Reviews research indicating that presenting vocabulary in semantically related clusters may improve students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Describes how words from elementary school textbooks were divided into semantic clusters and makes suggestions for their use. (FL)

Intended for elementary school teachers, researchers, and materials developers, this book presents a cluster approach to vocabulary instruction, in which words are taught in semantically related groups. Over 7,000 words from elementary school textbooks have been organized into 61 instructional clusters, each containing two levels of subclusters…

Vocabulary development, operationally defined as the isomorphism between an individual's store of concepts and the labels society uses to represent those concepts, is akin to concept development. Therefore, vocabulary development can be facilitated if presented in clusters of related concepts. One approach used to reinforce such basic concept…

Most discussions of literacy involve at least two types: low literacy (involving knowledge and use of the strategies and conventions important to reading, writing, and vocabulary development) and high literacy (including these competencies along with a number of thinking and reasoning strategies that augment and deepen these abilities). Turning…