Kelley, J. G., Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., & Faller, S. E. (2010). Effective academic vocabulary instruction in the urban middle school. The Reading Teacher, 64(1), 5-14.
The explicit teaching of "academic vocabulary" is the focus here, and a framework to implement such instruction is described here. Specifically, this was a six-week intervention program targeted for urban sixth graders, many of whom were low-income and language minority students. The students in 12 (volunteer) teachers' classes participated, and their vocabulary learning on several measures was assessed in comparison to a quasi-control group of students in seven classes that received the more typical (and almost nonexistent, according to the authors) vocabulary instruction. This was far from an experimental study, though, and its findings should not be interpreted as if it were an experiment.
That being said, there were things to like in this instructional framework, even though I tend to be distrustful of one-size-fits-all, highly structured explicit instruction programs (which often are prescribed for low-income, language minority learners). I did like the focus on deep knowledge, strategic reading, and especially, on student connections.
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