Frontloading Vocabulary

Someone asked about this idea of frontloading vocabulary as opposed to teaching vocabulary. What might that look like in real life - with a text? Let's use an excerpt from an on-line Newsweek article by Nick Summers and Barrett Sheridan called "Browsing the Future" (March 5, 2009):

"At least 18 percent of you already know what Firefox is, because you're using it to read this interview. (Or so says the statistics engine behind Newsweek.com, which tracks things like that.) For the unfamiliar, Firefox is a free Web browser that is built by coders around the world whose open-source work is organized by the Mozilla Corp. and its nonprofit parent, the Mozilla Foundation. Introduced in 2004 as an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous, but buggy, Internet Explorer, Firefox has been a force for innovation in the browser category, with improvements such as tabbed browsing and plug-ins that work on any operating system. Commissions from search engines appear to keep Mozilla awash in revenue for now ($75 million in 2007; the foundation has not released 2008 data), although the vast majority of that comes from a company, Google, that now has its own competing browser, Chrome. Mozilla's plans for 2009 include a new version of Firefox, which will focus on user-interface polish; an overhaul of Thunderbird, its e-mail client; and taking Firefox mobile."

If a technology teacher was using this article in his/her class, s/he might decide that the following words were important to teach as vocabulary words:

• coders, open-source work, tabbed browsing, plug-ins

These words, because they are the academic vocabulary, would be taught with effective vocabulary instruction methods throughout the week. However, the teacher might also identify ubiquitous and revenue as words that will interrupt comprehension for some students. Therefore, as part of the front loading the teachers says:

"We are going to read an article about the browser Mozilla. In the article you will come across a couple of words that might trip you up. One word is ubiquitous. (The teacher displays the word.) Ubiquitous means widespread. For example, the talk of Obama's victory was ubiquitous. Another word has to do with income - the amount of money someone makes. The word is revenue. The revenue for the project grew every year. (The teacher displays the word.)"

Let me know if this example helps.