Not all words are equal. Knowing which words to teach, why those words, and then how to teach them is crucial to closing the vocabulary gap for students.
In 1987, researchers Beck, McKeown and Omanson outlined a useful tiered framework to assist in the thinking required to organise words for teaching. Subsequently popularised in the influential text Bringing Words to Life (2013), this three-tiered system has been popular with teachers and effective in the classroom because of its simplicity and utility. Each tier describes a layer of words that share conditions of frequency, complexity and specificity.
Tap a tier below to explore it.
When we realise that vocabulary is a proxy for knowledge, as educators we also commit to prioritising vocabulary-building for our students. But with thousands of words to teach and limited time in which to teach them, the three-tier framework helps us to organise our priorities.
Pick a subject below to see the tiers at work.
The English language holds one of the highest word-counts in the world. We can’t teach it all. A word’s utility, conceptual influence, possibility for multiple meanings and its links to curriculum will all play a part in our choices. Morphed is here to help with this essential decision.
The more you know as an expert, the harder it is to remember being a novice.
Teachers, and subject experts in general, tend to forget just how much they know. The term for this is the curse of expertise, and it can help explain why we might be surprised by student confusion.
comes inTiers tell you which words matter. Morphology makes them accessible.
Once you’ve made the decision about which words to teach in your subject, the question becomes how to teach them without adding hours to your week.
Morphed picks up where your decision ends: enter the words that matter, and it breaks each one into its morphemes — the meaningful building blocks — then builds the sequenced lessons for you to arrange and assign.
A screenshot of the teacher course building page — it is super simple to use.
The evidence that vocabulary is the gatekeeper to every subject.
The vocabulary gap →How teaching word parts unlocks whole families of academic words.
See the mechanism →You bring the words that matter; morphed does the literacy teaching.
For teachers →Turn the academic and subject-specific vocabulary of your curriculum into reading that transfers across every subject.
Make an Enquiry For school leaders