Describes a teaching unit on portmanteau words, such as "smog" and "petrodollars," which are created by truncating two words. (SJL)

Consists of transcripts of self-help tapes, numbers three and four in a series on vocabulary improvement, dealing with prefixes and roots. (JM)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an instructional spelling approach, Word Study, on adult learners' spelling. The author sought to learn more about participants' stage of spelling development, to gain information from the adults on their interpretations of this approach, and to determine if a short-term intervention would…

A classroom companion to "Word History: A Guide to Understanding the English Language," this book provides teachers with additional information to help them include the study of word history in their classroom routine. The book presents suggestions and activities that can be used to challenge students to play with words; to give teachers…

Intended to help students improve their vocabulary and spelling skills, this booklet offers activities on synonyms, antonyms, homonyms (including homophones and homographs), and acronyms. It is suggested that the teacher present these types of words as members of the "Nym Family." Ideas for posters and books to be used as instructional…

Gives sample sentences showing the connection between grammatical and lexical semantic relationships, which present a complicated set of directions and rules for the learner. Methods are suggested for differentiating by category the meanings of ambiguous words. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Describes a reading program that is a combination of the best in existing reading series and includes a tailor-made word attack skills segment. (RB)

Analysis of the Rinsland vocabulary list indicated that while the list was dated, it was more than adequate for purposes of classroom instruction. (RB)

Creating and displaying artworks based on words helps students appreciate the subtle strengths of language. (JH)

One hundred forty-three seventh-grade students were assessed in the areas of word attack and comprehension. This study focused on the 71 students with the lowest total word-attack scores. Results indicated that all comprehension subskills had strong relationships to overall comprehension, but that many word-attack subskills had only low,…

Developed to document the specifications for supplementary instruction in a skills-based vocabulary program, this report focuses on the study of synonyms as relating to the learning of specific words. One hundred twenty-nine general headwords and more than 1,500 synonyms for these headwords, specified for use in instruction in grades four through…

This paper discusses the importance of an emphasis on word meaning skills as part of an objective-based approach to the development of reading comprehension at intermediate grade levels. To aid in determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word, two strands of word meaning skills are proposed. One strand concentrates on the use of word parts, while…

The first part of this text for young students provides an introduction to the origins of language, the beginnings of writing, and the making of an alphabet. The second part, "Word Stories," presents the etymologies of over 100 common English words in simplified, nontechnical style. Special terms are explained in a prefatory section. A word and…