Multisensory Approach to Teaching Vocabulary

If you’ve been following this multisensory series, you’ve probably started to see the pattern: when students move, see, feel, hear, and say the content—we spark real, lasting learning. 

This time, we’re unlocking a powerful way to boost student comprehension across all subject areas—through intentional, multisensory vocabulary instruction.

Why Vocabulary Matters (in Every Classroom)

Whether a student is reading a short story, solving a math problem, analyzing a science experiment, or studying a historical event, vocabulary is key. If a student doesn’t understand the words being used, they can’t access the content—plain and simple.

Yet vocabulary instruction often gets boxed into the ELA block, leaving content-specific words in math, science, and social studies not accessible to students (especially if they have a language deficit or limited background knowledge).

But here’s the truth: Vocabulary belongs everywhere—and multisensory strategies can help us teach it anywhere.

Vocabulary that Sticks: Multi-Modal Strategies

Here are practical, brain-friendly strategies you can use in any subject area to help students understand, remember, and use vocabulary with confidence:

🎨 See It

• Visual Word Maps: Use Frayer models, concept webs, or word squares with sections for definition, picture, sentence, and example/non-example. Great for science, math, and ELA! Check out this FREE vocabulary graphic organizer by clicking here, or clicking the picture below!

• Color-Coding: Highlight prefixes, roots, and suffixes in different colors to break down word parts visually. (Ex: “transport”—prefix trans = across.)
• Symbol Drawings: Have students create a visual symbol for the word. For “evaporate,” they might draw a puddle turning into steam.

🎤 Say It

• Echo and Choral Reading: Say the word, then have the class echo it. Try different voices—robot, whisper, opera singer—for added fun. Check out these 24 different silly voice ideas by clicking the image below, or clicking here!

• Use It in a Chant or Song: Turn tricky words into tunes! Math words like commutative or denominator come alive when set to a beat.
• Partner Vocabulary Talks: Pair students to use the word in a sentence or explain it in their own words to each other. Speaking solidifies understanding!

🖐 Touch It / Build It

• Word Building: Use magnetic letters or cut-out roots and affixes to physically build words. Great for teaching morphology across subjects.
• Tactile Vocabulary Writing: Write new words in salt, sand, or shaving cream while saying them aloud. Especially powerful for younger or sensory-seeking learners.
• Act It Out: Have students gesture or act out the meaning of words. (Ex: For “rotate,” spin in place. For “conquer,” strike a victory pose.)  Check out these two free games: Vocabulary Rock & Roll and Vocabulary Quick Draw!

💡 Think It

• Word Associations: Ask students, “What does this word make you think of?” Encourage creative connections. For “erosion,” a student might think of a crumbling sandcastle.
• Analogies & Word Relationships: Link words together through analogies or category sorting. (Ex: “Evaporate is to water as melt is to ice.”)
• Student-Generated Definitions: After hearing and seeing a word in context, have students write their own definitions in kid-friendly language.

📚 Use Vocabulary Across the Day

Let’s make sure vocabulary isn’t just a one-and-done!

• In math, post a “Word of the Week” and use it during problem-solving aloud.
• In science, label diagrams with vocabulary terms and highlight them in lab directions.
• In social studies, have students act out historical terms or create comic strips using key words.
• In PE, review movement verbs or health vocabulary through motion.
• In music, teach terms like tempo, forte, or rhythm using both words and actions.
• Using word banks in every subject area
• Prompting students to “Say it, Show it, Sketch it”
• Including vocabulary goals during small groups or centers

Vocabulary is the gateway to comprehension and academic language—and when we teach it intentionally, students begin to unlock so much more than just definitions. They gain access to ideas, content, and confidence.  If you are interested in an explicit routine for teaching vocabulary, check out this previous blog post.  Or if you are interested in effective ways to practice vocabulary, click here!

Keep sparking those minds, teachers!

Multisensory Approaches to Teach Encoding

If you've been journeying with us through this multisensory series, you already know the magic that happens when we teach with more than just our voices and whiteboards. We’ve explored how movement, sound, texture, and visual cues help young learners build pathways in the brain that stick. 

But today, we’re diving into a skill that’s often misunderstood or even skipped over: encoding. While decoding gets lots of instructional love (as it should!), encoding—the process of hearing a word and writing it down correctly—is equally important.

In fact, students who encode well have a stronger grasp of phonics, a deeper connection to print, and greater writing confidence.

What is Encoding, and Why Does It Matter?

Encoding is not just "spelling." It’s the reverse of decoding. Instead of looking at letters and reading a word aloud, the student hears or thinks of a word, breaks it into sounds (phonemes), and then maps those sounds to letters (graphemes). It requires solid phonemic awareness, an understanding of phonics patterns, and—let’s be honest—a good bit of practice.

Encoding strengthens:

• Sound-letter correspondence
• Phonological memory
• Orthographic mapping
• Writing fluency

Just like we explored in our posts on phoneme-grapheme mapping, multisensory instruction can make all the difference when building encoding skills

Let’s Break it Down: A Multisensory Routine for Spelling Words

Here’s a simple, brain-based routine to help students think through the encoding process—not just guess and go:

1. Say the word aloud. (“Cat”)
2. Segment the sounds using your fingers. Start with the left hand: touch your thumb and say /k/, then your pointer for /a/, and your middle finger for /t/. Slide your finger across the tips to blend the word.
3. Analyze the word: What’s the first sound? What vowel sound do you hear? What’s the last sound?
4. Air-write the letters on your palm while spelling aloud.
5. Write the word on paper while naming each letter.

This engages speech, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, and visual systems—all working together to support encoding.

Fun, Multi-Modal Ways to Practice Encoding

Below are some tried-and-true strategies that go far beyond “write the word three times.”

💥 Move It

• Jump rope, bounce a ball, or jump on a trampoline while spelling aloud.
• Stomp for vowels and thrust arms forward for consonants.
• Snap and clap (snap for vowels, clap for consonants).

🖐 Feel It

• Write in salt, pudding, shaving cream, or sand with fingers.
• Use carpet squares or sandpaper letters for extra texture.
• Skywrite words in the air or trace them on a partner’s back.

🎨 See It

• Highlight vowel teams in one color and consonants in another.
• Illustrate the words or use mnemonics to create mental images.

🧠 Think It

• Break words into patterns (e.g., -at family: cat, bat, sat).
• Use silly mnemonics: “A rat in the house might eat the ice cream” for “arithmetic.”
• Link spelling to meaning: “You hear with your ear” helps with "hear."

🎤 Say It (With Style!)

• Make up songs, cheers, or jingles for tricky words.
• Mispronounce words to highlight spelling patterns (Wed-nes-day).
• Chant words with exaggerated intonation or whisper-shout patterns.
• Try using silly voice cards!  

🧩 Sort It and Solve It

• Categorize by spelling patterns, number of syllables, or word function.
• Put words in ABC order 
• Create riddles, root word puzzles, or sentence challenges using spelling words.
• Use word sorts 

Multisensory instruction doesn’t just make spelling more fun—it makes it more effective. By linking motor movement, visual cues, touch, and sound, we’re helping our students build strong, flexible neural connections that support both reading and writing. In short, we’re giving them the tools to think, spell, and express themselves with confidence.

Keep sparking those minds, educators! 💡

Multisensory Approaches to Teaching Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a fundamental skill that serves as the cornerstone for academic success and lifelong learning. To enhance this skill, educators can use multisensory, also known as multi-modal, techniques that engage multiple senses, creating a more robust and memorable learning experience for their students. 

According to a meta-analysis by Torgesen (2004), multisensory approaches significantly enhance decoding and reading comprehension skills among struggling readers.  What teacher doesn't want that?  

While multisensory approaches are often associated with phonics and decoding skills (read about that here), they are equally valuable in enhancing reading comprehension.  So, how do you make understanding text multi-sensory?  Check out some of the ideas below!

Graphic Organizers

Visual tools like graphic organizers help students map out the structure of a text, identify main ideas, and understand relationships between concepts. For instance, story maps can outline the setting, characters, problem, and solution, providing a clear framework for comprehension.

This bundle includes 75 different graphic organizers that address metacognition, asking questions, inferences, predictions, main ideas and details, facts and opinions, vocabulary, story maps and text structures! 

Read-Alouds with Movement

Incorporate kinesthetic activities during read-aloud sessions. Encourage students to act out scenes or use hand gestures to represent different characters or events. This engagement of the body can deepen understanding and make the reading experience more dynamic.

Check out these five ways, from Brightly, to add movement to  your storytime.   

Sensory Storytelling

Enhance stories by involving the senses. Use sound effects, tactile materials, or scents related to the story's content. For example, if a story takes place in a forest, bring in pine cones or play forest sounds to create an immersive experience.

Check out this post from Paths to Literacy, which gives tips on how to make storytelling multisensory.  

Interactive Discussions

Facilitate discussions that encourage students to verbalize their thoughts and questions about the text. Pairing students for think-pair-share activities allows them to articulate their understanding and hear different perspectives, engaging both auditory and social learning modalities. 

Are you in need of ways to partner your students?  Check out this pack of over 30 different ways to group students!  

Visualization Exercises

Guide students to create mental images of the scenes they read. After reading a passage, ask them to draw what they envision or describe it in detail. This practice strengthens their ability to form vivid mental representations, aiding comprehension.

Quick Draw is a great game to illustrate vocabulary words, but it could easily be adapted for comprehension questions.  For example:

• draw your favorite character
• illustrate the introduction, climax, or resolution of the story
• draw the setting 
• use colors to illustrate the emotions/feelings in the story
• create a symbol that represents the meaning of the story

Tactile Engagement with Text

Encourage students to use sticky notes to jot down thoughts, questions, or summaries as they read. This tactile interaction with the text can help them organize their ideas and monitor their understanding.  According to John Hattie's research, Visible Learning, underlining, and highlighting have the potential to accelerate learning (.44 effect size).  

Overall, implementing multisensory techniques in reading comprehension instruction offers two big advantages:

• Enhanced Engagement: Students are more likely to stay engaged when multiple senses are involved, making learning more enjoyable.

• Improved Retention: Engaging various sensory pathways helps reinforce memory and aids in the retention of information.