Vocabulary Curriculum

The three tiers of vocabulary is a theory that categorises words based on their “different levels of utility.”

Created by Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown, these tiers are split like this:

• Tier 1 vocabulary includes the words we use every day, likely to be familiar to learners through conversation.
• Tier 2 vocabulary includes challenging terms learners may encounter throughout their academic lives.
• Tier 3 vocabulary includes subject-specific keywords used outside of the English classroom, like ‘photosynthesis’ in Biology.