Vocabu-Lit

Grades 6-12

Reviewers Guide

®

(O’Connor, 1937)

Johnson O’Connor was an American psychometrician, researcher, and educator.
He is most remembered as being the father of modern education research and aptitude testing.

Having a robust vocabulary is the single best predictor of student 
and career success.”

OVERVIEW

Why Teaching Vocabulary

Is Important

Vocabulary is key to reading comprehension.
Readers cannot understand what they are reading without knowing what
most of the words mean. A robust vocabulary  allows students to understand
the nuances word meanings to better understand the exact  meaning of an authors writing.
(Torgesen and Wagner, 2006)

Vocabulary exposure boosts confidence when tackling advanced literature and texts.
The more words that students have been exposed to the more confident they are when
tackling new and more complex literature.

Vocabulary knowledge usually comes before achievement, not because of it.

 Academic Success 

Deep vocabulary knowledge leads to strong reading comprehension demonstrated by success in all academic subjects.

Students with a robust vocabulary tend to score higher in all sections of the ACT, SAT, and other standardized tests.​

— National Reading Panel

"Vocabulary plays an important role both in learning to read and in comprehending text: readers cannot understand text without knowing what most of the words mean.”

 Reading 

 Writing 

— Stahl and Kapinus, 2001

Vocabulary is the paint that creative writers use to construct a vivid literary picture. Vocabulary knowledge enables students to write in more interesting and creative ways. This encourages students to experiment and unlock their imaginations. (Laufer, 2013)​

“When children ‘know’ a word, they not only know the word’s definition and its logical relationship with other words, they also know how the word functions indifferent contexts.”

Vocabulary is directly responsible for the ability to effectively communicate.

The more robust a student’s vocabulary the better they are at understanding what is being communicated and in turn, the better they are at being able to effectively communicate their own thoughts and ideas. ​

Power
of the

Pedagogy

Vocabu-Lit is the greatest tool I have seen for vocabulary acquisition and it really delivers results. It will bump up your school’s results when used with fidelity. It is for every student (G&T, SpEd, Gen Ed) in the class. Vocabu-Lit is really an exceptional resource to teach the solid, foundational vocabulary skills students need to be successful.”

Deborah Moore
Cleveland Heights, University Heights City Schools 
Cleveland Heights, Ohio

OVERVIEW

How does Vocabu-Lit Work?

[image of ‘Using Context Clues’ look inside]

[image of ‘Using Context Clues’ in Interactive Edition showing annotation capabilities]

Research-Based Strategies Make Learning Stick 

Students unlock word meaning through context clues and develop mastery using multiple research-based vocabulary strategies.

Words in context
All Master Words come from excerpts of high-quality texts including contemporary fiction, nonfiction, speeches, and primary sources.

Dictionary skills
By using the built-in dictionary, students compare their definitions to standard definitions, helping them identify both substantive and more nuanced differences.

Close reading
Each lesson begins with students extracting context clues from the text to generate meaning for the Master Words.

Multiple exposures
A series of exercises of increasing complexity test recall and usage of the words in multiple forms.

Writing
Short writing exercises ensure students can use the Master Words in their writing and speaking. 

Each lesson focuses on 10 Master Words. At the beginning of the Unit, students are introduced to all 50 Master words they will encounter in the 5 lessons of the unit. This preview exercise will build students’ ability to unlock meaning from unfamiliar words and assist them in recalling the Master Words when they see them in the unit lessons.

Master Words

Lesson: Second Read
& Using Context Clues

Students read the selection a second time, this time focusing on the Master Words and annotating any context clues that provide meaning. From this information, they develop their own definition and compare it to a dictionary definition. 

Lesson: Word Exercises

During this portion of the of the lesson students build word mastery and cement vocabulary retention through the use of multiple exposures to the lesson’s master words. These exercises represent a wide variety of scaffolded research-based vocabulary learning strategies that reinforce each other and increase in complexity.

Lesson:
Write About It 

Every lesson wraps up with a Write About It activity related to the previous passage and requiring students to use the Master Words in their response to insure they are able to effectively use them effectively.

A review following every five lessons reinforces students’ vocabulary knowledge. 
Each review features classic roots and affixes, and then a section that focuses on idioms and sayings, academic vocabulary, or figurative language.
Each lesson focuses on 10 Master Words. At the beginning of the Unit, students are introduced to all 30 Master words they will encounter in the 5 lessons of the unit. This preview exercise will build students’ ability to unlock meaning from unfamiliar words and assist them in recalling the Master Words when they see them in the unit lessons.

End of Unit: Word Study and Review

Each unit ends with a five-part assessment to evaluate what the students have learned and identify any learning gaps.

End of Unit: Assessment

STANDARDS

Correlations

How do students connect the content of the course to their lives outside the classroom? 

For more information, please contact your educational sales consultant
or visit Vocabu-Lit here