Vocabulary Strategies
Determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases using a flexible range of strategies, including context clues, Greek and Latin affixes and roots, reference materials, and verification of inferred meaning
What a learner can do afterwards
- Use context clues (the overall meaning of a sentence, a word’s position or function) to infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word
- Break down a word using known Greek or Latin roots and affixes to deduce its meaning (e.g., 'malevolent' = mal- (bad) + volent (wishing))
- Look up a word in a dictionary to verify or refine an inferred meaning
1 · Read
Every reader meets words they don't know. You don't have to stop and look up every one. You have three tools: read for clues, break the word into parts, and check a dictionary when you're still not sure.
Context clues are the words and sentences around an unfamiliar word. They hint at what it means. Ask yourself: does this word sound good or bad here? Does it match an action, a feeling, or a thing?
Read this sentence: 'The old bridge was decrepit, its boards rotting and its railing crumbling.' The words rotting and crumbling are context clues. They tell you decrepit means old and falling apart.
After you guess a meaning, check it. Look the word up in a dictionary. If your guess matches, you know you got it right. If not, you learn the real meaning and get sharper next time.
Take the word decrepit. From rotting and crumbling you guess old and falling apart. Open the dictionary entry for decrepit and read each meaning. Pick the meaning that fits boards rotting and railing crumbling. Read the sentence again with that meaning in place.
Read for context clues, break the word into roots and affixes, then check a dictionary to confirm your guess.
Reading passages adapted from academy collection materials; publisher terms unknown, see per-item provenance in file.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.