Presenting New Vocabulary
Tiers
Word Learning Activities
Additional Considerations
Context
100
Used within and beyond the context of the story to clarify meaning.
What are examples?
100
Reason for deciding what tier a word belongs to.
What is determining which words to teach?
100
Activities used to measure students' knowledge of words.
What are assessments?
100
Detailed teaching.
What is elaborate instruction?
100
Identifying the context in which words appear helps with this.
What is determining which words to teach?
200
Pictures, diagrams, gestures, and demonstrations are examples of these.
What are concrete representations?
200
Most basic words - students rarely need to be taught these.
What are Tier One words?
200
An activity in which students associate a known word with a newly learned word.
What is Word Association?
200
Focuses on specific aspects of a word’s meaning and uses words that are part of students’ everyday vocabulary.
What is a student friendly definition?
200
Context leads reader toward incorrect meaning of word.
What is misdirective context?
300
Contrasting examples that help prevent misconceptions of a definition.
What are nonexamples?
300
Words used infrequently - often limited to a specific subject area.
What are Tier Three words?
300
An activity in which students apply various meanings to the same word.
What is Multiple Meanings?
300
If students have this, the definition of a word would not have to be taught.
What is previous exposure or experience?
300
Context provides enough information to lead reader to correct meaning of word or word is explicitly defined or explained in text.
What is directive context?
400
Applying a strategy with teacher guidance.
What is guided practice?
400
High frequency words found across a variety of subject areas.
What are Tier Two words?
400
An activity in which students make choices and justify responses.
What is Making Choices?
400
Defining a word using only a few other words.
What is brief instruction?
400
Context does not assist reader in determining meaning of word.
What is nondirective context?
500
Engaging students in relating something they know to what you are about to teach them.
What is activating background knowledge?
500
Frail, winced, and adequate are examples of words from this tier.
What is Tier Two?
500
Activities at the lowest level of difficulty such as memorizing and matching.
What are association activities?
500
Length of time in future to think about when determining if a word is important to teach.
What is five years?
500
Context provides reader with adequate information to give general idea of word’s meaning.
What is general context?
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