Welcome to Amplify’s Vocabulary app. We’re really excited to share it with you, so let’s get started. The purpose of this app is to help students master vocabulary words. We define mastery as when a student is able to use a new word in their writing and in speech. Research has shown that to master a word, a student needs to encounter it many times, preferably in a variety of media and in a way that appeals to different learning styles. This app is designed to increase the number of times that students see a new vocabulary word, in multiple contexts, while practicing different vocabulary skills determined, in part, by the Common Core. In addition to the work in the app, we want to encourage you to still use strategies like word walls and Amplify’s paper­based vocabulary games like Versus. The Vocabulary app is designed to work with classroom instruction. You should encourage students to use a lesson’s vocabulary words in their writing and you should try to use those words, if possible, when addressing your classes and during over­the­shoulder conferences. The words in the app come from the texts students are studying in each unit, as well as academic vocabulary lists. We’ve chosen words that students are likely to see across multiple texts and that are integral to understanding key concepts in each unit. The Words To Know section of the lesson brief lists the vocabulary words student will first encounter during that lesson. Words to Know lists the two important words for that lesson and the words that will appear in the various grade level streams. The important words will appear for all students along with the words from their specific stream. How to Access the Vocabulary App The Vocabulary app is accessible from the link in the first student activity of a lesson. When students click the link, they will be taken to the homepage of the Vocabulary app. The first time a student clicks on the app, they will get onboarding messages from the Helper and see a blue and a green button. Grade Level Readers​
should click the blue button. The blue button starts the student with At Grade Level stream. ELLs ​
should click the green button. The green button starts the student with the ELL stream. You should decide beforehand which stream a student should join the first time he/she opens uses the Vocabulary app. After pushing the button, the first set of words drops, and the Go button takes students to the first in a series of activities. Words are authored to correspond to the lesson from which the app was launched. As students progress through the app, they level up through different themes. . In addition to introducing the student to the app and it’s features, the Helper responds to how well a student is doing and also offers random information apropos of nothing! Differentiated Streams of Content The Vocabulary app includes fully differentiated streams of content for Below, At and Above Grade Level readers for each grade level. It also includes three fully differentiated streams of ELL content for Bridging, Expanding and Emerging ELL students. These streams are adaptive, and adjust based on students’ performance. Students will move between streams depending on the number of correct or incorrect answers. If a student gets four answers in a row correct, he/she will seamlessly move to the next stream up. If a student gets four answers in a row incorrect, he/she will seamlessly move to the next stream down. That is, a student could begin in the Below Grade Level stream but as they progress in their vocabulary work, the app will send them increasingly challenging words. These streams are only visible to the student as subtle hints from the Helper that something has changed, allowing him or her to focus solely on learning the words he or she needs. Number of Words Received per Day and Backlog Over the course of using the Vocabulary app, students will have multiple encounters with a word. The first encounter will be as a word of the day for a lesson. InFor every lesson day (16 hours) students will receive 4 ​
new ​
words. Two will be important words that all students will receive, regardless of their stream and two will be new words specific to a student’s stream. Once the student has had a first encounter with a word, that word will go into his/her backlog. As students continue to work through the app, those words will start appearing in their backlog to give the student a chance to encounter the word again and again and gain mastery. When students sign into the app, the app homepage shows the words a student will work on for each that day. The words will be a mixture of new words for that lesson and words in a student’s backlog. Words will stay in a student’s backlog until he/she has completed all the available encounters with this word. Using the App Offline The Vocabulary app can run offline once a set of words has been loaded. You can tell that you’ve entered offline mode and are no longer connected to the internet when the wi­fi symbol turns red and has a slash through it. When you are back online, students can get new sets of words and the app will update the gradebook with information on any work done while offline. Statistics Vocabulary activity results will appear on the Stats page. Dials show students total activities completed, longest streak of correct answers, overall accuracy in the app, and number of mastered words. The calendar shows activities completed vs. correct on daily, weekly, and monthly bases. Activities in the Gradebook Vocabulary activity results will appear in the gradebook. You can incorporate results into students’ overall grades. Results appear as the number of activities correct out of the number of activities given to a student. So, on the first lesson days, if a student has received four activities and gotten X number correct, their results will display as X/4. As students acquire a backlog of activities, the denominator will change. So, if a student has a backlog of, say, 16 activities and has only gotten eight correct, their grade for the day will display as 8/16. Activities Activities in the Vocabulary app currently include: Narrative Multiple Choice These activities are designed to help students practice the skill of learning words in context. Each narrative provides at least two context clues to help a student figure out the meaning of a word. Synonym and Antonym Matching and Ordering Students first match a word to four of its synonyms and four of its antonyms. They then explore word nuance by ordering a word and its synonyms and antonyms according to shades of meaning. This part of the activity is entirely subjective, and it is up to you as the teacher to respond to a student’s line of argument. WordMatch WordMatch focuses on ELL­appropriate words from the unit’s text. Students are asked to match a word’s English definition, Spanish definition, context sentence, audio pronunciation, and visual definition. Currently, WordMatch only contains Spanish­language translations. Additional languages are coming soon. ReDictionary Students get a chance to practice dictionary skills such as looking up multiple meanings of a word and identifying a word’s etymology using our dictionary scavenger hunt activity. This activity can be done using both a print and online dictionary so that students get used to using both types of sources. Analogy Students further explore word meaning through analogies. Roots Exist Roots Exist is an introduction to the concept of roots. Students will encounter two of these activities in each grade. Video Days Video days will still exist. On video days, there will be no link to the Vocabulary app and you will be expected to project the vocabulary video to the whole class, as you have in the past.