'Reading to learn' is a common phrase used to describe students in upper elementary grades as the transition begins to focus on content-area learning. One of the best ways students can prepare for this shift is through their background knowledge, or schema. A teacher must help students build their schema by explicitly teaching content-area vocabulary. In Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual (2005), Marzano and Pickering stress this by stating, "[g]iven the importance of academic background knowledge and the fact that vocabulary is such an essential aspect of it, one of the most crucial services that teachers can provide, particularly for students who do not come from academically advantaged backgrounds, is systematic instruction in important academic terms" (p. 3). Marzano and Pickering's resource helps teachers with not only creating a list of academic vocabulary terms, but also by providing instructional advice, activities and games, numerous graphic organizer templates, and leveled word lists. This resource truly is a great place to start for any teacher, or better yet school corporation, wanting to create a unified academic vocabulary program.
Creating a word wall of academic terms is a great tool for students to see and refer to on a daily basis. Taking this one step further would be to have students create their own Academic Vocabulary Journals, as my colleagues and I have done. Here is the template we use with our sixth grade students and a sample math terms list.
In addition, preparing students for vocabulary words and phrases they will encounter on high-stakes testing, such as the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus (ISTEP+) is an important task. The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) recently released the Standards and Assessment Vocabulary "to help develop an awareness of the connections between the standards and assessment." Follow the link and scroll down a bit to access the lists, categorized by grade levels and subject areas.
Other resources you may wish to look into include:
Janet Allen's Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Grades 4-12
Tennessee's Department of Education Vocabulary Initiative or Tennessee Academic Vocabulary
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