Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Vocabulary Task

Vocabulary Task

Most of the meanings of words in the exemplar text can be discovered by students from careful reading of the context in which they appear. Teachers can use discussions to model and reinforce how to learn vocabulary from contextual clues, and students must be held accountable for engaging in this practice. Where it is judged this is not possible, underlined words are defined briefly for students within footnotes whenever the original text is reproduced. At times, this is all the support these defined words need. At other times, particularly with abstract words, teachers will need to spend more time explaining and discussing them. There is a longer discussion of this in the “Vocabulary” section of the Introduction. In addition, in subsequent close readings of passages of the text, high value academic (‘Tier Two’) words have been bolded to draw attention to them. Given how crucial vocabulary knowledge is for academic and career success, it is essential that these high value words be discussed and lingered over during the instructional sequence.

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