Explicit vocabulary instruction can greatly enhance the capacity of students to succeed as literacy learners. This workshop looks at how to meaningfully embed and combine vocabulary and spelling instruction in our literacy lessons. Much of our spelling instruction at the older year levels is about rote memorisation of spelling and vocabulary lists. This doesn’t support students to spell unfamiliar words or to comprehend unknown words. This workshop will instead show teachers how ‘word study’ – a process for teaching students to closely think about both the meaning of words relevant to a topic of study, and how the different elements of words, such as prefixes, suffixes, syllables and vowel blends contribute to this meaning. Word study creates powerful transferable skills which students can use to both spell and infer meaning from unfamiliar words.