Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Below are the six steps that Robert Marzano has researched to be the
six most effective in vocabulary instruction.
1. Present students with a brief description, explanation, or
example of the new term. (This works better than a formal
definition).
2. Present students with a nonlinguistic representation of the new
term or phrase . (This one was kind of painful to me, because I
have no artistic abilities, but the kids enjoyed my efforts).
3. Ask students to generate their own explanations or descriptions
of the term or phrase.
4. Ask students to create their own nonlinguistic representation of
the term. (This could be a picture, web, etc.).
5. Periodically ask students to review the accuracy of their
explanations and representations and to discuss the terms with
one another.
6. Engage students periodically in games and activities that allow
them to manipulate and play with the terms (Word Sorts, Slap,
etc.).
Robert Marzano suggests keeping vocabulary notebooks with each
page divided in half to get two words per page. It also works to do this
using the front and back of index cards. When they are on index cards,
students are able to use them to create Word Sorts.