PURPOSE Implementing the Academic Vocabulary Initiative as described below will help teachers systematically enhance the academic vocabulary of their students to better prepare them to learn new content in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. The research and theory underlying this initiative is detailed in the book Building Academic Vocabulary (Marzano, 2005).

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND The more general background knowledge a student has about academic content, the easier it is for the student to understand and learn the new content. Due to a variety of factors including differences in the extent to which experiences at home help enhance academic background knowledge and students transferring from one school to another or one district to another, there is great disparity in the academic background knowledge of students. This disparity increases as students progress through the school system.

GOAL The goal of the Academic Vocabulary Initiative is to systematically ensure that all K-5 students are exposed to specific academic terms and phrases across the grade levels, thus providing a strong common foundation for all students. To this end, 30 vital academic terms and phrases in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies were identified by teachers from Golden Valley Elementary and are being taught to mastery at each grade level.

GRADE LEVEL LISTS Each elementary grade teacher in a self-contained classroom is responsible for teaching 120 terms and phrases (30 each in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies). The teacher will teach 4 words a week (one from each content area) for 30 weeks for a total of 120 words per grade level per year for a total key academic vocabulary of 720 words by the end of grade five.

POTENTIAL This initiative has great potential with teachers addressing common terms and phrases. In mathematics, for example, 180 terms and phrases would be identified for grades K-5. If every teacher in the district were to teach these terms and phrases, students would enter sixth grade with common, in depth experiences in these 180 key mathematics terms and phrases, providing a strong base on which sixth grade mathematics teachers could build.