Closing the Vocabulary Gap

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How can we as educators bridge the gap for students between the language they grasp already & more academic texts? That being said, oracy alone is insufficient. Conversations are bound to here-and-now contexts, using a relatively small number of simple words, whereas reading books opens up experience with language that is considerably more sophisticated. This book offers a great overview of the research on learning vocabulary, and practical advice　on how to apply this research in the classroom." – Daisy Christodoulou, Research and Development Manager, ARK Schools, UK As Quigley argues, knowledge about words underpins all education and learning. This is because word knowledge underpins speaking, listening, reading and writing. The importance for subjects such as English and modern foreign languages is obvious. But he argues that it may be even more important for other subjects, such as science and maths. Quigley emphasises the high vocabulary demands of the new key stage 2 and GCSE assessments. Such concerns have been widespread in my recent interactions with teachers and researchers alike. Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world.” Steven Stahl (2005) Developing vocabulary knowledge is so much more than word lists and student-friendly definitions. Even the most careful curation of vocabulary on a knowledge organiser may only give the …

Read this… ‘Liz Truss culpa de su caída política al ‘establishment’ económico del Reino Unido La ex primera ministra conservadora defiende su rebaja de impuestos y asegura que “nunca se le dio una oportunidad real” de impulsarla El modo más fácil en política de admitir errores sin admitir culpa es asegurar que todo fue un … Pronunciation may seem trivial, but it has a positive physical implication; saying a word actually imprints it on the muscles of the ear and jaw. This is known as kinesthetic learning and should not be overlooked. Beyond muscle memory, saying a word in your own voice can be a first step toward making it your own. There are few simple solutions in education. If you are being promised one, it is at best a hopeful fib, at worst a deceptive sales-pitch. But there are some helpful principles that can guide our actions. A useful one I think could help improve literacy in primary and secondary schools: write less; read more. It …Five years ago, I wanted to develop an easy way for children to really explore words that they had read in context. Upon looking through the national curriculum and reviewing the research, it seemed that there were lots of ways that words could be explored. RESCUE (explained below) was created and trialled in several different schools, as a way of deepening children’s understanding and developing word consciousness (Duke and Moses, 2003). Word consciousness involves recognising when children have encountered new words and noticing the characteristics of the words. There are other similar strategies which schools could use but this is just one approach. Explore. This is the fun bit. Talk about the words, use image association, compare synonyms and antonyms, dig into the roots of the word, and much more. Thank you so much for sharing you thoughts and resources. It is useful to have an idea of the books you have been looking at as well. The performance of reading aloud can offer vital opportunities for pupils to learn. In particular, the act of reading aloud can benefit pupils’ reading fluency, as well as proving a helpful bridge to increasing reading comprehension. Reader’s Theatre is a comprehensive classroom approach that can offer a vehicle to foster fluency in the classroom. A recent research review …

Below are the free resources created to accompany my ‘Closing the Gap’ series. CLOSING THE WRITING GAP RESOURCES Every English SOL has specific vocabulary lists with a variety of ways to introduce them including the Frayer model, word sorting (along a positive/negative axis) or groupings through discussion. Students know there is no ‘right’ answer in sorting, but they must justify their choices, which leads to rich discussion. Maths now use classroom board displays to share subject specific vocabulary whilst in DT, prepared sentence stems also using subject specific vocabulary to support writing are used throughout KS3. The constraints of the past 18 months have limited further work across the curriculum although the principles of Language for Learning to develop and promote the use of academic language to maximise the attainment of all remains embedded in the whole school SIP. We must give our students the necessary tools to develop their vocabulary independently. If we want a school-leaver to have something like 50,000 words, it’s a daunting task. But we can close the gap: by explicitly teaching a mere few hundred words well in the classroom, children grow their vocabulary exponentially by learning the related word families and having more tools to read independently with success. Children can go on to learn around 3,000 to 4,000 words annually. Year upon year of such growth sees the 50,000 figure become achievable for each child we teach. It has never been more important for us to close the “vocabulary gap”; this is one of the big narratives of Covid catch-up. That gap - the difference in the number of words that a child from the richest and poorest homes knows - has a real impact on life chances, and it has reportedly been widening during the coronavirus pandemic. Teach academic vocabulary explicitly and clearly, with coherent planning throughout the curriculum.Reardon, Sean F. “The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations” in R. Murnane & G. Duncan (Eds.), Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children, New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2011 Promote vocabulary that’s relevant for developing disciplinary knowledge across the entire curriculum Alex Quigley is director of Huntington Research School in York. He is the author of Closing the Vocabulary Gap , published by Routledge in April 2018 Reading list With this in mind, it is important for teachers to generate Tier II word lists to study and also identify Tier II words that are encountered in reading assignments. One criterion for identifying a Tier II word is determining that the word has multiple uses or applications. A word like precious is a perfect example. A precious gem might be studied in geology, while the concept of something precious could be found in a poem or novel. The goal is to isolate these difficult Tier II words and take time to explicitly teach them using a variety of strategies. Finished Closing the Vocabulary Gap by Alex Quigley today. I read this for work and it is excellent and concise. We know pupils have vocab gaps but how do we fix that? This book goes into the theory, the pedagogy and gives clear strategies as routes forward. Would recommend for any teacher.

In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, the author explores the increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary gap between our ‘word poor’ and ‘word rich’ students could prove the vital difference between school failure and success. In a sense, children are not just exposed to the definition of a word but have a detailed knowledge of its multiple meanings and the various ways that it can be used. Another key strand in supporting students’ acquisition of vocabulary is through oracy. Inset CPD has been used to support teacher questioning and classroom discussion. Some disciplines, such as science, are less comfortable using debate and teachers have asked for further support with this. We are a Teams school and the use of breakout rooms was a function that I found particularly useful in online teaching. The capacity to drop in and out of small group discussion was rewarding – even if occasionally students were caught ‘off topic’! Duke, N., Moses, M. (2003) 10 Research-Tested Ways to Build Children’s Vocabulary. New York: Scholastic.As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap? If we can align, encourage and guide a structured approach to wider reading alongside a focus on oracy, with both being wedded to direct instruction of academic vocabulary and reading, this opens up the potential for a bigger, harder curriculum. Without ignoring the tremendous – indeed, essential – value of oracy, we should be clear: the future success of all of our students rests predominantly on their ability to become proficient and fluent readers. Their capacity to learn and enjoy learning is bound inexorably to their reading skill. If they can read it, they can say it. If they can say it with confidence, it provides them a key to success for their future beyond school.