Why Focus on Vocabulary?

Vocabulary will be a major focus of Mt. Olivet's School Improvement Plan for the 2015-2016 school year.  This is an area of weakness for our students and one that we must address if our students are to be successful readers and writers.  Why the emphasis on vocabulary?  Many of our students come from homes that could be characterized as low socio-economic.  If the 30 Million Word Gap is anywhere near accurate, our students are coming to us with a serious vocabulary deficit.  Below is a link to a summary of the study.

30 Million Word Gap

We will address this deficit in a number of ways.  As a faculty we will have PD sessions that focus on vocabulary acquisition.  We will unpack our standards to find common vocabulary terms across the curriculum.  My hope is that this blog will contain information valuable to the teachers at my school.  It is my intention to share it with them so that it is more than simply a final project for class.