Description

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Choosing appropriate words to express an idea is important to improve students' reading comprehension and writing composition skills. Vocabulary Ladders: Understanding Words Nuances provides fourth grade students with fun and engaging vocabulary activities to support word knowledge within reading and writing skills. This resource provides a framework to teach related words using a cluster approach that helps students learn many semantically related words at once. With this series, students will discuss differences between themed words, order words and explain their thinking, use words in context, and use words in writing.

About the Author

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David Harrison, Litt. D, is a nationally acclaimed author and poet. He has written more than seventy-five books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for young readers and has been anthologized in countless others. His work has been translated into twelve languages and has been aired on television, radio, podcast, and video stream. David has authored many professional and classroom resources for teachers, including Partner Poems for Building Fluency: 40 Engaging Poems for Two Voices with Motivating Activities That Help Students Improve Their Fluency and Comprehension with Timothy Rasinski and Gay Fawcett. He has even created a video series, Let's Write This Week with David Harrison, that brings writing tips into the elementary classroom and offers graduate college credit for teachers. David holds degrees from Drury University and Emory University and holds honorary doctorates of letters from Missouri State University and Drury University where he is the current poet laureate. David Harrison Elementary School is named in his honor.

Melissa Cheesman Smith, M.Ed., holds a master's degree in curriculum and instruction and has been teaching for 10 years. She teaches literacy classes for a university, presents at literacy conferences, and facilitates professional development workshops.