UnderstandingWord Study 3-6
to Support Multilingual Learners
Start
Maximize your screen to best view the content.
Objectives
Describe the Word Study routine and identify when and how to use Word Study across content areas and grade-level texts.
01
Micro PLObjectives
Explain how the student-facing decks are reusable templates you can customize throughout the year.
02
What Is Word Study?
What is the Word Study Instructional Routine?
Word Study is a structured vocabulary routine that teaches students to analyze the meaningful parts of words, prefixes, suffixes, and roots, so they can decode unfamiliar words independently.
Rather than memorizing definitions word-for-word, students learn transferable patterns. Understanding that re- means again, or that -tion signals a noun, gives them tools they can apply across subjects and texts. For multilingual learners, this routine is especially powerful. Many students bring knowledge of cognates from their home languages, connections that Word Study makes visible and explicit.
Multilingual Supports
Why does this routine matter for multilingual learners?
Builds Word-Learning Strategies
Supports All Language Domains
Leverages Home Language Assets
Prepares Students For Content-Area Texts
Reflect
Think and Ink
When to Use It
WHen to Use it
Word Study works before, during, and after reading and across content areas. It is a habit of mind. The more often students encounter and analyze words, the more automatic their language acquisition strategies become.
Build a Word Wall or chart that grows throughout the unit or school year.
Pause and examine a word when it comes up naturally in the text or lesson.
During Content Instruction
After, as a Recurring Routine
Pre-teach the affix or root word so students have the tool before they encounter it in reading.
Before a Unit or Text
How It Works
Click through the tiles to learn more about how to use the Word Study routine in your classroom.
Introduce the Content
Connect and Extend
Apply and Practice
Explore Examples
Make Meaning
Differentiation
Differentiation
Click each tile to learn how Word Study is differentiated across proficiency levels to meet the needs of multilingual learners.
Expanding & Bridging
Entering
Emerging & Developing
Making It Your Own
The student-facing decks are reusable templates. They are not one-time resources.
Each Word Study deck is designed to be copied or customized, and used again and again throughout the school year.
- Copy the deck template or slide for each new affix or root word you want to teach.
- Swap in the affix or root word, example words, and content-specific context that fits your students' needs.
- Use it with students, then copy it again for the next affix or root word.
Over the course of a year, students build a full library of affixes and root words they know, each one taught through the same familiar routine.
Word Study Resources
Word Study Resources
Use the small arrows next to the images to click through the deck and view the available graphic organizers.
Action Step
Unlocked Resources
You’ve unlocked an exclusive resource! Use it in your classroom today!
RootWords Bank
Access additional root words to support multilingualscholars.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
- Open-ended response options
- Extended application tasks
- Opportunities to generate original sentences and word connections
- Invite students to identify additional cognates or related words.
- Use their contributions to extend the Word Wall.
Students complete the graphic organizer by recording the morpheme, taking notes, drawing a visual, and writing a summary.
Share the prefix, suffix, or root and its meaning. Use the student slide deck to display the morpheme and example words.
Builds Word-Learning Strategies
Students learn to analyze words so that prefixes, suffixes, and roots serve as vocabulary tools that apply across content areas and grade levels.
Walk through the example words on the deck together. Students listen, repeat, and notice patterns.
Students discuss what the words have in common and connect meaning back to the morpheme.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
- Pair students strategically.
- Encourage partner discussion before writing.
- Extend wait time.
- Guided notes structure
- Sentence starters
- Visual cues
- Structured partner talk prompts
Prepares Students For Content-Area Texts
Academic and content-area texts in grades 3–6 are dense with morphologically complex vocabulary. Word Study gives students a framework for approaching these words before they encounter them in reading. When teachers embed Word Study into content instruction, students arrive at texts with vocabulary tools, not just definitions, already in hand.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
- Visual supports
- Familiar base words
- Spanish cognate connections
- Sentence frames for all responses
- Model language aloud.
- Use Total Physical Response (TPR) gestures.
- Encourage home language use.
Leverages Home Language Assets
Many Greek and Latin roots have cognates in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. Students who speak these languages can activate prior knowledge to access new academic vocabulary faster. The AVID Emerge materials include translanguaging support in Spanish. Teachers are encouraged to help students make cognate connections across all home languages in their classroom.
Students share their organizers and identify where they might see this morpheme again.
Supports All Language Domains
Word Study develops vocabulary in every language domain: listening and speaking (students discuss, sort, and explain word meanings aloud), reading (students encounter target morphemes in context-rich examples), and writing (students use new words in sentences and graphic organizers).
Word Study 3–6
AVID Center DL
Created on April 8, 2026
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Transcript
UnderstandingWord Study 3-6
to Support Multilingual Learners
Start
Maximize your screen to best view the content.
Objectives
Describe the Word Study routine and identify when and how to use Word Study across content areas and grade-level texts.
01
Micro PLObjectives
Explain how the student-facing decks are reusable templates you can customize throughout the year.
02
What Is Word Study?
What is the Word Study Instructional Routine?
Word Study is a structured vocabulary routine that teaches students to analyze the meaningful parts of words, prefixes, suffixes, and roots, so they can decode unfamiliar words independently. Rather than memorizing definitions word-for-word, students learn transferable patterns. Understanding that re- means again, or that -tion signals a noun, gives them tools they can apply across subjects and texts. For multilingual learners, this routine is especially powerful. Many students bring knowledge of cognates from their home languages, connections that Word Study makes visible and explicit.
Multilingual Supports
Why does this routine matter for multilingual learners?
Builds Word-Learning Strategies
Supports All Language Domains
Leverages Home Language Assets
Prepares Students For Content-Area Texts
Reflect
Think and Ink
When to Use It
WHen to Use it
Word Study works before, during, and after reading and across content areas. It is a habit of mind. The more often students encounter and analyze words, the more automatic their language acquisition strategies become.
Build a Word Wall or chart that grows throughout the unit or school year.
Pause and examine a word when it comes up naturally in the text or lesson.
During Content Instruction
After, as a Recurring Routine
Pre-teach the affix or root word so students have the tool before they encounter it in reading.
Before a Unit or Text
How It Works
Click through the tiles to learn more about how to use the Word Study routine in your classroom.
Introduce the Content
Connect and Extend
Apply and Practice
Explore Examples
Make Meaning
Differentiation
Differentiation
Click each tile to learn how Word Study is differentiated across proficiency levels to meet the needs of multilingual learners.
Expanding & Bridging
Entering
Emerging & Developing
Making It Your Own
The student-facing decks are reusable templates. They are not one-time resources.
Each Word Study deck is designed to be copied or customized, and used again and again throughout the school year.
Over the course of a year, students build a full library of affixes and root words they know, each one taught through the same familiar routine.
Word Study Resources
Word Study Resources
Use the small arrows next to the images to click through the deck and view the available graphic organizers.
Action Step
Unlocked Resources
You’ve unlocked an exclusive resource! Use it in your classroom today!
RootWords Bank
Access additional root words to support multilingualscholars.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
Students complete the graphic organizer by recording the morpheme, taking notes, drawing a visual, and writing a summary.
Share the prefix, suffix, or root and its meaning. Use the student slide deck to display the morpheme and example words.
Builds Word-Learning Strategies
Students learn to analyze words so that prefixes, suffixes, and roots serve as vocabulary tools that apply across content areas and grade levels.
Walk through the example words on the deck together. Students listen, repeat, and notice patterns.
Students discuss what the words have in common and connect meaning back to the morpheme.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
Prepares Students For Content-Area Texts
Academic and content-area texts in grades 3–6 are dense with morphologically complex vocabulary. Word Study gives students a framework for approaching these words before they encounter them in reading. When teachers embed Word Study into content instruction, students arrive at texts with vocabulary tools, not just definitions, already in hand.
Deck Features
Teacher Moves
Leverages Home Language Assets
Many Greek and Latin roots have cognates in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. Students who speak these languages can activate prior knowledge to access new academic vocabulary faster. The AVID Emerge materials include translanguaging support in Spanish. Teachers are encouraged to help students make cognate connections across all home languages in their classroom.
Students share their organizers and identify where they might see this morpheme again.
Supports All Language Domains
Word Study develops vocabulary in every language domain: listening and speaking (students discuss, sort, and explain word meanings aloud), reading (students encounter target morphemes in context-rich examples), and writing (students use new words in sentences and graphic organizers).