Smarter Balanced

English Language Arts

Item and Task Specifications 

 

APPENDIX C

 

Vocabulary * 

The CCSS Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards, defines three tiers of vocabulary words identified in current reading research. When choosing vocabulary words to be tested, it is important to distinguish among the following tiers: 

 

Tier 1 words comprise the most basic, everyday words in our language (e.g., words of Anglo-Saxon origin like head, hand, book, girl, and dog). Tier 1 words will seldom appear as tested vocabulary words on common-core assessments. 

 

Tier 2 words are those that have wide use in academic writing and are important to student learning across many topics and all grade levels. As noted in CCSS Appendix A, tier 2 words are “highly transferable general academic words (for example, qualifying adjectives and adverbs such as important and typically) are used broadly across domains (areas or fields of knowledge) and in situations outside of the classroom.” These words should appear in the vocabulary-focused questions on assessments aligned to the common core in grades 3 through high school. 

 

Tier 3 words are low-frequency and domain-specific, the kinds of terms that tend to be footnoted in texts that are written about specific, focused topics (e.g., legislature and circumference). As stated in Appendix A, “Students typically learn these words either by being taught them directly or by reading multiple selections from multiple authors within those domains.” These words will seldom be the focus of vocabulary questions on common core assessments. Developing vocabulary questions in assessments requires a focus on tier 2 words at all grade levels.The standards have a special focus on the academic vocabulary common to complex texts in all disciplines, and assessments should share that focus in its treatment of vocabulary.

 

On the following page is a brief list of some representative tier 2 words chosen from the thousands of such words in English. The list is suggestive, not exhaustive. The words are listed in approximate grade-level bands to show that there are important tier 2 words to be taught and tested at every grade level. These words are used in many different contexts and exhibit various shades of meaning based on those contexts. Some of them are homographs, but most are not. Students who know tier 2 words like the ones listed on the follow page are greatly advantaged in the close, analytic reading required by the Common Core standards.

 

*Appendix C, Vocabulary was adapted from the Common Core State Standards and the Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards