Company New Program Takes Aim at Building Vocabulary
Vocabulary knowledge is a key factor for skillful reading across all content areas. With this in mind, Read Naturally has developed
a powerful new vocabulary program that is designed to boost students’ vocabulary knowledge in the critical middle grades.
The Take Aim! at Vocabulary program teaches high-quality words in the context of nonfiction stories and then deepens the student’s understanding of these words through repeated exposure and supporting activities.
The first Take Aim level, Goldenrod, will be available in late spring 2008. This level is intended for students who can read at a fourth grade level and up. Additional Take Aim levels are being developed.
Take Aim targets the middle grades because research indicates that children with smaller vocabularies tend to fall behind their peers starting in fourth grade, and that decline accelerates in grades 5 and 6 as reading materials start to include less common, more abstract words that increase the difficulty of the text and tend to decrease comprehension.
Over the past five years, Take Aim components were field-tested in a variety of settings to ensure that the activities in the programs were optimal for individualized instruction in real classroom settings.
Teachers in those field tests have been pleased with the results. “I’ve been impressed that even my most challenged student is able to work independently in the materials,” said Jacki Ford of Philadelphia, Pa. “Since using Take Aim, I find students looking more carefully at words and thinking out loud about their possible meanings.”
Students also like the Take Aim program. “I’m learning new words every day,” said Crystal, a fifth grader in the Atlanta area. “I’d rather read and work in Take Aim than return to class for DEAR [Drop Everything And Read] time.”
Read Naturally has built Take Aim on a foundation of vocabulary-development research, including research on:
- Word selection: Take Aim teaches words that students are likely to encounter in a wide range of texts. These are useful, sophisticated words that students at a given grade level are unlikely to know but likely to encounter, especially as texts increase in difficulty.
- Teaching methods: Take Aim implements multiple teaching methods and active engagement to ensure that students are able to learn the new words effectively. These methods include explicit instruction, instruction of words in context, student-friendly definitions, multiple exposures to target words, and semantic mapping.
- Learning strategies: Take Aim teaches students strategies for learning new words, including using context clues, analyzing word parts (prefix, root, suffix), and using an audio-supported glossary.
Each Take Aim level includes 12 units. Each of these units teaches 24 target vocabulary words within the context of four related nonfiction stories, engaging vocabulary activities, mini-lessons on using context clues and word parts, and more.
To track their progress, students take a pretest at the beginning of a unit and a posttest at the end of the unit. Students are motivated by seeing how many words they’ve gained from working in a unit.
Take Aim also includes optional activities for students who may require extra work to master the target words.
The vocabulary program is designed for individualized learning in a reading lab or resource room, but it also works well as a station activity in a regular classroom or extended-day setting.
Take Aim is priced at $299 per level. Each purchase includes 12 unit textbooks (four stories per unit), audio CDs in a storage case, blackline master books, a teacher’s manual, a training unit, and a storage box with divider tabs.
