"Teaching specific terms in a specific way is probably the strongest action a teacher can take to ensure that students have the academic background knowledge they need to understand the content they will encounter in school."  Marzano

Six Step Process for Teaching Vocabulary

• Provide a description,explanation, or example of a new term
  
• Students restate description explanation or example in their own words
• Students construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representation of the term
• Engage students in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms
• Ask students to discuss the terms with one another
• Involve students in games that allow them to play with terms

See the attachments below for further explanations.  The Academic Vocabulary power point lists strategies for carrying out each of the six steps. Especially look at examples of games to play to implement step 6.

The grade 3-5 attachment has three samples of written models to have children describe terms, draw symbols, and two of the models have them rate their understanding of the concept on a four point scale. These can be found on pages 7,8, and 9.

The lily1 and lily2 files are great examples for allowing us to examine what typical students may and may not understand about a vocabulary term. This is very revealing to me about how students process what we say to them as we are explaining word meanings.

Finally, the very newest academic vocabulary is posted on the state web site.  Also, look at the attachments below and you can find the math vocabulary K-8 from the state web site.