation:

Tier words should be chosen from fiction or non-fiction books that students are currently reading,
that will help students see the word and understand it as it is used in context.

Considerations for Implementation:

The lists created showed be individualized and based on student needs.

Mini-Lesson Plan

Standard:

L.4 - Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases

based on grade appropriate reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Objective:

Students will be able to provide a definition for given Tier II words.

Description of Lesson:
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After the main lesson is taught, the class will break into groups. The groups will rotate through

stations for practice or enrichment activities based on their needs. The groups during the

rotations may be different, depending on what the goal for each station is, but when students are

working with the teacher, they will be in a homogeneously-created group working on the same

vocabulary list.

Procedures for Direct Instruction:

1. Students working with the teacher will bring their vocabulary folder to the table.

2. Teacher will give students their Tiered lists and read through all the words.

3. The lesson will focus mostly on Tier II words.

4. Students will discuss what each word means and create a student-friendly definition, without

guidance from the teacher. Teacher will provide support to fix definitions or extend student

knowledge.

Differentiation:

The biggest differentiation will be the list of words that students work with. Lists will be

individualized and tailored to specific needs. Some students may have harder vocabulary words

to practice, while others may have simpler lists.

References

Mills, Steele (2011). Vocabulary intervention for school-age children with language impairment:

A review of evidence and good practice. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. 27(3) 354-370

Montgomery (2014). Evidence-based practices in vocabulary acquisition in children.