Thank you for the brilliant response we have had to building a strong reading community at Magdalene, it shows just how much we are mindful that reading adds to our knowledge and views about a diverse range of topics in becoming great contributors to the community.

 Important to reading is accessing unfamiliar vocabulary. How do we support our young readers to stay committed to reading challenging, complex texts? As many of you already know, we tackle it. Avoiding difficult words will hang around for longer than desired if we ignore the way to strategically understand unknown words. 

So for the purpose of supporting vocabulary development we are sharing the following strategies:

1. Scan the text or passage for unknown words and write them down.
2. Look up the dictionary definition for the word, record it on a vocabulary frame, such as the Frayer Model or a Vocabulary Map. (By completing the vocabulary frame you will build comprehension of new content which assists in ‘explanation’, ‘discussion’ and ‘analysis’ questions.)
3. After completing a vocabulary frame, read the passage.
4. Notice how understanding those difficult words helps success in learning about new things.
5. Repeat these steps multiple times with new words across a range of topics until the brain does it automatically. And reread as needed.
6. Repeated repetition is key to moving forward to achieve our personal best.

Please find below, vocabulary frames to help support growing vocabulary through investigating. And remember there are various ways to address vocabulary so be open for change and courageous in making it happen.