Pre-teaching vocabulary is a strategy in which teachers introduce students to new vocabulary words before reading a text selection that contains the new vocabulary words. According to Literacy in Context, "When teachers pre-teach vocabulary, they introduce unfamiliar terms to students before they begin to read the text, and students have a heightened awareness of the vocabulary that they will encounter while reading." (Miller and Veatch, 2011, p.19) Adolescent Literacy states that "[pre-teaching vocabulary] facilitates the reading of new text by giving students the meanings of the words before they encounter them." (2007, p. 16) This strategy is particularly helpful in situations where students will encounter words that they have no familiarity with and would have trouble deciphering the word meaning from context or word analysis.
Supporting Research
Research has shown that this strategy will help students by helping to improve their comprehension of the text they are reading. (Miller and Veatch, 2011, p.19) Pre-teaching vocabulary reduces the number of unfamiliar words the students will encounter in the text and boosts vocabulary acquisition. (Adolescent Literacy, 2007, p. 16)
Some of the benefits of using this strategy include the ability to teach multiple meanings of words and the ability to teach both specific academic words and non-specific-academic words. According to Literacy in Context, "pre-teaching selected vocabulary allows students to see that some words have academic definitions that are different from their everyday meanings." (Miller and Veatch, 2011, p. 19) This text goes on to say that this is especially beneficial for English learners or students who are struggling with academic language. Adolescent Literacy discusses how both specific academic words and non-specific academic words can be taught with this strategy. Some of the non-specific academic words that should be taught are recognize, analyze, result, impact, and relationship. (2007, p. 16) These are words that are not related to a specific content area, but may be seen in a multitude of texts.
The best way to pre-teach vocabulary words is to allow students to have repeated exposures to the new vocab words. This can be done by using any of the following ideas: pronouncing the new word, giving the meaning, discussing the words parts, writing the word on the board, and using the word in a sentence or question. (Adolescent Literacy, 2007, p. 16)
Internet Resources
1. Novel Word Lists and Puzzles - this website provides lists of vocabulary words to be taught with specific novels. This a great resource for choosing what words to study from a particular novel. The site also provides some puzzles that can be used to increase familiarity with vocab words before reading. http://myvocabulary.com/word-list/novels-vocabulary//
2. Making Connections: Story Impression - this is a printable resource that can be used to pre-teach vocabulary words. Beforehand the teacher will choose several words from the story. The students will write these words in the first column of the handout and then will write how they think the words are connected to one another. http://www.readingresource.net/vocabularyactivities.html
The teacher in this video demonstrates how to use the pre-teaching vocabulary strategy. She first writes the new words on the board. She asks for student volunteers to pronounce the words and give definitions and examples. She then puts the students into groups and gives them a vocabulary word to act out. As students act out their words in groups, the rest of the students try to guess which word is being acted out.