It is so important to develop pupils’ vocabulary. Alex Quigley states that pupils need to acquire over 50,000 words to access their GCSEs. Indeed, the EEF Literacy reports state that teachers must provide explicit vocabulary instruction in every subject, use effective approaches to help students remember new words and prioritise teaching tier 2 and 3 …
In order for pupils to talk effectively in the classroom, we must explicitly teach them how to talk well. Voice 21 and Cambridge University developed this framework to guide teachers with this process. Good_Talk_Oracy Cambridge It considers: Physical elements e.g. use of voice and body language Linguistic elements e.g. Choice of vocabulary and language used …
A useful tool to aid retrieval practice are Knowledge Organisers. These are fact focused, and present information in an easily digestable format in order to help construct schemas. When referred to regularly, in a planner manner, they can greatly aid working memory and explicit vocabulary instruction. It is essential to think carefully how these are …
It really helps pupils to understand a concept when it is presented in partnership with a connected visual. Based on the principle of dual coding this will help cement the word in the child’s mind. It will also help to attach the word with the image, therefore increasing the likelihood they will remember that term. …
In Beck and McKeown’s book (Beck et al., 2007) ‘Bringing word to life’ there is fantastic guidance in relation to explicit vocabulary instruction: 1.Introduce words through explanations in everyday connected language, rather than dictionary definitions 2.Provide several contexts in which the word can be used 3.Get students to interact with word meanings right away 4.Develop …
The Academic Word List, developed by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington, (Coxhead 2000) consists of 570 word ‘families’ commonly found in academic subject texts. Use this tool to identify academic vocabulary within extracts of text used within lessons. AWL look up tool AWL_tool
Word mats can help pupils to uplevel the vocabulary they use when writing. It can provide alternative choices of words or simply provide prompts to challenge pupils to use more advanced vocabulary. Word mat Tables like the one below can help pupils to know how to improve the vocabulary used in their writing. Uplevel vocab …
Quizlet is a versatile tool to help pupils familiarise themselves with new vocabulary and test themselves on it in different ways. It supports the teaching and repetition of Tier 3 vocabulary. Each vocabulary set that is created enables pupils to test themselves by hearing it, spelling it, writing it as well as games based learning …
In order to embed a depth of understanding this technique tests whether a pupil can make links between two words. Display a series of words and ask pupils to pair them up in whichever way they choose. They then must provide an explanation for their choice. Pupils demonstrate their acquisition of new vocabulary by identifying …
Pupils are exposed to new vocabulary. They make an ‘informed guess’ as to what it could mean. They seek out the correct definition and then write their own definition to demonstrate understanding. Informed guesswork