On Thursday morning 05 December, a large group of interested teachers attended a workshop entitled “Pre-teaching challenging vocabulary and its impact on student learning”. The workshop was based on the work of Alex Quigley, Author of “Closing the Vocabulary Gap” and was facilitated by Ms Clare Madden, along with Ms Laura Marsh.
Participants were presented with research showing the relationship between the extent of students’ vocabulary and their academic achievement. A range of strategies that pre-teach the etymology and morphology of complex, subject-specific, terms was discussed.
In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, Alex Quigley explores the increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary gap between our ‘word poor’ and ‘word rich’ students could prove the vital difference between school failure and success.
Ms Clare Madden with Ms Laura Marsh facilitating the peer learning initiative