Closing the Vocabulary Gap

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As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach.

I was appointed as Language for Learning Lead at Icknield Community College in September 2016 with a broad rather vague brief. Our use of educational rap songs takes advantage of two of the most tried-and-true mnemonic devices in human history: music and rhyme.

Achieving consistency takes relentless effort but we take staff workload seriously, and the goal is to improve literacy via vocabulary in a way that works for our students and staff. I’ve previously worked as a literacy coordinator without the backing of the senior leadership team and the headteacher, and it’s a near-impossible task.

Once again, we look to guidance from Beck and McKeown, who have grouped vocabulary into three tiers.Whilst students with special educational needs or those with English as an additional language may be considered more likely to have a word gap, the Oxford Language Report shows that, in fact, this is an issue affecting all students. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that vocabulary knowledge is crucial for pupils’ school success. Elimination of poverty or improvements to the health care system can’t be achieved from within the classroom walls. As many have remarked, it is simply not enough for one or two enthusiastic English teachers to be interested in closing the gap; developing a culture of ‘conscious, deliberate attention to word learning’ [1] across the curriculum is essential if all students are to maximise their attainment in school and beyond. Implicitly challenges the "shelter vocabulary" approach to the world of "comprehensible input" when it comes to second-language learning.

Featuring advice on using word banks, making links between key terms, teaching etymology and morphology, and vocabulary for exams, the English section also includes strategies to promote reading for pleasure and reading aloud, ideas to encourage word play, and activities and resources to develop students’ written vocabulary – both creative and academic. If they can say it with confidence, it provides them a key to success for their future beyond school.

Fantastic and insightful tome, full of food for thought that gives me the knowledge, for one, that I know and do some of this already but which, serves as a reminder to ‘make the implicit explicit’ more and more in s bid to make my classroom ‘word-rich’ no matter what my SLT might think of me. Steps to Close the Vocabulary Gap Infographic Download CTVG Reading List Download CTVG SEEC Model Download CTVG 7 Strategies for Exploring Unfamiliar Vocabulary Download CTVG Exploring Etymology PPT Download Cracking the Academic Code article Download CTVG Next Steps 10 Questions Download The ‘Vocab Clinic’ 2022. Here is what RESCUE might look like in practice (please see the webinar for more practical examples. Also, there is a range of upcoming blogs supporting vocabulary instruction, to go with alongside these resources, with links and prompts for teachers and more.