A Word About Words

My students are working on a culminating project for my Critical Reading and Thinking course.  For the project they are to find two articles with different points of view on the same general topic.   One of the questions asks them to find at least five words they do not know in the article and define them.  Most of the articles come from popular newspapers and magazines or web sources.   One thing that I noticed is the difficult level of the words in the articles.   This was reinforced by a conversation with a History professor teaching a freshman level course.  He found that students had trouble with his exams, not because of their knowledge of the course material, but because they did not know many of the general words he used.  Aside from enrolling in a vocabulary course, what can you do to increase your vocabulary?

* READ!  READ!  READ!

* Pay attention to words you do not know.  After the second time you run into the word, write it down, look it up and write the definition.   Put these on your desk and review periodically.

* In a content course you will have to make a concerted effort to learn the content-specific words.  Pay attention to word parts that appear often.  These will help you unlock future words.

* Try playing freerice.com.  This is a nice website that quizzes you on words and donates grains of rice for every right answer.  Fun, learning and a good deed all wrapped in one!

Enjoy exploring and learning new words.  You reading comprehension will increase as well as your enjoyment of language!

First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at wordassociation.com, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.