Guilford Publications Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

Delivery came two days early (bonus!). The corners of the book cover have minor creases in them, but I presume that's due to delivery handling. Other than this everything is great!

Absolutely excellent book which presents academic research in a very accessible and practical way.

This is the second edition of the well-regarded Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. In addition to incorporating the newest research on vocabulary instruction, it now addresses the Common Core standards and the Response to Intervention (RTI) structure. A new chapter, on "Vocabulary and Writing," discusses the intuitive sense that most teachers have that a rich vocabulary improves writing, although it also notes the paucity of research on this topic. Bringing Words to Life makes a powerful case for the need for systematic direct instruction in vocabulary and persuasively debunks the idea that students can readily learn the meanings of new words simply from context and reading exposure. Unlike so many education texts, it is well written, with clear summaries of current research along with excellent descriptions and examples of how to carry out "robust" vocabulary instruction in the classroom. Bringing Words to Life encourages high expectations for even the youngest students, who can readily learn to move from the everyday (Tier One) words that they frequently encounter to what the authors call "Tier Two" words; for instance, "talking about" something can become "mention." This book won't write a teacher's lesson plans but it can fill them with ideas. Like any new curricular idea, learning to incorporate rich vocabulary takes practice, both for teachers and for students. As a practitioner of the Orton Gillingham method of dyslexia remediation, I wondered why the book makes no reference to the use of morphology (prefixes, suffixes, Latin roots, Greek combining forms) as an efficient way to expand a student's vocabulary. In response to my inquiry, one of the authors indicated that a companion book, Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples (which I have not seen), does examine the use of morphemes. This author also indicated that she considered this to be a useful approach. Anyone who works with students who have limited vocabularies should own this book. It contains that rare combination of theory and practice that distinguishes the best books about teaching. M. Feldman

A must read for every teacher!

Fantastic book full of good ideas as to how to teach "two tier" vocabulary. I use it every week. I am a secondary school teacher in charge of literacy across the curriculum.