According to research, by the time MOST children start school, they will have been exposed to "5 million words and should know about 13,000 of them." What does this mean to educators? We may have to help our students in poverty "catch up." Here are some tips: Tip # 1 - Strategically Teach Vocabulary Why do many of our students refuse to read? For many students, its because they don't comprehend the vocabulary within the text. Students typically need to know 90 - 95% of the words in a text to be able to understand it. Beck, I.L., McKoeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002) offer a 3 Tier model for teaching vocabulary. Tier 1 words are everyday vocabulary terms that we don't need to reteach. For example, you wouldn't need to teach a group of third graders what alphabet, add, or subtract means. Tier 2 words are general academic, meaning students should understand these terms across the curriculum. Tier 2 words should be our primary focus f