Strengthening Tier 1 Instructional Practices to Eliminate Disproportionality and Promote Equity in Schools: Building Fluency with Gatekeeper Vocabulary
A collaboration between South County SELPA, the Equity, Disproportionality & Design Project, and the National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST), featuring teachers and school leaders from award-winning schools.
Presenters: Dr. Francisco Escobedo, Dr. Rupi Boyd, Dr. Jose Iniguez, Dr. Joseph Johnson, Dr. Shirley Peterson, Dr. Jeffrey Thiel, and Cara Riggs
About This Session:
Every lesson students encounter is laden with vocabulary. If students perceive the vocabulary as unfamiliar, awkward, or foreign they are less likely to become fluent with the concepts and ideas. Johnson, Uline, and Perez (2019) explain:
If students perceive that they cannot talk about the concept; if they don’t understand enough to be able to describe it, discuss it, or ask questions about it; or if they don’t believe they can even read or pronounce the word, their brain is more likely to reject the information, and they will not achieve understanding and mastery. (p. 89)
In high-performing schools, teachers work together to identify the words they want their students to become comfortable speaking. Then, they design strategies for helping their students articulate the words frequently and accurately in conversations, demonstrations, or dramatizations in which students know they will not be embarrassed or humiliated for mispronunciation or imprecise grammar. Additionally, teachers in high-performing schools recognize that student understanding is much more likely to be sustained over time if student fluency with key vocabulary is sustained. So, teachers employ a variety of strategies to encourage students to practice key vocabulary orally and in writing.
In this session, teams will learn about high performing schools and their best practices in building fluency with key concepts.
Intended Audience: General and special education staff, administrators, and other stakeholders. We encourage you to sign up as teams, so bring friends!