Vocabulary · Tier 2: academic words
Explicit teaching of five to seven words per unit
Choose the five to seven academic words that matter most in a unit and teach them directly, then use them again and again across the unit. For middle and high school, Coxhead’s Academic Word List is a good place to choose from.
- Bands
- 2 to 5
- Stages
- Upper elementary, Middle school and High school
- Settings
- Mainstream class, Push-in support, Pull-out support and Small group
- Prep
- Medium prep
How to do it
- Before the unit, choose five to seven Tier 2 words students need to read and write the unit’s key texts, such as analyse, evidence, significant and however.
- Introduce each word with a student-friendly definition, an example from the unit and a non-example.
- Ask students to use the word aloud in a sentence frame in the same lesson.
- Build the words into questions and tasks throughout the unit.
- At the end, check whether students use each word correctly in their own writing.
In a lesson
Geography (high school)
At the start of a unit on migration, the teacher introduces factor, impact, significant, however and evidence. Students practise “One factor that pushes people to migrate is…”. Two weeks later, a band 3 student writes, “However, the most significant factor was the lack of work.”
What commonly goes wrong
- Too many words are chosen.
- The words are taught once in a starter and never used again.
- Subject words are chosen instead of the academic words that carry the argument.
Adapting it
For a lower band
Teach three words, each with a picture and a home language translation.
For a higher band
Teach word families and common partners, such as significant impact and significantly.