Word Comprehension

Parts Equal the Whole

One of the most effective ways to strengthen students’ vocabulary is to teach them to break words into manageable parts. In compound words, for example, two words combine to create a new word with a different meaning such as firefly, rainbow, or snowflake.

Most English language words, however, are composed of word parts—much like building blocks—that combine in a multitude of ways to create meaning. Familiarity with these building blocks enables a student to decipher not only the definition of a word but also its function in a sentence.

• Words can be composed of a root or base word and affixes, such as: prefixes and suffixes.
• The root is the core element of a word and contains the basic meaning.
• A prefix begins a word and changes the word’s meaning or makes a new word.
• A suffix ends a word and can indicate whether a word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. Suffixes can also modify and extend meaning.

Let’s look at an example— of the word “reporter.”

Basic Word Parts

When teaching word parts, you may want to plan lessons that focus on meaning— particularly, how new readers can use information from common prefixes and suffixes to deconstruct words, as you saw in the previous example.

If you look at the chart above you’ll notice that common prefixes have fixed meanings that provide students with reliable clues when encountering unfamiliar words. In fact, the top twenty prefixes and suffixes account for ninety-seven percent of prefixed words, excluding those followed by non-English roots.

Suffixes can indicate whether a word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. They can also modify and extend meaning.

Greek and Latin Roots and Affixes

The English language has its roots in several other languages, including Greek, Latin, and older forms of English, German, and French. Learning to recognize Greek and Latin roots and affixes will aid reading comprehension across the content areas.

You’ll want to make sure students are familiar with the more common roots and affixes, though memorizing lists probably won’t be as helpful to them as modeling words or generating vocabulary from words that contain high-frequency affixes such as autograph.

Review

• Compound words are two words that combine to create a new word with a different meaning.
• Words can be composed of a root or base word, a prefix, and a suffix.
• Prefixes have fixed meanings.
• Suffixes can indicate whether a word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.

Now that we’ve broken words apart, let’s put them back together and look at some proven methods of comprehension students can use to understand words in context.

Remember that every reader—regardless of age—approaches a text with prior knowledge. You’ll want to encourage students to use that knowledge, as well as the tools outlined below, as they move from oral language to written language. Reading comprehension strategies develop a student’s critical thinking skills by encouraging them to rely on the text, question what they read, and support opinions or responses from the information given.

• Context: When the meaning of a difficult word is implied or inferred, readers can use sentence structure and syntax to find context clues. Readers must look within, before, and after the sentence in which the word is used.
• Restatement: Sometimes the meaning of a difficult word is clarified within a sentence. Common words that signal restatement clues include: such as, or, otherwise known as, which is, that is, some say, in other words.
• Comparison/Contrast: Sometimes a sentence will provide a comparison or a contrast statement that helps the reader understand the meaning of an unknown word. Common comparison clues include: like, similar to, as, also, same as, other. Words that signal contrast clues include: but, although, unlike, however, rather than, on the other hand, yet, as opposed to.
• Cause and Effect: Identifying cause-and-effect relationships in passages will help students understand sentence structure as well as the meaning of difficult words. One effective way to have students identify cause and effect in a passage is to have them map the relationships in a cause-and-effect chart.

Let’s take a look at how this information might be presented in a test question.

“I’ve Got a Bone to Pick With You”

Since we’re on the topic of the Neanderthal man, let’s use the above expression as we segue to subtleties of language.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of being misunderstood. Sometimes (particularly when we’re speaking) our language fails us, and we just can’t find the right word.

Written language is much more forgiving. As writers, we have the opportunity to collect, organize, and compose ideas with precision and competence. As readers, we benefit from text that has been carefully crafted with a specific goal.

Learning to recognize context cues that provide information about the tone, style, or genre of a given text helps students pick up on the nuances of connotative and denotative words, identifying idioms and adages, and interpreting figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

You may already be familiar with many of the terms outlined below but find it helpful to reference this chart for review.

You’ll be able to link back to this chart for reference but as most of these terms need contextual information, it might be more helpful to review them with example text. Let’s look at a few questions.

These can be tricky to differentiate. For example, which of the phrases in the following passage is an adage?

“There’s an old saying: you can’t take it with you, so I guess I won’t be shopping on the other side.”

If you chose “you can’t take it with you,” you are correct. The author gives us a clue by telling us it’s “an old saying.” Adages are sometimes humorous, often astute observations about the world and humankind. You’ll want to make sure students look for clues in the entire passage to infer meaning. In this example, we can deduce that it refers to money.

“The other side” is an idiomatic expression. Students should examine context clues before, during, and after reading, and support their interpretations with examples found in the passage. A new reader might not be familiar with the meaning of this expression, and in this instance, require more information.

Types of Words

In addition to classifying words as parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.), we also classify words by other means. Check out the chart below to review some of the major word types and examples of each.

Homonyms

Word is to Analogy as Piece is to ______.

We’ve looked at a number of ways you can develop a student’s ability to define the meaning of unknown words or phrases in the context of a larger passage. Now let’s focus on word relationships.

As the above analogy implies, words are to analogies as pieces are to puzzles. Having students become aware of the relationships between words—how these puzzle pieces fit together—builds essential vocabulary skills and strengthens language comprehension.

You’ll want to make sure that vocabulary development is ongoing and constant in your class. Visual organizers reinforce learning of word relationships and can help with spelling patterns and relationships of homophones, homonyms, and homographs. Students may also find it useful to generate lists of antonyms and use graphic organizers to map synonyms and learn new vocabulary.

Let’s take a look at some sample questions that use analogies to clarify meaning and develop comprehension of word relationships.

Review

• Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings.
• Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meanings.
• Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different definitions.
• Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different definitions, and are sometimes, but not always, spelled differently.
• Homographs are words that are spelled alike but have different definitions and different pronunciations.
• Analogies are statements that pair words or concepts to highlight similarities in patterns or meaning.
• Comprehension strategies such as restatement, comparison, contrast, and cause and effect enable readers to identify information in the text to aid comprehension about unknown words.
• Active readers use a variety of strategies while reading, including context clues provided by sentence structure, word relationships, and syntax.
• Identifying cause and effect helps readers process sequencing and develop their ability to infer meaning.
• Denotative words have explicit meaning.
• Connotative words have nuances of meaning.
• Idioms are figures of speech, colorful words, and expressions that are not literally interpreted.
• Adages are expressions, sayings, or observations that people generally believe hold some truth.
• Figurative language is not literally interpreted and often illuminates deeper layers of meaning in texts.
• A metaphor makes comparisons by using one thing in place of another to suggest the likeness.
• A simile compares one thing to another using the words “like” or “as”.