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Deepening Comprehension with Six Steps of Vocabulary Instruction:
Honor Marzano’s 6 Steps

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Honor Marzano’s 6 STEPS

STEP 1:
EXPLAIN

STEP 2:
RESTATE

STEP 3:
SHOW

STEP 4:
DEVELOP

STEP 5:
REFINE

STEP 6:
PLAY

Marzano’s 6-step, systematic approach to teaching a vocabulary word includes: EXPLAIN, RESTATE, SHOW, DEVELOP, REFINE, & PLAY. Learn more by reading Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement.

Add a tech twist to Marzano’s six steps of vocabulary instruction. Expose students to various technology tools that they could utilize as they work with a word. These include apps, websites, and various digital resources.

Step 1: Explain the word’s meaning

Check students’ level of background knowledge

Provide kid-friendly examples

Students need to hear an informal definition of a term presented in kid-friendly language. Offer examples that relate to students’ background knowledge.

Brainstorm additional kid-friendly examples using the results of students’ reading interest inventories.

Interest inventories for your readers
K-2 Version | 3-5 Version | 6-12 Version

Build a word bank

Add the new term to the physical environment on a bulletin board, chart paper, or presentation board.

Heritage Hills Elementary
Physical Education Word Bank

Triton Elementary
Math Word Bank

Presentation Board
Stick-With-It Word Strips

Step 2: Restate the word’s meaning

Layer initial understanding

After the teacher introduces and explains the term to students in a variety of ways, the students will then restate the meaning in their own words.

The students can use all the same strategies the teacher used in Step 1 to restate the words.

Add terms to vocabulary notebooks

Step 3: Show the word’s meaning

Locate digital images to represent the term’s meaning

Flip through print text

Label evidence of a term’s meaning based on illustrations from a wordless picture book, magazine, newspaper, clipart, photo file, catalog, etc.

Draw a visual representation

Teach students five ways to draw or depict the meaning of a term over multiple lessons or days.

Draw accurate shapes.

Before students can draw shapes independently, they may need to trace shapes.

Draw side-by-side with students, showing how to draw simple (sometimes seasonal) objects line-by-line.

Numerous lessons within the Launching the Writer’s Workshop: Grades K-2 resources support students drawing accurate and detailed pictures.

Apply Step 3 to spelling words

Second grade teacher Janice Reed of Riverview Elementary School (Marion, IN) believes her students don’t really know the meaning of the weekly spelling words unless they can conjure up a visual representation for them. Notice how these second graders draw and label their words.

Encourage visual representations

Create a 3-D representation using Play-Doh. In addition to viewing their creations, listen to their rationalizations for what they made. Their understanding of the term comes out in that explanation.

Highlight purple words. Celebrate accurate and precise use of vocabulary in student writing by stroking those words with the purple highlighter.

Step 4: Develop a deeper understanding

Create lists of related words or descriptions

Lists and Haiku poems allow students to use vocabulary and their knowledge of the content without getting bogged down with syntax or sentence structure. See examples at Kidzone.

At Haiku at Read Write Think.org, students first brainstorm words on a topic and record the number of syllables for easy placement within the haiku. Students can customize fonts and backgrounds. Access Kristi’s Music Haiku as an example.

Use concept sorts.

Concept sorts are powerful ways to introduce vocabulary or to give students repeated practice. Sort terms, pictures, text features, and quotes pulled from content areas.

Access the Reading Rockets resource website for ideas about planning a sorting activity and to view a clip of Cathy Doyle’s second graders (Evanston, IL).

Step 5: Refine understanding with peer interaction

Allow students to pool their thinking with peer interaction

Conduct a picture scramble

Groups compete to find evidence of vocabulary words.
Use a busy scene like these images from archived Highlights magazines.

(Download all six as an 11×17 PDF or click each JPEG image.)

Complete an information pyramid

Students customize their understandings by completing an Information Pyramid with no one right answer.

Information Pyramid
Template | Template with Summary

Dissect abstract concept words

Generate ABC lists.

Poster | WordPDF | SmartboardPromethean | Google

Interview the word.

Students personify the word by pretending to interview it. Provide sample interview questions and use the interview script template. Students can perform their scripts aloud to see if anyone can guess the word.

The Bio-Poem requires students to think deeply about how a word would think, feel, or behave as if it were a person.

Step 6: Play with words to cement understanding

Review terms with Headbands

Require students to quickly recall a term’s meaning and application while playing various games.

Play Headbands to have students ask questions and guess the vocabulary words of your choice.

Charades Kids! is a free app with categories and an option to customize your own deck.

Heads Up! Guess the word on the screen from your friends’ clues before the time runs out!

Access the card-generating website kitzkikz.com to create your own set of flashcards for FREE!

Taboo obvious words

Just like the game, students have to get their class/team to guess a relevant content-area term—without using the most common words associated with it.

Play Cubing

Review several terms in a small-group activity.

Play Cubing as a whole class using virtual dice.

Make connections

Students make as many connections to a word as they can while gently tossing a ball back and forth within a circle. Another fun way to do this is to play Spider’s Web and have students pass a tightly-wound ball of yarn back and forth to each other to see who can make the most intricate spider web of connections.

Access additional vocabulary strategies

Vocabulary Games for the Classroom

Flocabulary teaches content-area vocabulary through rap, videos, and songs. Sign up for 45-day free access.