This book showcases effective ways to build the vocabulary knowledge K-8 learners need to engage meaningfully in reading, writing, and discussion on academic subjects. The distinguished authors draw on decades of classroom experience to explain what academic vocabulary is, how it fits into the Common Core State Standards, and how targeting vocabulary can enhance conceptual understanding in English language arts, social studies, and math and science. Rich classroom vignettes, teaching tips, and examples of student work are included. The book also features helpful figures, word lists, discussion questions, and recommended print and online resources.

Helping students master a broad range of individual words is a vital part of effective vocabulary instruction. Building on his bestselling resource The Vocabulary Book, Michael Graves’s new book describes a practical program for teaching individual words in the K–8 classroom. Designed to foster effective, efficient, and engaging differentiated instruction, Teaching Individual Words combines the latest research with vivid illustrations from real classrooms. Get ready to bridge the vocabulary gap with this user-friendly teaching tool! “Michael Graves shows once again why he is one of our leading lights in vocabulary instruction.” —Claude Goldenberg, Stanford University, School of Education “Does the world need another book on vocabulary instruction? Yes, it needs this one, for no other text available addresses in detail how teachers can select, teach, and assess the meanings of specific words.” —From the Foreword by James F. Baumann, University of Wyoming “This comprehensive and practical resource dives into the heart of word learning and demonstrates how to maximize the benefits of teaching individual words. Dr. Graves skillfully highlights concrete examples of vocabulary instruction as rich and powerful tools that can be easily incorporated into a variety of educational settings. I highly recommend it.” —Kari D. Ross, Curriculum Facilitator and Literacy Specialist, Centennial Schools, Minnesota “A must-have book for any educator’s bookshelf. Dr. Graves’s readable style and practical knowledge make this book easy to use and sure to have an impact.” —Linda Diamond, CEO, Consortium on Reading Excellence

This book showcases effective ways to build the vocabulary knowledge K-8 learners need to engage meaningfully in reading, writing, and discussion on academic subjects. The distinguished authors draw on decades of classroom experience to explain what academic vocabulary is, how it fits into the Common Core State Standards, and how targeting vocabulary can enhance conceptual understanding in English language arts, social studies, and math and science. Rich classroom vignettes, teaching tips, and examples of student work are included. The book also features helpful figures, word lists, discussion questions, and recommended print and online resources.

Learn how to make vocabulary instruction more effective by making better use of mini-lessons and word study time to achieve durable learning about words and how they work. In this essential new book, literacy expert Amy Benjamin presents her 4E model (Exposure, Exploration, Engagement, Energy) for teaching vocabulary so that students gain deep understanding, improving their overall language and literacy skills. Benjamin guides you through bringing these 4Es to life in your K-8 reading-writing workshop. -Exposure: Enrich your teacher talk with sophisticated words and phrases to facilitate natural language acquisition and application of new words. -Exploration: Promote consistent vocabulary growth with a multifaceted instructional approach that incorporates etymology, word associations, word families, spelling, and morphology. -Engagement: Build students’ confidence by encouraging meaningful use of new words, both in and out of the classroom. -Energy: Enliven your workshop and increase participation with a variety of word games, puzzles, projects, and cooperative learning activities. Each chapter provides practical examples and scenarios to help you apply the model to your own classroom. The appendices include a variety of strategies for organizing reading-writing workshops, a thorough introduction to academic word lists and their role in vocabulary instruction, and an analysis of forty Latin and Greek word roots for mini-lessons.

This highly regarded work brings together prominent authorities on vocabulary teaching and learning to provide a comprehensive yet concise guide to effective instruction. The book showcases practical ways to teach specific vocabulary words and word-learning strategies and create engaging, word-rich classrooms. Instructional activities and games for diverse learners are brought to life with detailed examples. Drawing on the most rigorous research available, the editors and contributors distill what PreK-8 teachers need to know and do to support all students' ongoing vocabulary growth and enjoyment of reading. New to This Edition*Reflects the latest research and instructional practices.*New section (five chapters) on pressing current issues in the field: assessment, authentic reading experiences, English language learners, uses of multimedia tools, and the vocabularies of narrative and informational texts.*Contributor panel expanded with additional leading researchers.

Boost students' social studies vocabulary with easy-to-implement effective strategies! Sample lessons using each strategy are included for grade spans 1-2, 3-5, and 6-8 using vocabulary words from standards-based, content-specific units of study. Each strategy also includes suggestions for differentiating instruction. Each notebook includes 25 research-based strategies, differentiation suggestions for each strategy, assessment strategies, sample word lists including both specialized content and general academic words, and parent letters in both English and Spanish. Also included is a Teacher Resource CD with PDFs of resource pages, word lists, assessment pages, and parent letters. This resource is correlated to the Common Core State Standards and is aligned to the interdisciplinary themes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 280pp.

Ideal as a supplementary text for a variety of courses and as a guide for in-service teachers and for professional development settings, Teaching English Language Learners: 43 Strategies for Successful K–8 Classrooms provides teachers of all content areas with a broad, practical approach to teaching English language learners in the regular classroom setting.

Veteran educator Marilee Sprenger explains how to teach the essential, high-frequency words that appear in academic contexts--and reverse the disadvantages of what she calls "word poverty." Drawing on research and experience, Sprenger provides a rich array of engaging strategies to help educators across all content areas and grade levels not only teach students a large quantity of words but also ensure that they know these words well. You'll find An overview of how the brain learns and retains new words, including the three stages of building long-term memories: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding strategies to introduce words in novel ways and jump-start the memory process. Rehearsal strategies to help students put words into long-term storage. Review strategies to help students strengthen their retrieval skills and gain the automaticity needed for reading comprehension. Ways to address planning and assessment as crucial, intersecting supports of a robust vocabulary program. This comprehensive resource has everything you need to help your students profoundly expand their vocabulary, enabling them to speak, read, and write with greater understanding and confidence.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

Research shows that vocabulary is the best support for students’ comprehension of narrative and information texts. Often, vocabulary instruction focuses on a few target words in specific texts. However, to understand the many new words in complex texts students need to know how words work. This book, written by an award-winning authority on reading instruction, shows teachers how to make small changes to teach more words and also how words work. Many of these small changes involve enrichments to existing vocabulary practices, such as word walls and conversations with students. Each chapter includes descriptions of teachers’ implementation of small changes to support big gains in students’ vocabulary. This book, which has sufficient depth in research and theory for graduate and undergraduate courses in vocabulary instruction, also offers practical steps that K–8 teachers can use in any reading program to help all students grow their vocabulary. Teaching Words and How They Work shows teachers how to: Identify the most important word families to teach. Teach students to use opening text as background knowledge for comprehending the rest of the text. Use word walls with more purpose and greater student engagement. Select the right words to teach from new information texts. Better understand limitations of leveled texts and how to adjust. Use assets and address challenges to support English learners. Access free mentor and teacher resources online at textproject.org.