VOCABULARY

Vocabulary refers to: a student’s ability to recognize and understand the meanings of words. Oral vocabulary refers to the words that a student recognizes and uses while speaking or listening. A student’s reading vocabulary includes the words that they recognize and understand when reading. A student’s writing vocabulary includes the words that he/she uses when expressing ideas through written material. Vocabulary is an important part of reading comprehension.

A student may be struggling in this area if:

The student scores low in the areas of vocabulary and/or comprehension on I-Ready or another benchmarking assessment.
The student may be able to read the words, but struggles with understanding the meaning.
The student may be unable to describe or answer questions about material he/she has read.
The student misuses words when speaking or writing.
The student seems to use the same words over and over when writing. He/she struggles to vary sentences and use grade-level words.

Increasing Vocabulary Using Incremental Rehearsal
-Visual organizer that promotes vocabulary development

Word Maps

-Visual organizer that promotes vocabulary development

20 Evidence-based Vocabulary Interventions

-Recommended for class-wide or Tier 2 use

FCRR Variety

-A variety of interventions to increase vocabulary

Word Sort

-To increase vocabulary, words can be sorted according to meaning

This curated list of interventions has been compiled from a variety of sources including: University of Missouri EBI, Intervention Central, fcrr.org, and Reading Rockets. This is by no means an all inclusive list and there may be many you prefer over the ones cited here. If so, let us know so we can include your favorites too! The interventions on this page are evidence based and require few if any additional materials. Many can be adapted for use at different grade levels and are generally listed in order of complexity and skill level.