As a teacher, a big part of your role is to regularly assess children’s vocabulary knowledge, using your informal observation and sometimes more formal questioning. This should be a big part of your purposeful planning for instruction. The first step in this planning is to think about what words your children will need to know to understand the instructional lesson. This means thinking about the words you think they already know, and asking yourself questions like:
“How do I know that this child knows this word?”
“Have I heard him/her use it?”
“Has she/he responded appropriately when I used this word in our conversations?"
Thoughtful attention to the answers to these questions may lead you to realize that some children who are English language learners and children from at-risk backgrounds may not know as many of the tier 1 words as you might anticipate, and can benefit from some attention to them now. It may be that some children who are English language learners know the word and concept in their native language, and just need to be taught the English equivalent.
However, other children may not know the words at all. Using your assessment strategies to check on children’s knowledge of tier 1 words – and then teaching the ones they do not currently know – will help them to learn the tier 2 words that further grow their vocabulary. You will get more out of your vocabulary instruction of these more exciting words when you make sure that the children in your class – including the children who are English language learners – know enough of the more basic words to understand the instruction.
