Vocabulary - Part Four

Vocabulary – Part Four

            An increasing number of students come from homes in which English is not their primary language.  There are several strategies that appear to be especially valuable for building the vocabularies of ELs (August, et all 2005).  These strategies include taking advantage of students’ first language if the language shares cognates with English, teaching the meaning of basic words and providing sufficient review and reinforcement.  English and Spanish share a large number of cognate pairs, this first instructional strategy is especially useful for Spanish – speaking ELs.  A second instructional strategy for ELs is learning the meaning of basic words – words that most EO students already know.  A third instructional strategy that ELs particularly benefit from is review and reinforcement.