As a rule, we want to help students build their vocabulary knowledge while they are reading rather than spending an inordinate amount of time pre-teaching vocabulary.  There may be a few words that should be introduced quickly (think about the teacher on the video who pre-taught “birthplace” and “enemies,” but this introduction should be brief.  For ESL and struggling readers, we can do a brief introduction of Tier 2 vocabulary before the lesson- words that will assist students with the overall comprehension, allowing students to practice using these words with peers (or even just hearing how others use these words) before the deep dive into the text. Tier 3 vocabulary won’t really mean a lot to students until they see/hear it within context. The Calderon ExC-ELL method of teaching vocabulary is an excellent way of learning more about how to provide practice with Tier 2 vocabulary, and lasts no more than 10 minutes for 5 words per introductory lesson. Literacy Coaches were trained on this over the summer & can offer additional information to those in need. (Newly hired Literacy Coaches will be involved in a make-up training with Calderon… most likely in November).