Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

Even as students enter kindergarten, there are huge differences in their individual vocabularies. If we are to narrow the achievement gap that students from different economic levels exhibit in the upper grades, we must provide systematic, robust explicit vocabulary instruction in the primary grades. One of the best sources of vocabulary words is the books…

Concept Sorts

Concept sorts introduce students to the vocabulary or ideas of a new topic or text. Students are presented a list of terms or concepts and have to determine how they are related by placing them into  different categories. When used before reading, concept sorts provide an opportunity for you see what your students already know about a given…

Vocabulary Word Maps

A word map is a graphic organizer that supports connections among vocabulary and ideas. This resource from TextProject provides Word Maps for core vocabulary – the most important words in written English. Three types of words maps are available for the core vocabulary: synonyms, morphology, and multiple meaning of words.

Student Phonics Activities

A team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created activities for students at stations or centres. These phonics activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs,…

Barrier Games

Barrier games are fantastic resources to support a child’s speech and language skills. There are many benefits from using barrier games with a child such as developing: listening skills, oral language skills, social language skills, clear talking and understanding of concepts. They are great for extending the amount of information a child can understand or…