Content Area Vocabulary: What does the research say?

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How much time should I spend teaching vocabulary? How much does it really benefit students at different ages? What are best uses of my time if I do teach vocabulary?

 Content VocabularyRecent research gives us a lot of evidence for the answers. Here's a quick summary from recent years:

  • If you're reading texts in science or social studies middle school or high school, directly teaching content words helps students! From a 2012 Study.
  • Middle schoolers (grades 6-8) benefit a lot! From a 2009 Study. Combine direct instruction of academic and content words with other strategies to get the biggest results. Vocabulary plus these tasks is really good:
    • deep reading
    • student discussions
    • students developing and supporting arguments
    • developing persuasive essays
  • Students can learn curriculum vocabulary best if a combination of strategies is used:
    • explicit teaching
    • teacher-structured pairing of students
    • use of videos to prompt student discussion
    • prolonged use of graphic organizers (over 9-12 weeks)
    • Avoid drill and practice!

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