High School Seniors & Vocabulary Instruction

InferCabulary is being used in various learning settings to help educators improve their students’ background knowledge, vocabulary, and critical thinking so they become better readers, listeners, and speakers.

InferCabulary is being used by high school seniors: 

InferCabulary is part of the daily routine for Anne Spencer’s senior English class. The students usually spend the first 10 minutes of class using the program, working their way “up the mountain” while developing their knowledge of tier two vocabulary words. The program’s multimodal approach to vocabulary combines multiple image-based examples, reading, sight, and sound to elicit higher level thinking about new words and ensures that students’ vocabulary knowledge is both lasting and useful.

Before class, Anne uses the Teacher Dashboard to identify and assign key terms for individual students to work on. She selects words she knows will resurface later in the class, using this opportunity to expose students to newly developing vocabulary over time and across learning activities. For example, she will choose words from the students’ upcoming reading assignment or select terms that she knows can be used in their end-of-year 10-page writing assignment. 

With a class full of student-athletes, the game-based approach allows Anne to tap into their competitive side to further increase engagement. On occasion, Anne will pull up the students’ learned words for the day and quiz students for a few bonus points.