ABSTRACT
Middle-level students can be like the wind—a gentle breeze one minute, a tornado the next. The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) considers students between the ages of ten and fifteen to be early or young adolescents. Effective teachers of middle-level students understand that this age group has specific physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs that must be met to help kids learn. As middle-level educators, we must make instructional decisions based on the unique natures and needs of middle-level kids. Published research on content-area vocabulary development often overlooks the fact that students are in multiple classes a day. Middle school students have had a range of school and life experiences by the time they get to us. Selecting words for deep study at the middle level is often a conundrum. Most teachers have a whole list of words they believe students should know, and students vary in their understanding of vocabulary to describe the world around them.
