Teaching Vocabulary across the Curriculum

Learning vocabulary is an important instructional aim for teachers in all content areas in middle grades schools. Recent research, however, indicates that vocabulary instruction may be problematic because many teachers are not "confident about best practice in vocabulary instruction and at times don't know where to begin to form an instructional emphasis on word learning" (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008, p. 315). In this article, the author summarizes important research on vocabulary growth and development and shares effective instructional strategies that middle school teachers can use to teach vocabulary across the content areas. He hopes that teachers will use these strategies to help students become verbophiles--"people who enjoy word study and become language enthusiasts, lovers of words, appreciative readers, and word-conscious writers." (Contains 7 figures.)