TCIS Network Newsletter

September 5, 2025

Educators strive to understand student misconceptions in continuous efforts to improve instruction. In some cases, what is perceived as a child’s inability to make inferences may be another issue – understanding the vocabulary. The overwhelming body of research concludes that disadvantaged students enter school with a significant vocabulary gap, often with thousands fewer words than their more affluent peers. This discrepancy is sometimes referred to as the word gap with a negative impact on reading comprehension, critical thinking, and general academic success. Consequently, purposeful vocabulary instruction must be a priority in our TCIS campuses. One successful strategy to enhance vocabulary acquisition is the use of word walls. In a 2018 study, Kish reported the effects of thoughtful implementation:

Word walls can be an important classroom tool to aid students with spelling and vocabulary. Within a classroom, there are a variety of groups of students, including students on grade level, students above grade level, students below grade level, and students with disabilities. While each group is impacted slightly differently by word walls, one component that remains universal throughout each of the groups is that word walls cannot be used in isolation. Simply displaying a wall of words in the classroom without any further instruction or guidance does not help students with spelling or vocabulary; instead, word walls must be accompanied with activities and explicit instruction of how they are to be used. When this is done, word walls have the ability to positively benefit students in the classroom.

Varied activities and explicit instruction make word walls ‘interactive.’ The Reading Rockets website presents some effective strategies on how to use word walls.

Make words accessible by putting them where every student can see them. They should be written in large black letters using a variety of background colors to distinguish easily confused words.
Teachers and students should work together to determine which words should go on the word wall. Try to include words that children use most commonly in their writing. Words should be added gradually — a general guideline is five words per week.
Use the word wall daily to practice words, incorporating a variety of activities such as word guessing games as well as writing them.
Provide enough practice so that words are read and spelled automatically and make sure that words from the wall are always spelled correctly in the children’s daily writing.
Update the word wall periodically to reflect new words and concepts introduced during the course of instruction.
Use content-area material from the curriculum rather than randomly selected words.
Word walls should be referred to often so students come to understand and see their relevance.

Our TCIS campuses have a high percentage of disadvantaged and emerging bilingual students. Success in closing associated learning gaps includes viable ways to build academic vocabulary. A deliberate instructional approach incorporating word walls will support elevating students’ agency across all subjects.

I wanted to give a shout out to Ms. Gongora, 3rd grade first year teacher at Las Palmas, for being a risk-taker and inviting me to do a model teach this week on visualization of a text and reading strategies. I attended PLCs this week at LPLS and I was so proud of the collaboration that has already transpired with new teachers and veteran staff members. Sharing best practices, IB aspects, and the culture of teaching and learning already occurring the first month of school is amazing! Keep up the collaboration because we all can grow and learn from each other. Teaching is fun and exciting - it was awesome to back in the classroom again! Thanks for letting me share my knowledge with you and your students Ms. Gongora! It is always good to sharpen or resharpen your skills.

On another note, success of our conference begins with you, the staff, teachers, and campus leaders. We are still needing sessions for our Texas IB Conference. We have some really interesting sessions already submitted, but we are in need of a few more!

I encourage at least one presentation from every leadership team from each school. No topic is too small!

Think about different groups that might need a session: new teachers, specials/electives, SPED, DL, counseling, PLCs, ECRs, ATLs… the list can go on and on. Are you all along on an island thinking, "If I could only collaborate with others just like me?". Well this is a great opportunity for you to submit a session for your specific content. There are others out there that want to collaborate with you. Did I mention, this provides you with an opportunity to incorporate in Dimension 4.3 Professional Development of TTESS - The teacher enhances the professional community.

Be a risk-taker. Try something new. Share your knowledge with other IB educators!

Submit your proposal here!

TCIS BOY Classroom Systems Checklist

TCIS has purchased ALL of the Lowman products currently available for you to use. They have moved to a new website. The old website is no longer connected to their database, so no accounts can be updated hence you not being able to reset your password. Therefore each staff member, new or prior to the campus, will need to follow the instructions below:

EVERYONE will need to create a new account and register by following the directions below.

Go to LowmanEducation.com
Click on “25-26 Library” in the top, right corner
Then click on the “Login” button
You can register with the Microsoft Outlook button
If you are unable to use Outlook, use Alternative Login (also using your district email)
You will need to click on “Register as a new user” (don’t skip this step or you will get an error)
Complete your profile to access your library of products.

If you have any questions, you can email support@lowmaneducation.com for customer support. They are very responsive.

This is a new website, so please have some patience. If you are not able to access items by Tuesday, August 19th, please let me know and I will work with you and Lowman to troubleshoot, but feel free to email their support team.