Knowledge & Vocabulary (K-2)

Building knowledge and vocabulary, together with foundational skills, accelerate early literacy and form the "Early Reading Accelerators." See this Quick Start Guide for an overview of the Early Reading Accelerators and how we can implement them for all students. To better understand Knowledge & Vocabulary, explore these additional Collections:

Early Reading Accelerators.  The Early Reading Accelerators are essential content all readers must access to become proficient. This Collection provides an overview of the Accelerators, with emphasis on ways to implement these concepts in the 2020-21 school year.

Foundational Skills. Foundational skills - print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency - are the building blocks of early reading. This Collection has resources, materials, and best practices for teaching these concepts to all students.

Knowledge-rich classrooms utilize texts and teaching that value students' identities, perspectives, and voices.

Through regular opportunities to think, talk, and write about rich stories and other read-aloud books, our students’ vocabulary and knowledge about how the world works grow exponentially. All readers must engage with texts that help them see, learn about, and understand new things, as well as texts that connect to their own lives and lived experiences. During these deep experiences with read-aloud of complex texts, students not only build new knowledge but also become a community of learners.

Read-Aloud Project Lessons. Read-aloud lessons for grades K-2 center around a rich, complex text that will be read and reread over several days. Each of these lessons contain text-dependent questions for each day's read, selected high-leverage vocabulary, and a culminating task option. Select from these ready-to-use lessons texts that match topics you are planning to study with your students, reflect their lives and experiences, or strike you as engaging their interests. Or, use the template to create your own with texts of your own choosing.

The sampling of read-aloud lessons below includes some popular titles representing a range of topics and character identities. Find all K-2 lessons here.

• Kindergarteners in Elko, Nevada learn about road construction through a read-aloud of a complex text.

Students can grow as much as four times the vocabulary with connected texts (multiple resources on a topic).

In addition to complex read-alouds, all students must engage in a volume of reading in order to grow knowledge and vocabulary. To maximize this growth, use text sets: intentionally grouped sets of texts and media resources focused on a specific, conceptually-coherent topic - like Serena Williams, sharks, or ancient Egypt. Students might engage with text sets based on the topic of read-aloud anchor texts, their interests or identities,  connections across content areas, or their language of instruction. No matter the topic, text sets provide an opportunity for students to rapidly increase their knowledge and word wealth.

The Power of Text Sets.  Learn about this easy, research-based, and fun way to become a stronger reader. This quick guidance document includes instructions for making your own text set, or where to find a pre-made text set online. 

Book baskets maximize student choice and knowledge building during independent reading.

Independent reading based on student-selected topics grows their knowledge and vocabulary through volume of reading, while providing authentic choice in their learning. Book baskets, collections of books (often from your classroom library) organized by topic, encourage young readers to select books based on their interests -- Civil Rights leaders, soccer, dinosaurs, you name it! -- rather than restricting them to their “level.”

Weekly Reading Practice for Early Readers.  Use this weekly routine to support your early readers with knowledge-building texts in a variety of settings, including synchronous, asynchronous, and with/without technology. 

We all want to support each of our students to engage in rich, grade-level work. In doing so, we must “resist the inclination to ‘water down’ instruction and assignments for students with unfinished learning, students learning English, or those with other specialized learning needs. These students require the same challenging work and cognitive demands as their peers in order to develop academic skills and grow as scholars" (Council of Great City Schools). Use the resources below to support your students while engaging in the work of the knowledge and vocabulary accelerator.

Juicy Sentences Strategy.  The juicy sentence is a strategy developed by Dr. Lily Wong Fillmore, specifically to address the needs of English learners while engaging with complex texts, and it is a tool that is useful for helping all students learn to deconstruct and reconstruct sentences from rich texts, and to understand how different language features contribute to meaning.

• Kindergarteners in this class of English learners in New York City engage in the Juicy Sentences strategy as they learn about butterflies. (From the Council of Great City Schools).

Instructional practices that are culturally relevant are responsive to and respect the value of all students’ backgrounds, languages, cultures, points of view, knowledge, and skills. When we infuse these practices into our work, we create more fulfilling, equitable, and positive experiences for all early readers.

The Powers of Protocols for Equity.  Use these protocols from Zaretta Hammond to create a more student-centered classroom.