Building Academic Vocabulary

Teachers will have an understanding of how to teach vocabulary following Marzano’s Six-Step Process. Marzano, R. J. and Pickering, D., (2005). Building Academic Vocabulary Teacher’s Manual. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

(Marzano and Pickering, 2005, pp ) Together, these steps can help ensure that teachers appropriately introduce new terms and help students develop an initial understanding of them. 1. Explain 2. Restate 3. Graphical Representation These steps describe different types of multiple exposures that students should experience over time to help them shape and sharpen their understanding of the terms. 4. Activities 5. Discussions 6. Games

 Introduce the word  Have students say the word aloud  Have students write the word  Ask students what they know about the term  Build on students’ understanding (Marzano and Pickering, 2005, p. 15)

 It is critical that instead of simply copying what the teacher has said, the students “own” the new words by constructing their own meanings for the words.  The construction of the term does not need to be comprehensive, but efforts should be made to ensure they do not contain major errors.

 Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representation of a term; this forces them to think of the term in a totally different way.  Research shows that one of the best ways to learn a new word is to associate it with an image.  (Marzano and Pickering, 2005) 

 Understanding deepens over time if students continually reexamine their understanding of a given term.  Activities should be designed to engage students explicitly in the focused review of targeted items. (Marzano and Pickering, 2005)

 Interacting with other people about what we are learning deepens the understanding of everyone involved- particularly when we are learning new terms.  Although student discussions can be informal and unstructured, the teacher may want to provide a structure.

 Games are one of the most underused instructional tools in education.  Many types of games can help teachers keep new terms in the forefront of students’ thinking and allow students to reexamine their understanding of terms.  It is important to set aside blocks of time each week to play games in order to energize students and guide them in the review and use of important terms.

 Give students a permanent reference for vocabulary, allowing them to review words daily and ultimately improve their comprehension.  Teachers and students should periodically interact with word wall.  Current words should be added as they are taught.  Effort should be made to distinguish between old and new terms.