Vocabulary Strategies
English · Vocabulary · procedural
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 mastery looks like
- 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
Check your understanding
When Vocabulary Strategies encounters an unfamiliar word in a book or article, can they work out its meaning using context clues, word roots, or a dictionary — and then check whether their guess was right?
Prerequisites
Required first