During my time as both a reading and writing tutor and a fifth grade student teacher, I have come to notice a disparity between student phonemic awareness and reading comprehension levels. Students who regularly display a positive grasp of phonic decoding skills are not always able to comprehend and explain what they have just read. Based on these observations I am interested in investigating techniques which purport to increase student comprehension levels. The current model for reading comprehension instruction is the reading workshop – a model in which there is one particular gap: vocabulary reinforcement