Vocabulary strategies - Decoding versus reading

Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2021

Vocabulary strategies
Decoding versus reading

You know most definitions of the words you read. It’s usually only a handful of words that trip you up. Let’s look at the jigsaw puzzle again. When you look at an individual puzzle piece, you may have some idea of what part of the overall image that piece represents, but you will not know for certain until you look at the pieces around that piece.

When you see an individual word, you are faced with four possible scenarios:

✵ You have never seen or heard the word before.

✵ You have seen or heard the word before but aren’t sure what it means.

✵ You have seen or heard the word before and know what it means.

✵ You have seen or heard the word before and know several meanings of the word.

The last scenario isn’t a problem that needs solving. The fact is, you know many definitions of most of the words you read. Think about it. When you are reading, you know the majority of the words; usually only a handful of words trip you up. But those few words can be enough to scramble the message the writer is trying to send you. The following problem-solving strategies will help you with the first three scenarios that occur while you are reading.

Reading context clues and solving the puzzle

When you are reading and get stuck on a word, skip it. Ask yourself whether the rest of the sentence makes sense without it. Can you understand the sentence without knowing what that word means? When you read, don’t expect to know what every single word means. No one expects you to be a human dictionary! But if you don’t understand the writer’s message and you need to understand what the word means, then try this. See if you can figure out what the word means in context. You may have heard your teachers tell you to use the context or the context clues. Context clues are the words around the word you are trying to decipher.

Sometimes the writer will tell you what the word means by restating the meaning directly after the word. For example:

She is a vivacious girl, full of life.

Vivacious means full of life.

Sometimes the writer will give you the definition in the next sentence. For example:

When creating a scrapbook, be sure to use archival paper. Archival paper will last forever because it is acid free and won’t fade or crumble.

In the first sentence, you stumbled over the word archival. But after you read the next sentence, you understood that archival paper is paper that can be preserved.

Writers also help you to understand a difficult word by giving you the opposite meaning. For example:

Mary was defiant, but her twin sister was cooperative.

You may not know what the word defiant means, but you understand cooperative. And, you know by the way the sentence is set up, with the use of the word but, that Mary is different from her twin. So, because you know that one sister is cooperative or helpful and easy to get along with, you infer that Mary is defiant or difficult to get along with.

Here is another example:

So far, the evidence presented at the trial has been insignificant, but her testimony proved to be poignant and marked a turning point in the trial.

You may not know what poignant means, but you know that insignificant means “not important,” so poignant must mean “important.” The writer says that the testimony marked a turning point in the trial, which means something important happened at the trial, so the poignant testimony must have been important.

Let’s practice!

Read the following sentences. Use the context clues strategies to define the words flepid, abert, and vemoxly. Also, describe the strategies you used to figure out those words.

John was always flepid and excited when it came time to discuss politics.

Susan’s use of abert marked a change in the way scientists viewed laboratory testing. Abert, a part vinegar and part salt solution, was a remarkable way to see faster results.

Because of his disorganized locker, uncombed hair, and generally sloppy appearance, everyone was shocked when Ryan came to school dressed so vemoxly.

Guess what? Those words are nonsensical! There are no such words as flepid, abert, and vemoxly. But I wanted you to see that even if a word looks really strange to you and you have never heard or seen it before, you can still figure out what it means.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT:

Read the following passage about artist Faith Ringgold. There are three sentences in italics. Within each of those three sentences, there is a word that is underlined. When you see those three sentences and the three words, use the context clues discussed earlier in this chapter to assign meaning to the difficult word so that you can understand the sentence in the text.

Art and English Selection: “How Artist Faith Ringgold Inspired My Art” by Julie Strawhacker

How I Learned about Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold’s art and words, both written and spoken, have a powerful effect upon any person who is fortunate enough to experience them, myself included. In 1993, after hearing Maya Angelou read her poem at President Clinton’s inauguration and seeing Ringgold’s art quilt called Tar Beach, I was inspired to create a quilt of my own using Angelou’s words. The quilt contains the poem within its border and faces of people from different racial backgrounds painted as petals of intertwining flowers in the fabric pattern in its center.

Meeting Faith Ringgold

I was presented with the opportunity to meet Faith Ringgold for the first time on April 3, 1995, as she was introduced to me, first by the flyer I had received in my painting class at Ball State University, announcing her visit, and then later by name as she shared her time discussing my work with me. I immediately felt Faith Ringgold’s presence; the presence of a proud and confident woman, like no other I had known before. It filled the room and me with a powerful energy. [Sentence 1]

I waited for my turn, took a deep breath, and shared with Ringgold how her unique way of creating the Tar Beach had inspired my work. She, in return, expressed her approval of my quilt and the admiration she had for the work of Maya Angelou and thanked me for sharing my quilt with her. The apprehension I felt before she spoke was immediately erased and replaced with admiration and gratitude. I will always remember her gentle demeanor as she listened, speaking with a quiet kindness that was meant only for me. [Sentence 2]

How Ringgold Impacted How I Now See the World

I greatly admire Faith Ringgold for her sincere kindness to me as a young artist, and also for her conviction as a black female artist who has the courage to speak with honesty and great wisdom. [Sentence 3] Never have I heard someone speak so candidly to a group of art students and teachers, including myself. The slides of her work, along with her words, provoked questions within me while providing some answers that had been missing from my limited education of United States History, specifically the gaps involving the struggles of African American people. I have been educated and emotionally changed because of Faith Ringgold.

Faith Ringgold’s Artist Successes

Ringgold has found much success as an artist, including receiving more than seventy-five awards and seventeen honorary doctorates of fine arts, both National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim fellowships and having her work in the collections of the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Today, her work appears in a variety of public places as a result of various commissions, some of which include murals that reside in the 125th Street Harlem subway station, a Brooklyn school library, a Women’s House of Detention on Riker’s Island, Bronx College, and a quilt in the Crown Heights Public Library.

1. What is the difficult word in sentence 1?

a. What does that word mean?

b. What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?

2. What is the difficult word in sentence 2?

a. What does that word mean?

b. What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?

3. What is the difficult word in sentence 3?

a. What does that word mean?

b. What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?

Let’s practice!

Now, it’s your turn to be the writer. Create three new words. Have some fun and make them really strange. Place each made-up word into three different sentences. Use the context clues strategies outlined earlier. Look back to page 56 to see how I did it; this will help you!

1. Give the definition within the sentence.

2. Give the definition in the next sentence.

3. Give the opposite definition within the sentence.

4. See if your friends can read your words and tell you what they mean.

imagesPAINLESS TIP

What if there are no flag words to help explain the passage? What if you can’t figure out what a word means by using the context? What if you don’t know what the word’s connotation or denotation is? One tried-and-true solution is to look it up!