Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary

Book excerpt: Vocabulary teaching often becomes an isolated activity rather than an integral part of our overall teaching. When this happens, students seldom internalize those words or incorporate them into their writing or speaking. In Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Janet Allen provides strategies that will help students learn new words, become more conscious of words, and increase competence in knowing when and how to use words. Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary centers on four components of effective vocabulary instruction--providing rich and varied language experiences, teaching individual words, teaching word-learning strategies, and fostering word consciousness--and provides tools to develop effective instruction for each component. Janet offers advice on teaching vocabulary across the curriculum, exploring how best to teach general academic vocabulary, discipline-specific vocabulary, topic-specific vocabulary, and passage-critical vocabulary. Like its popular predecessors, Tools for Content Literacy and More Tools for Content Literacy, this spiral-bound, tabbed flipchart offers instant access to succinct descriptions, practical strategies, and manageable assessments. From word logs to word webs, from naming and knowing text features to using internal and external context clues, Janet provides teachers with tools that will help them save time and be more flexible and confident in meeting students' needs.