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Research in student vocabulary development can be grouped into five areas--knowing words, morphology, the use of context, the role of definitions in understanding words and the size and growth of vocabulary. Strategies teachers can employ to assist struggling readers in each of these categories are discussed.

Educators have long recognized the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and the ability to read and write proficiently. In fact, most educators intuitively know that "people who do not know the meanings of many words are probably poor readers" (Anderson & Freebody, 1983, p. 244). All readers encounter words they do not know; strong readers have strategies for figuring out what to do with them. Strong readers use any or all of the following strategies when they encounter an unknown word:

* Skip it and read on

* Re-read

* Think about what they are reading

* Sound it out to see if it is a word they know

* Look at the headings and subheadings of the text

* Guess at what type of word would go there such as a noun or an adjective

* Associate the parts of the word (prefixes, root words, suffixes) with words they know (Irvin, 2001).

Research in vocabulary development can be grouped into five areas: knowing words, morphology, the use of context, the role of definitions in understanding words, and the size and growth of vocabulary.

Knowing Words

Beck, McKeown, McCaslin, and Burkes (1979) identified three levels of word knowledge: unknown, acquainted, and established. Paribakht and Wesche (1997) proposed a five-point scale: 1) never saw the word, 2) heard it, but don't know what it means, 3) recognize it in context as having something to do with ... 4) know it well, and 5) can use this word appropriately in a sentence.

Nagy (1985) contended that it takes more than a simple, superficial knowledge of words to make a difference in reading comprehension. That is, readers do not need to know all the words in a text at the "established" level to comprehend what they are reading, but, for instruction of specific words to make an impact on reading comprehension, the understanding must be beyond a superficial level. Nagy and Scott (2000) suggested that word learning is incremental. That is, an understanding of a word may improve as a reader encounters a word repeatedly and across new contexts.

Blachowicz (1986) suggested the use of knowledge rating before reading to help students analyze their level of word knowledge (Figure 1). Before students read, the teacher presents a list of words related to the topic of study. Students place a check mark along the continuum that reflects their level of knowledge of the word. The students analyze what they know about each word individually and then discuss which words are known or unknown and share information with each other. This activity leads naturally to the preteaching of vocabulary to be used later in the reading.

A related issue to knowing words is the importance of words in the text. Students may not need to know all of the words in a text to understand it, especially with narrative text, but they should make informed decisions about which words are important to understand. Freebody and Anderson (1983) found that replacing one word in six with a difficult synonym did not reliably decrease a reader's comprehension of text. For example, reading the sentence her mauve skirt fluttered in the wind as she fell over the precipice, a student may not know "mauve" and "precipice"; precipice is important to comprehend, mauve is not. In sum, if the unfamiliar words are not important to the understanding of the text, students can tolerate a fairly large number of unknown words (about 15%) and still read with comprehension. It is, therefore, important to teach students to make good decisions when they encounter unknown words. Strong readers use multiple strategies-they may re-read, skip the word, think about what they are reading, sound it out, associate the word parts, or notice the syntax (the way the word functions in a sentence) of the word.

Morphology

Morphology is the "ability to gain information about the meaning, pronunciation, and part of speech of new words from their prefixes, roots, and suffixes" (Nagy, Diakidoy, & Anderson, 1991). Students increase their vocabularies by some 20,000 words between grades three and seventhe "combination of context clues and morphological analysis is the only plausible explanation for this increase in word knowledge" (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Ryder, 1986). White, Power, and White (1989) speculated that "students may analyze successfully at least 3000 and as many as 9000 prefixed words a year" (p. 301).

It is clear that when students learn to "chunk" letters in a long word into meaningful morphemes, this ability facilitates the processing of new words. Much of the instruction in what is normally called "structural analysis" is often random and not connected with the context of text or the prior knowledge of the student. Freyd and Baron (1982) found that students actually used morphology in three ways: to recognize words more efficiently, to remember the meanings and spellings of partially known words, and to figure out the meanings and pronunciations of new words. When students learn to use morphology, context, syntax, and strategies for activating prior knowledge, they possess a powerful tool for expanding their vocabularies.

Hill (1998) suggested helping students develop word power by teaching roots and prefixes. She advocates extending student knowledge of words through creating vocabulary trees in morphology journals (see example, p. 50). Students create a page per morpheme and whenever they encounter a word with that part, they place it on their tree and note where they encountered the word.

(See "Roots and Prefixes" sidebar, p. 40.)

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While working with morphemic analysis, it is important to tell students that the conventions do not always work and that they must use their prior knowledge to check to see if the word makes sense. For example, -er at the end of a word generally means "one who does something" such as a "reader" or a "writer." But, is a "mother" one who "moths" or a "father" one who "faths"? It is context and structural or morphemic analysis together that can provide students with a powerful tool for figuring out the meanings of unknown words.

Context

Few would dispute the value of students learning to use context to understand text and improve vocabulary growth. Research, however, has challenged some of the limited approaches of teaching context clues used extensively in the past. In naturally occurring text (such as a novel as opposed to materials produced for use in school), context is relatively uninformative (Schatz & Baldwin, 1986). Most recent approaches to context clues encourage students to use their prior knowledge, their knowledge of syntax (how words are put together and function in a sentence), their knowledge of morphology and phonics, if applicable, and their use of semantics (what makes sense). It is this attention to semantics, especially the larger context of the story or passage, that facilitates students' ability to make accurate inferences about word meanings.

Deriving meaning of an unfamiliar word from context and learning the meaning of a word are at two different levels of comprehension. A single encounter with an unknown word may be enough to help a reader understand the text at hand, but not enough for a thorough understanding of the word. The word remains at the "acquainted" level of understanding until another more in-depth encounter moves it to the "established" level.

Definitions

Used by itself, looking up words in a dictionary or committing definitions to memory does not lead to improved comprehension (Miller & Gildea, 1987; Scott & Nagy, 1997). This activity-a daily occurrence in hundreds of classrooms-leads to only a superficial understanding and rapid forgetting of words (McKeown, 1993). Two problems with definitions as a way to learn new words are: 1) often a person must know a word to understand the definition, and 2) definitions do not always contain enough information to allow for complete understanding and ease of use. For example, a student finding "trade" as a definition for the word "commerce" is likely to write a sentence such as "I will commerce my baseball for your goalie shirt." This sentence hardly captures the true meaning of "commerce." Miller and Gildea (1987) examined the types of errors students commonly make when asked to write a sentence from the definition of a new vocabulary word. They found that this "substitution error" based on partial understanding of a word was common. They concluded that looking words up in the dictionary and then writing them in sentences was "pedagogically useless."

The quality of the definition is an important factor in being able to use the dictionary as an aid to understanding text (McKeown, 1993; Nist & Olejnik, 1995). It appears, then, that the dictionary or glossary can best be used as a verification of meaning; that is, after the reader has a "hunch" as to the meaning of a word, the definition will clarify the reader's understanding (Scott & Nagy, 1997). Students need to learn how to combine the use of context, prior knowledge, syntax, and definitions to infer the meanings of unknown words.

Learning a word involves more than lifting its meaning from context or reading its meaning in a dictionary. Rather, word knowledge involves a complex process of integrating new words with ideas that exist in the schema of the reader. Dictionaries can be, of course, powerful aids to understanding, especially for ESL students (Gonzalez, 1999). Scott and Nagy (1991) concluded that "current instruction appears to deal largely with the mechanics of dictionaries-alphabetization, key words, and pronunciation keys; it is clear that some type of instruction is needed that focuses on the central problem of dictionary use-translating the cryptic and conventionalized content of definitions into usable word knowledge" (p. 13).

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Size and Growth of Vocabulary

Most students are capable of learning large numbers of new words per year. The question is where and how do students learn these words? Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985) analyzed the number of words suggested in content area textbook teacher's guides. They determined that only 290460 of the 3,000 words that students learn each year can be attributed to direct instruction. Nagy and Herman (1987) concluded that "teaching children specific words will not in itself contribute substantially to the overall size of their vocabulary" (p. 23).

Nagy (1988) pointed out that very few people have experienced systematic, intensive, and prolonged vocabulary instruction, yet many adults have acquired- an extensive reading vocabulary. People learn words from a number of sources, but "after third grade, for those children who do read a reasonable amount, reading may be the single largest source of vocabulary growth" (p. 30).

Metalinguistic Awareness

Learning new words takes both "skill" and "will." Struggling readers often lack the "skill" necessary to learn meanings for unknown words. Using the strategies suggested in this article and by teacher and peer modeling, students can learn to use context, syntax, morphology, and prior knowledge in their reading and listening. Struggling, average, and strong readers often lack the "will" to apply these strategies to increase their vocabularies. Nagy and Scott (2000) proposed that this facility to attend to words "depends on metalinguistic sophistication that continues to develop through high school" (p. 275). The following questions developed by Harmon (2000) can be helpful in engaging students in word learning:

Do I know this word?

* Do I need to know this word to understand what I am reading?

* If I think this word is important, what do I already know about it?

* What does the word have to do with what I am reading? What is it referring to?

* How is it used in the sentence? Does it describe or show action?

* Do I see any word parts that make sense?

* Do I know enough about this word?

* Do I need more information?

* How can I find out more about this word? Should I ask someone or use the dictionary?

Teachers can assist students by guiding their decision making until effective strategies become automatic. Students need to understand what strong readers do when they encounter unknown words and that they are capable of making good decisions while they read (Guthrie & Wigfield, 1997), thus, we hope, acquiring the "will" to learn new words.

Guidelines for Instruction

"Skilled readers depend not just on knowing a large number of words, but also on being able to deal effectively with new ones" (Nagy, Winsor, Osborn, & O'Flahavan, 1994, p. 46). Readers derive the meanings of unknown words by using three sources of information: 1) context to infer a word's meaning, 2) phonics to determine a word's pronunciation, and 3) structural analysis or knowledge of word parts to determine both a word's meaning and pronunciation.

The English language is made up of a small number of words that occur very frequently and a large number of words that occur only infrequently. Students must use the strategies they have learned to derive new word meanings, but more important, they must access their prior knowledge and engage their metacognitive thinking abilities to infer the meaning of the word, or even decide if it is important enough to stop and think about. Sometimes the most useful strategy is to make a general guess at the word's meaning and move ahead with the reading. Knowing a large number of words is good; making expedient decisions about new words is better. Allen (1999) developed 10 questions to assist teachers in making good decisions about vocabulary instruction:

* Which words are most important to the understanding of the text?

* How much prior knowledge will students have about this word or its related concept?

* Is the word encountered frequently?

* Does the word have multiple meanings (is it polysemous)?

* Is the concept significant and does it, therefore, require preteaching?

* Which words can be figured out from context?

* Are there words that can be grouped together to enhance understanding a concept?

* What strategies could I employ to help students integrate the concept (and related words) into their lives?

* How can I make repeated exposures to the word/concept productive and enjoyable?

* How can I help students use the word/ concept in meaningful ways in multiple contexts?

Summary

The important role of vocabulary and background knowledge in comprehending text has been recognized by educators for some time. Researchers in the last decade have pointed the way to more effective instruction in this area. Recent investigations in the richness of context in natural text, the usefulness of text, the level to which a person "knows" a word, and the size and growth of vocabulary and concepts helped educators understand that the acquisition of a full, rich, and functional vocabulary involves the complex process of relating words to ideas.

Experts in the field of language development agree that the main vehicle for instruction should be encouraging students to read widely. Selected words, however, should be chosen for extended instruction. This instruction should also focus on helping students become independent learners, encouraging students to become actively involved in the processing of selected words, providing multiple opportunities to use words, and guiding students to develop a good attitude about learning words outside the classroom. Along with wide reading, these strategies help students learn unfamiliar words by associating words to be learned with ideas and words they know.