Concludes that when children learned confusable words, their subsequent learning of words was at a faster rate than those children who learned nonconfusable words first, and that high imagery words were learned more quickly than low imagery ones. (FL)

Notes that teaching techniques used to "build" vocabulary are not based on the ways most people acquire vocabulary. Discusses the problems and possibilities of expanding students' language usage. (RL)

Describes an experience-based vocabulary instruction technique suitable for learning disabled or mentally disabled junior high school students. Reports that the students improved their vocabulary over the long term and requested inclusion of words from their other courses. (RS)

Describes an activity to provide the stimulus for the semantic elaboration that leads to students' word ownership. Uses graphic representation to expand and refine concepts and relate new knowledge to previous experiences. (MG)

Examines some problems and techniques for teaching prefixes and suffixes at the middle elementary level. States that fewer affixes should be taught, while emphasizing the application of affix knowledge to unfamiliar words. Lists the most common prefixes and suffixes in printed school English for grades three to nine. (MM)

Reviews research concerning the preteaching of content area vocabulary. Questions the value of solely preteaching content terms and suggests teaching both general and content vocabulary in ways that aid students in becoming independent word learners. (MG)

Presents an economics terminology puzzle based on economic factors and vocabulary. Requires students to recall economic terms and subsequently apply these terms to economic concepts. Provides an answer key. (CFR)

A study examined teaching methods for vocabulary at the first grade level. The study compared teaching vocabulary in context and teaching vocabulary in isolation. Subjects were 32 culturally diverse first-grade students from varying socio-economic backgrounds. The sample consisted of 14 boys and 18 girls, heterogeneously grouped. Two teacher-made…

In today's mathematics classroom there is much concern about the students' lack of success. Mathematics teachers can successfully incorporate reading into their classrooms by: (1) promoting in-class reading activities; (2) teaching vocabulary; (3) emphasizing mathematical symbols; and (4) ensuring understanding of mathematical sentences. Reading…

Independent reading can serve as a practical context for linking vocabulary and comprehension and is a feasible strategy that complements other instructional approaches while it expands word knowledge in a naturalistic setting. Teachers should serve as reading models while students engage in silent reading, but teachers should also be cautious…

The use of context clues is basic to the reading act. This paper emphasizes the importance of teaching students to recognize context clues and outlines reasons for teachers' frequent failure to do so. It then suggests ways of helping students become aware of ways context clues can be of value to them as readers and of teaching them to identify…

Experimental research on the environmental conditions that promote generative language learning is reviewed. Recombinative generalization is introduced as a process that enables individuals to express and to comprehend novel utterances. This review focuses on the use of a miniature linguistic system paradigm to explore how recombinative…

Every reader possesses five distinct vocabularies--listening, speaking, reading, writing, and potential--which grow at different rates, depend on the background and motivation of a particular reader, and are positively related to overall intelligence and reading comprehension. If students are to gain complete understanding of reading material in…

Linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic aspects of word knowledge are examined. Vocabulary techniques are discussed according to how they build up word frequency, vocabulary growth in native speakers, underlying forms, semantic structure, word association, and case relations. (SCC)

This section contains four articles on using French dictionaries: exercises with the Gougenheim dictionary, for example, to increase vocabulary; games and activities to gain facility in using the alphabet; four vocabulary-building games; and a comparison of dictionaries of different centuries using the word "femme" as example. (AMH)