Utilizing Semantic, Mnemonic, and Strategic Approaches to Vocabulary Instruction to Promote Word Learning for Students with Learning Disabilities

This article provides a review and practice-based examples of three research-supported approaches to vocabulary instruction for students with learning disabilities (LD). In the first half of the article, we introduce and discuss the research bases for semantic, mnemonic, and strategic approaches to vocabulary instruction. Each approach encompasses a range of instructional activities that educators can select depending on relevant words for instruction and their instructional goals. In the last half, we use a middle-grade science passage along with vocabulary words from that passage to demonstrate how semantic, mnemonic, and strategic approaches can be emphasized or combined to promote text comprehension and vocabulary learning for children with LD.