Direct Instruction: Vocabulary
Overview
Seeing and using new words repeatedly and in many contexts is critical for Vocabulary acquisition. In discussions and reading, teachers can provide students multiple opportunities to see, understand, and apply new Vocabulary words, as well as chances to use strategies for identifying unfamiliar words.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this kindergarten teacher explicitly teaches academic Vocabulary using multiple multisensory ways to explore the words, such as images and gestures.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how SpeakAgent's Vocab Lab supports direct academic language instruction with multimodal activities. Students learn new words by building on known words and using context clues.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Instructional Approaches Strategies
With this interactive technique, teachers help students become storytellers by listening and questioning.
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Explicit spelling instruction helps to improve not only students' spelling, a key part of Foundational Writing Skills, but also supports reading skills development.
In guided inquiry, teachers help students use their own language for constructing knowledge by active listening and questioning.
Independent reading promotes reading development by emphasizing student choice with teacher support in selecting books, as well as by making time for free reading.
Literacy centers with reading games, manipulatives, and activities support learner interests and promote the development of more complex reading skills and social interactions.
Through short but regular mindfulness activities, students develop their awareness and ability to focus.
Instruction in multiple formats allows students to activate different cognitive skills to understand and remember the steps they are to take in their reading work.
Using multiple methods of assessment can help educators gain a comprehensive understanding of learner progress across a wide range of skills and content.
A parent evening meeting about how to support literacy at home with one follow-up meeting with each family has shown strong results for students' reading development.
Talking with students about what they know about the topic of upcoming work helps activate their Background Knowledge or reveals gaps.
A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness students' assets, across many aspects of the whole child, in order to empower them to flourish.
