10 great words to teach young high-schoolers (and why) – with brilliant free resources!

1. Which words should you teach?

• Interpret
• Evaluate
• Exclude
• Sustain
• Discriminate
• Infer
• Contribute
• Generate
• Summarise
• Consult

2. Why these words?

• cross-curriculum words. In other words, they are used in high school across multiple subjects. Cross-curriculum words are also known as “academic words” or “tier 2 words”. You can read more about these words, find out why they are so useful, and access longer words lists and other free resources here;
• highly functional. They can be used in all sorts of places, with all sorts of people in the “real world”; and
• verbs. Verbs are harder to learn than nouns, especially for children with language, learning or reading difficulties (e.g. Nash & Snowling, 2006).

• it takes lots of work for a child to learn a new word, especially if the child has language, learning or reading difficulties; and
• learning a word doesn’t seem to automatically help a child learn other words (e.g. Snow et al., 2009).

3. How should the 10 words be taught?

• Intensively: at least an hour a week, with home exercises between sessions.
• Teach one word at a time, e.g. spend a teaching session talking only about “consult”.
• Define the word explicitly (you can teach children to use a dictionary at the same time), e.g. “consult means to seek information or advice from, or to seek permission or approval from”.
• Use lots of repetition, in lots of different contexts, e.g. you can consult a rulebook, the teacher, a school counselor, the principal, an umpire, a dictionary, Ikea instructions, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a psychologist, a speech pathologist, an accountant, a weatherman/woman, a psychic (although not recommended!), Centrelink, the Department of Housing, a website, etc.
• Teach to small groups (3-5 children) so they can work together and discuss the words based on their real world experiences.
• Give children lots of opportunities to use the word in different ways.
• Focus on different aspects of the word including the:
  • meaning of the word;
  • speech sounds and syllables that make up the word /kənsʌlt/, rhyming words (e.g. cult, adult, result);
  • grammatical role of the word, e.g. “consult is a verb” – it’s something you do;
  • morphology of the word, including the word origin (Latin meaning “take counsel”), its prefix (“con” meaning “with”) and root (“sult”, meaning to leap upon), as well as different word forms, e.g. consult, consults, consulted, consulting, consultant, consultation; and
  • spelling of the word (c-o-n-s-u-l-t).
• Use activities the kids like to increase motivation and engagement (e.g. by consulting “experts” on YouTube or Reddit).
• Act out the word (there is some evidence that miming an action while saying the word can help younger children to learn verbs e.g. Riches et al., 2005).
• Give the kids personal challenges at the end of the session where they have to use and act out the word at home or out and about.

5. How can you assess whether your high-schooler has learned the words properly?

Check out Dr Spencer’s Word Knowledge Profile here.