Adult Fluency and Vocabulary

Abstract: These three short, free, authentic professional development videos for teachers or tutors draw on five principles of effective vocabulary instruction from the research of Curtis and McKeown, 1987. See  http://www.ncsall.net/?id=466,  in an article in Focus on Basics, Connecting Research and Practice, Volume 2, Issue A, The nature of vocabulary acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.) The five principles are: 1) Students get numerous opportunities to learn a word's meaning; 2) Words are presented in a variety of contexts; 3) Students are asked to process words in active, generative ways; 4) Distinctions as well as similarities among words' meanings are stressed; and 5) improvement is emphasized in students' ability to use words in speaking and writing, as well as to recognize their meanings. The adult reading teacher introduces the theory, and the lessons, and then we see the lessons in progress. The web address for these videos is http://www.mlo ts.org/?page_id=59