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Mountains of Words: Teaching Vocabulary Effectively

Writer's picture: Elizabeth BreauElizabeth Breau

There are between 170,000 and 470,000 words in English, depending on which dictionary you consult. This number does not include slang, professional jargon, or portmanteau words like “frenemy.” According to Word Counter, the average adult native English speaker knows between 20,000 and 35,000 words.


Vocabulary occupies about one-third of my teaching time, and I expect students to spend about an hour on it per week. The curriculum I use, Wordly Wise 3000, contains ten words per unit for grade three and fifteen words for grades four through twelve. The third-grade book covers 200 words; grades 4-12 learn 300.


That’s not very many words if your minimum goal is 20,000. Why not teach fifty words at a time?


Research shows that students who ace vocabulary tests by cramming the night before usually forget between a third and a half of what they learned within a few weeks. In contrast, short periods of study over several days increase the likelihood that the words will be stored in long-term memory and available for the student’s future use. However, most students don’t know this, so they waste time memorizing words that they will probably forget. They don’t learn how to use the words in sentences and can’t understand them when they are used in other people’s writing.


The multiple meanings, forms, and grammatical construction of many words make English tricky. For example, the word wound has two verb definitions--to injure and as the past tense of to wind--as well as a noun definition: an injury. Therefore, “I wound the bandage around the wound” is a clear, grammatically correct sentence that expects readers to navigate the fluid meanings of wound.


Simpler words can be equally complicated. If I say, “I live in a house,” I mean that I eat and sleep there, but if I say, “I hope to live for 50 more years,” I mean that I hope to continue to exist for another half-century. The meaning of live changes depending on its context.


Students who complete a set of vocabulary exercises that focus on the multiple meanings and various forms of a word become more fluent speakers and writers than those who have only memorized definitions. Even simply writing out definition sentences (“To be immortal is to live forever.”) stimulates the neural pathways that direct the information to long-term memory. In fact, any kinetic activity increases a student’s retention of the words; manipulating physical flashcards has been found to work better than clicking a button on a flashcard app does.


Approaches centered on the building blocks of English vocabulary--roots, prefixes, and suffixes--allow students to learn clusters of words and can easily be taught either individually or in a classroom. When I taught middle school, I would have the class brainstorm words that contained a given root, prefix, or suffix. This created a lively, interactive atmosphere as well as very long lists because some words have multiple forms, although I disallowed multiple verb endings. For example port, which means carry, could result in this list: import, importer, importation, export, exporter, exportation report, reporter (but not reportation) deport, deportation, support, supporter, portal, porter, port, portcullis, portmanteau, portfolio, transport, transportation, and fifteen or twenty more. The strength of this method is that once students learn what the word parts mean, they can often deduce the meanings of unfamiliar words, such as comportment, especially once they know that the prefix com- means with, and -ment turns verbs into nouns. One’s comportment is how one carries oneself.


I also invented a word-building game that challenged students to mix and match roots, prefixes, and suffixes to create as many words as possible. Creativity ensued, there was a “NOT” box for nonexistent words, and scores on vocabulary quizzes rose. (I will happily respond to requests for the rules.)


Analogies are another great vocabulary builder because they require students to think about the relationships between words: synonyms, antonyms, whole-to-part, category-to-item, big-to-small, and so on. They also expose students to new groups of words, such as the names of flowers and trees (lilac: flower :: elm: tree) or Latin-based animal adjectives (dog: canine :: pig: porcine). Interestingly, prefixes and prepositions are also all about relationships: if you know that sub means under and that super means over, above, or beyond, then you can deduce that subordinate and superordinate are antonyms, even if you’ve never seen the word superordinate before.


The mental gymnastics required to brainstorm long lists of related words and determine the relationships between objects and ideas stimulate both fluency and critical thinking skills. Vocabulary provides students with the building blocks they need to understand difficult texts, think through arguments, and express their ideas clearly and completely.


Elizabeth Breau, Ph.D. (she/her), is an award-winning writing coach and private English tutor. Her book, History According to SAT: A Content Guide to SAT Reading and Writing, won a silver medal in the teen category from the Nonfiction Authors Association. You can reach her at elizabeth.breau@gmail.com.


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