Strategies for Helping Readers
Employ Vocabulary Techniques
Utilizing a variety of methods to unlock the meaning of unfamiliar words. This strategy includes use of multiple forms of context, use of graphic information, and the ability to access external sources of word meaning.
When Can It Be Used?
Before, during, and after reading.
What You Can Do to Support This Strategy:
Choose materials that support this strategy. Select texts or passages that have examples of the types of context for which you are providing instruction
Assess the use of this strategy by observing whether students pause and reread, write a word down, or look words up in a glossary or dictionary.
Find Out More
Promoting Vocabulary Development Components of Effective Vocabulary Instruction, from the Texas Reading Initiative, provides lots of tips on strategies that help build students’ vocabularies.
Reading Online offers this article about a specific research study in which the comprehension of middle and high school students reading below grade level was improved significantly by instruction to help them develop their vocabularies.
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