Vocabulary instruction is critical in any classroom, yet how do teachers go beyond weekly word lists and empower their students to make meaning from these words? In Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Grades 4-12 , author Janet Allen merges research and content-area teaching strategies to help teachers show students how to understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks and build comprehension of these texts.Each of Allen’s vocabulary tools are designed to help students learn and use academic vocabulary:

• Building background knowledge Teaching words critical to comprehension Providing support during reading and writing Developing a conceptual framework for themes, topics, and units of study Assessing students’ understandings of words and concepts

Inside Words provides a much-needed middle and secondary school resource for teaching vocabulary, not only in the language arts, but in all of the content areas.