Academic Language Mastery: Vocabulary in Context

Book excerpt: By now it’s a given: if we’re to help our ELLs and SELs access the rigorous demands of today’s content standards, we must cultivate the “code” that drives school success: academic language. Look no further for assistance than this much-anticipated series from Ivannia Soto, in which she invites field authorities Jeff Zwiers, David and Yvonne Freeman, Margarita Calderon, and Noma LeMoine to share every teacher’s need-to-know strategies on the four essential components of academic language. The subject of this volume is vocabulary. Here, Margarita Calderon reveals how vocabulary is best taught as a tool for completing and constructing more complex messages. With this book as your roadmap, you’ll learn how to: Teach high-frequency academic words and discipline-specific vocabulary across content areas Utilize strategies for teaching academic vocabulary, moving students from Tier 1 to Tiers 2 and 3 words and selecting appropriate words to teach Assess vocabulary growth as you go Our vocabulary instruction must come from the texts our ELLs and SELs are about to read, not from a set of activities that teach words in isolation. This guidebook will help you get started as early as tomorrow. Better yet, read all four volumes in the series and put in place an all-in-one instructional plan for closing the achievement gap.