Learning Vocab: CLD Students and Beyond

Levels of Vocabulary Learning:

Tier 1: Rarely require instructional attention to their meanings in school. Considered to be basic words that students should have acquired from everyday speech. "Basic" but when working with CLD students these can be unknown to them.Teachers should consider if the words are generic enough for cross cultural differences. Ie. Dog and cat, because these are animals that CLD students might have or know in their native country also.

TEACHER TIP****Keep in mind the following:

Polysemous- words that have multiple meanings, such as table-math table, scientific table, dinner table)

Simple idioms and everyday expressions. Ex: teacher's pet, it's raining cats and dogs. These are not literal meanings..just figures of speech.

Cognates of high frequency words. Spanish and Englsih: Ex. Car/Carro, Family/Familia

Tier 2: High frequency for mature language users and found aross a variety of domains and in many grade-level texts. "General Academic" Words appear in all different types of text, highly generalizable. These words can inhibit the CLD learner from learning tier 3 words if they are not taught these words.

TEACHER TIP***Teach transition words (into, within, by, them), Emphasize cognates of high frequency in Spanish, and low frequency in English.

Tier 3: Frequency of useis quite low and often limite to specific domans. Many times are specific words and terms related to indiviual content area. "Domain-Specific" These are not common words. They should not be in the focus of instruction, but should still be taught to CLD students

Vocabulary Strategies:

Before the lesson strategies 

During the lesson strategies

After the lesson strategies