To get started as an educator, follow these steps:
- Create your account: Go to https://www.vocabulary.com/signup/teacher/ to create your educator account and start your 10-day free trial to our subscription. If your school or district has a subscription, you will get additional features. If you've been provided with a Teacher Invitation link, use it to unlock all the features of the subscription.
- Create (or find) vocabulary lists based on any text you’re teaching. Create customized lists from any text in seconds, or choose from thousands of pre-made lists. Read more: Introduction to Vocabulary Lists
- Assign vocabulary exercises to your students based on these lists. Read more: Assigning a List
- Create classes & encourage competition and engagement with class leaderboards. Read more: Introduction to Classes
- Monitor student progress. Verify that your students have completed their work using the teacher dashboard. Read more: Introduction to the Teacher Dashboard
- Intervene where necessary. Identify words your students are having trouble with and cover them in class. Read more: Using the Teacher Dashboard to Inform Instruction
Read more: Jumpstart Word Learning with the Classroom Starter Kit
What is Vocabulary.com and how does it work?
Vocabulary.com is an adaptive learning program that helps your students learn the essential vocabulary that is part of your curriculum.
Each student follows a personalized learning path that is designed to optimize vocabulary acquisition and retention. Teachers direct students’ learning by assigning activities based on word lists, monitoring student progress, and providing targeted assistance in areas where Vocabulary.com identifies them to be struggling.
The Student Experience on Vocabulary.com
To the student, Vocabulary.com is a game. The student’s primary activity on Vocabulary.com is answering questions. They earn points and achievements, and level-up as they master words.
Read more: Introduction to the VocabTrainer
A Personalized Learning Program
As each student works with Vocabulary.com, we build a model of their vocabulary, identify the words they have trouble with, and work with them until they master those words.
Read more: Managing the words in Your Learning Program
We give students the appropriate question at the right time.
In order to provide students with a flexible and sophisticated understanding of a word, we expose them to many different question types about the multiple meanings of each word we teach. Unlike traditional vocabulary learning in which a student simply memorizes a single definition, we teach students the multiple meanings of a word and how to use each one.
Read more: How do you choose the words that you teach me? Can I choose my own?
Students work to master words.
As students answer questions, they begin to see progress on each word that they’re learning. After they have answered questions associated with all of the important meanings of the word and have demonstrated that they understand it through answering a series of questions correctly (including a spelling question), they master the word. In gameplay, mastering a word is rewarded handsomely, with additional points and special badges awarded to the student. Even after a student has mastered a word, we will occasionally ask them follow-up questions if they had trouble learning it the first time.
Read more: What does it take to master a word?