Word Knowledge Instruction

Word Knowledge Instruction (WKI) is a classroom instructional program designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students by teaching morphological awareness—knowledge of Greek and Latin roots, base words, prefixes, and suffixes—to help students infer the meaning of new words and expand their vocabulary. WKI consists of 15-minute lessons taught 4 days a week for 20 weeks to the entire English language arts (ELA) class in high-poverty, low-performing elementary schools. Each week of WKI lessons focuses on a single affix (prefix or suffix), covering 20 affixes in all. WKI lessons explicitly teach morphological awareness by deconstructing and constructing words; composing sentences; discussing the meaning of words presented in connected text; defining words, pairing them with synonyms, and linking them to existing knowledge; contrasting base words with new words derived by adding affixes; and creating family trees by adding affixes to base and root words. WKI developers trained teachers over two and a half days in summer 2018 and provided ongoing support throughout the 20 weeks of implementation.