{"id":12185,"date":"2025-06-25T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.com\/blog\/?p=12185"},"modified":"2025-06-25T21:07:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:07:31","slug":"science-of-reading-for-secondary-boosting-vocabulary-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/2025\/06\/science-of-reading-for-secondary-boosting-vocabulary-instruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Science of Reading for Secondary: Boosting Vocabulary Instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Science of Reading (SOR) is not a fad or a new initiative\u2014it\u2019s the result of decades of empirical study and research that have proven how the brain learns to read and the tried-and-true practices that support this process. To integrate insights from this body of research into our instruction, there are some habits we\u2019ll need to change and practices we\u2019ll need to alter\u2014but the science is sound and the growth potential for our students is huge. One commonly held thought is that if a student struggles with reading in the third grade, that student is more likely to drop out of high school and experience a host of other poor outcomes. If this is true, why don\u2019t we put more effort into robust reading practice to get all students up to par? Most secondary teachers don\u2019t have the literacy training to fully support struggling readers in the classroom, and most people don\u2019t know how our brains adapt to allow us to read (for more on that, check out this fascinating infographic from EAB<\/a>!). So, if we know how important it is for students to have a strong reading foundation and how detrimental reading deficits can be for students, why are we not doing more to solve the problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a TEDx Talk from Melissa Hostetter<\/a> discussing the Science of Reading and its importance. There were so many things that stuck with me from her talk, but this quote was a mental gut-punch: \u201cToday\u2019s struggling reader is tomorrow\u2019s partially illiterate adult.\u201d Hostetter\u2019s elegantly blunt statement is what we all need to hear. We need to act. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post<\/a>, the current decline in literacy rates and the growing needs of our students make a focus on literacy an all-hands-on-deck necessity. So, let\u2019s start by focusing on something that we do in every class throughout the secondary level: vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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