To help students learn vocabulary, they work with grade-level, complex literary and informational texts that feature academic language. Lessons leverage analytic reading practices to encourage learning vocabulary, building knowledge, and incorporating evidence in integrated reading, writing, and discussion activities.

Vocabulary words can be found in the Words to Use/Words to Know lists in each Lesson Brief. Vocabulary Modules provide instruction in skills key to developing vocabulary and building word knowledge, while the Vocab App is an adaptive app that helps students build key text and academic vocabulary and track their level of mastery. The Library eReader has a Reveal tool (Reveal Words) that highlights key words to help build your students’ vocabulary. Amplify ELA also offers multiple vocabulary supports for English Language Learners.

The lists of Words to Use/Words to Know come from the unit texts. You can find them in the Words to Use section of the Teacher Lesson Brief. Additionally, there is a Words to Use/Words to Know Routine PDF available in the Materials section of the Year Overview. The PDF provides various routines that you might implement in your classroom to provide students with additional skills-based vocabulary practice.

Your students can find Words to Know in the Student Lesson Brief.

The words in any Words to Use/Words to Know list remain consistent for the set of lessons between each Flex Day* and are selected in the following way:

• Across Words: These words appear in plain text for teachers and students. These are words from the unit texts students will encounter in the Vocab App regardless of their word stream level.

• Emerging words: These words appear in italics for teachers, but plain text for students. These are words from the unit texts, and students within the Emerging/ELL (Dev) word stream will encounter them in the Vocab App.

Note: If a word on the list has an asterisk, students will encounter it in the text but not in the Vocab App.

* Unit As do not have Flex Days.

The Amplify Vocabulary Modules provide instruction and ongoing practice of the skills within the Vocab App. Each Vocabulary Module is aligned to and integrated into a core instructional unit within each grade of Amplify ELA. These Modules should be used within the first five lessons of each unit. These modules are located in the Materials section of each Unit Overview.

*Dictionary Skills module can work with any unit

Work That Word: Vocabulary Strategies is a printable worksheet that accompanies the Vocabulary Modules, giving students opportunities to apply the strategies to unit vocabulary while working in either the digital curriculum or print Student Editions. This worksheet is in the Materials section of the Unit Overview.

The Vocab App includes game-like activities based on morphology, analogy, synonyms and antonyms, and deciphering meaning, which help students develop dictionary skills by focusing on parts of speech, etymology, and multiple meanings. It pulls key vocabulary from lesson texts to help students increase their knowledge of the word, its contextual definition, and their vocabulary skills.

Instructors access the Vocab App through their Programs and Apps.

Students access the Vocab App through the first Activity in most lessons. For grades 6 and 7, all vocabulary activities in Sub-unit 2 are inside the lessons and students will get a link to the Vocab App starting in Sub-unit 3, Lesson 1. For grade 8, students get the link to the Vocab App starting in Sub-unit 2, Lesson 1.

When students sign into the app from a new lesson, the app homepage displays the new words a student will work on for that day.

Each word has a series of dots next to it. The number of dots corresponds to the number of activities available for the word. Progress toward mastery is indicated by the dots next to each word. Open dots represent new activities or activities attempted incorrectly, closed dots represent activities completed correctly, and new lesson words have open dots.

Once encountered, a word will stay in a student’s backlog until they have mastered the word. The Vocab App gives students chances to encounter the word again and again—spaced over the course of several days—in different activity types in order to gain mastery. Students master a word when they correctly complete three activities with the word in a row.

A list of mastered words is accessible from a link at the bottom of the app.

You can set the level of differentiation for students* in the Vocab App. Setting differentiation in the Vocab App is distinct from setting differentiation in the curriculum. The Vocab App includes six streams of content for each grade—three core streams and three English Language Learner streams.

If you don’t select a stream, students are automatically placed at the core level for their grade. You can move students to a different stream at any time.

*This setting is located in the student tab in the Vocab App.

The Vocab App automatically assesses student progress as they work and adjusts students’ assigned set of academic words to align to their performance. You can move students to a different stream at any time, but students will also move between streams depending on their correct and incorrect answers. If a student answers eight questions in a row correctly, they move to the next stream and vice versa (with the exceptions that the Substantial and Emerging/ELL Dev streams do not adapt down to a lower stream). Streams are not visible to students. They will only notice a change in hints from the Helper allowing them to focus solely on learning the words they need.

The app also provides students and teachers with current performance statistics. When students view their own statistics, the dials show total activities completed, the longest streak of correct answers, overall accuracy in the app, and the number of mastered words. The calendar shows activities completed vs. correct on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

You can access the teacher view of performance stats by clicking on a student’s name in the Student tab. In the Teacher stats view, you will see a link to each student’s word lists, which show all words in play for a student, progress toward mastery for each word, and a separate list of mastered words similar to the one students see. You can adjust dates to view students’ stats from activities completed within a particular time period.

You can also switch to viewing the Words tab and explore additional information about words in the App, the available activities, and which students will see them.

This tab provides a list that can be filtered by…

In addition, you can…

The Word Information view shows all the content and activities authored for a given word. Words have 1–5 activities each. You can interact with this view to explore both the word and its activities. Clicking on a synonym or an antonym of a word takes you to the synonym or antonym Word Information view. To preview any activity associated with a word, select the activity, click “Launch,” and a preview will appear.

In the Amplify eReader, a Reveal tool highlights words that are key to understanding the text and helps to build important vocabulary. A subset of the Reveal Words can also be found in the Vocab App to reinforce vocabulary practice. When students click on a word, a contextual definition is provided, allowing students to understand how the word is used in that specific passage to quickly continue reading.

The number of dots in the top right corner of the definition for each Reveal word indicates the word’s difficulty, which is determined by considering the following questions:

Students know which words they have revealed because the eReader marks each with a check mark.

Students can access their individual list of revealed words for each book they’ve read in their personal glossary within the Amplify Library.

Amplify ELA offers support for multilingual learners throughout its instructional materials, presenting a variety of opportunities for all learners to engage in the English Language Arts curriculum. These supports and resources allow teachers to adjust instruction so that ELLs can access grade-level content along with their English-proficient classmates.

There are a number of vocabulary activities that focus on ELL appropriate words from the unit's texts. The Vocab App includes activities geared toward multilingual learners that ask them to match an English definition, Spanish translation, context sentence, audio pronunciation, and visual definition. The Vocab App also offers differentiated word streams and activities focused on ELL vocabulary content. Furthermore, each lesson features a list of emerging words in the Words to Use section of the Lesson Brief. Students within the Emerging/ELL (Dev) word stream will encounter these words in the Vocab App. You might also wish to include these words as you implement the vocabulary routine outlined in the Vocabulary: Words to Use/Words to Know Routine PDF. This resource can be found in the Materials section of your Teacher Lesson Brief.

Learn more about Amplify’s English Language Learners supports and resources here.