As teachers, we know we do not have time to teach students every word they need to know (Graves, 2000). Explicit instruction is very effective for teaching students the specific words we select for vocabulary instruction, but given the vast array of words they will encounter in their daily lives, we also know that they need to stretch their vocabularies further than the words we give them to study. For that reason, we need to give them the tools to figure out the meanings of words they will run across, both in text and spoken language. They read and hear so many new words everyday outside of our classroom and we want to give them the strategies they need to be able to read, hear, speak, and write these words. For that reason, we must teach word-learning strategies, specific strategies that will give them ways to independently find meaning in new words (Baumann et al. 2003) when we are not around to help them.
Word-learning strategies include: 1) how to use dictionaries to learn, reinforce, and better understand vocabulary, 2) morphemic analysis to understand the most root words, and 3) contextual analysis so that they can use the rest of the text to create meaning of unknown words (National Reading Panel, 2000).
Dictionary Use
Let’s start with dictionary use. Like me, you may have remembered ineffective dictionary use instruction from your childhood. According to Honig et al.,
“Traditionally instruction in dictionary use has focused on mechanics- how to find an entry alphabetically, how to use guide words, how to separate words into syllables, how to use pronunciation keys-and on having students use information from dictionary definition to write sentences.”
Of course, these are necessary skills to understanding how dictionaries work. No one is arguing that these skills should not be taught. However, these skills, taught in isolation of real-world dictionary work or purpose, are not effective. Instead of focussing on these skills alone, the purpose should be to make how we use what we learn from the dictionary. That means we must model looking up words we do not know and discuss at length which definition is most applicable for the word’s use in context.
Morphemic Analysis
The next category of word-learning strategies is morphemic analysis. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful parts of words that combine to make words. We want students to know the meanings of these word-parts so that when they encounter these parts in unfamiliar words, they can use their knowledge of the parts to create meaning. These parts are often classified by their origins. Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and Latin are the most common. We also teach cognates to ELL students so that they can recognize parts of words in their first language when they read words that are the same or very similar to words in English that share the same meaning.
Contextual Analysis
FInally, we teach students contextual analysis. When we run across an unfamiliar word in text, we usually begin to analyze where and how it is used. We use the overall meaning of the text or the information within the sentence to make sense of the word.
Overall, we want our students to learn the specific words we teach them in our instruction but we also want them to be independent word learners. Word-learning strategies provide our students the tools to do just that.
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