I recently learned about an excellent website where you can find 10 academic word lists for high school student use.   At this site, you will find the most frequently occurring word in the family along with the related word family variations for the word. For example, the word “authority” cites “authoritative” as well as [...]

This is a great idea to use to develop student vocabulary. Give the class a small passage that is missing words. Each student is asked to complete the passage with words that s/he thinks will make the passage more interesting to read. After each student has completed finding words to insert into the missing parts [...]

A great way to build student interest in words is to develop as a class an oversized or “Big Book” class thesaurus. Throughout the year as students learn new words, have them look them up and generate some additional synonyms for each word. This can help students expand both reading skills as they search for [...]

An excellent way to help students think about new words they encounter as they read is to create a double sided bookmark where students collect new words as they read. At the top of the bookmark, put “A word that the class should know is:” and leave some space for students to write their new [...]

If students are to comprehend what they read, they have to understand the meaning of the words used in the text. Teachers, therefore, should explicitly teach students the words they need to know if they are to truly grasp the content of a story. Take the word “dinghy,” for example. Students may need to be [...]