Teaching in a high poverty Title I school poses many challenges to both students and teachers.  When looking at my students and their needs I saw a gap in their reading and writing when using basic vocabulary. This is not only a challenge for students in my room but across our school and all grade levels.  I realized, in reflecting on my classroom, that students were not aware of some of the Tier I words that are required to be successful in Kindergarten.  I began to search for strategies and research on how to improve students’ background knowledge.  Through my searching I came across many articles that showed gains in students background knowledge when direct vocabulary instruction was provided.  This lead me to wonder, can direct vocabulary instruction help increase students background knowledge and student motivation with reading and writing in Kindergarten?

   Many of my students are from native Spanish speaking homes, so conversational and academics English is not practiced at home or even understood.  Through much of my research vocabulary instruction was mentioned many times to help support students who struggle with read and or writing.  I wondered how this would work in Kindergarten.  I read much of Marzano's strategies and instructional practices and I started putting it to use in my classroom.  

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