Active Word Study involves using a variety of strategies such as completing word sorts and word charts/webs, or studying word patterns and relationships (Pennington, Teaching Word Work, 1/25/17).

Base Words, and their meaning and pronunciation, are used to decode new words. This helps expand a reader's vocabulary (Goodwin, Lipsky & Ahn, 2012).

Context Clues help a reader to figure out unknown words. The four types of context clues are definition, restatement, gist, and contrasting. When words are seen in context, the "meanings are reinforced and deepened" (Richek, 2005, p. 417).

Word Detectives are readers who take unknown words, and break them apart into more manageable portions. This helps students to decipher the words' meanings (Goodwin, Lipsky & Ahn, 2012).

Exposure to a variety of reading materials is a key component to increasing literacy and vocabulary development (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).

Word Families helps students to more easily identify and decode morphemes, which enhances comprehension (Goodwin, Lipsky & Ahn, 2012).

Graphic Organizers help to teach vocabulary by mapping out a student's thinking about an unknown word, and providing non-examples or antonyms (Pennington, Teaching Word Work, 1/25/17).

High Frequency Words are words that students will see often, and most benefit from knowing (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).

Inflectional Affixes support a student's knowledge of morphemes. It teaches plurals, tenses, and degrees of comparison (Kucan).

Vocabulary Jars are great tools to help students practice their vocabulary words. Each time a student hears a vocabulary word used in class, they can place a rock into a jar. Once the jar is filled, they get extra recess!

Key Words are words that need to be taught in order for students to understand the text (Richek, 2005).

English Language Learners

often benefit from being taught cognates. This works by "showing the relationship between root words in one's first language and unfamiliar words in English" (Goodwin, Lipsky & Ahn, 2012, p. 467).

Morphology is the study of the make up of words. Studying morphology helps readers to quickly determine a word's meaning (Kucan, 2012).

The National Reading Panel helped affirm the idea that vocabulary knowledge is correlated to reading achievement, and thus a valuable part of the reading process (Richek, 2005).

Orthography is the spelling system of a particular language. "Learning to read involves learning how the sounds of spoken words relate to the way they are written" (Kucan, 2012, p. 362).

Personal Dictionaries are a great tool for students of all ages to help enhance their personal vocabulary (Pennington, Teaching Word Work, 1/25/17).

The Quantity of new vocabulary words given to students should be chosen based upon their ability for memory retention. For example, teachers should choose 7 +/- 2 new words for their students (Miller, 1994).