Which words merit the most instruction?
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The problem
Every text you open has more unfamiliar words than you have minutes. The instinct is to pre-teach a long list, define quickly, and move on. This hour is about the decision that comes before all of that: choosing the small number of words worth real instructional time — and knowing what to do with them once you have chosen.
A usable way to sort the words in an upcoming text, so selection stops being a gut call made the night before.
What deep instruction actually looks like in a real lesson, and where quick definitions are genuinely enough.
How the words stay alive across the week instead of disappearing after the pre-teaching slide.
Leave ready to teach
How registration works
Who this is for
If part of your week is deciding which vocabulary gets instructional time, this hour is written for you.
For the evidence-minded
The session is built for classroom use, so the citations live here rather than in the middle of the slides. Open it if you want the sources.
Vocabulary knowledge is one of the best-known predictors of reading comprehension. Ouellette (2006) found that depth of vocabulary knowledge — not just how many words a reader recognizes — predicted comprehension in fourth graders. Quinn et al. (2015) followed students across the elementary grades and found the relationship runs in both directions over time: vocabulary supports later comprehension, and comprehension supports later vocabulary.
That reciprocal pattern is why this session treats word selection as an instructional decision with compounding consequences, rather than a pre-teaching chore.
Your presenter
Founder of Left Side Strong LLC, where the work is professional learning, coaching, and self-paced courses grounded in current reading and language science. She spends most of her time inside the language domains — oral language, vocabulary, syntax, and comprehension — with K–12 teams.
One hour, one decision, and a routine you can use the next morning. Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30 pm ET.
Reserve my seat — $19.99 →