The document discusses powerful reading strategies to improve vocabulary knowledge: 1) Understanding parts of speech provides clues to a word's meaning by identifying its function in a sentence. 2) Contextual clues from paragraphs and sentences also reveal word meanings. 3) Prefixes and suffixes allow readers to break words into meaningful parts or roots for definition.

1. Reading 101
Powerful Strategies in
Expanding Vocabulary Knowledge

2. Learning Objectives

Understand how reading strategies can help in
improving vocabulary knowledge.

Apply reading strategies in filling information
gaps while reading a text.

3. Introduction

Reading is an ability that requires both skill and
knowledge.

To do well, you need a combination of
vocabulary knowledge and reading skills.

This topic discusses how you can improve your
vocabulary knowledge every single time you
read.

All this is done without the help of the
dictionary.

4. Powerful Reading Strategies

What is the cause for these reading issues?
• Reading but not improving vocabulary.
• Reading but not understanding the vocabulary.
• Reading but not remembering the vocabulary.

Reading by itself does not help you to improve
your vocabulary.

Reading with powerful strategies can help you
build your vocabulary!

5. 1 PS – Parts of Speech
st

Parts of Speech spell out the functions of each
word in a sentence.

When you understand the role a word plays in a
sentence, you will have the 1st clue to its meaning.
• The epidermis, the important outer layer, protects
us from germs.
• We can alleviate or lessen the problem by staying
away from it.
• The soldiers, numerous as the grains of sand in the
desert, marched forward fearlessly.

6. 1 PS – Parts of Speech
st
• 'The epidermis,... ' - Noun. Name of
object/event/thing with 'the'.
• 'We can alleviate... ' - Verb. An action,
supported by 'can'.
• 'numerous soldiers...' - Adjective. Describes the
noun, 'soldiers'.
With their functions known, you know that each
of the above is referring to a thing (noun), an
action (verb) and a description (adjective).
Q: How do these clues help you in understanding
the meaning of the words?

7. Learning Activity for 1 PS st

What're the parts of speech or functions of
these words in the sentences below?
• He was once a successful businessman.
• He succeeded in many businesses.
• He ran all of them successfully.
• Until all the successes got into his head.
• And that was the start of his downfall.

8. Learning Activity for 1 PS (cont.)
st

What're the parts of speech or functions of these
words in the sentences below?
• He was once a death-defying motorcycle stuntman.
• He cheated death many times in his stunts.
• For each injury, people thought he would die for
sure.
• He survived all until the last stunt proved deadly.

9. 2 PS – Paragraphs and Sentences
nd
In paragraphs and sentences, you can also find
key words that point to the meanings of the
difficult words. These are called contextual
clues.
1. The epidermis, the important outer layer,
protects us from germs.
2. We can alleviate or lessen the problem by
staying away from it.
3. The soldiers, numerous as the grains of sand
in the desert, marched forward fearlessly.
How do these clues help you in understanding the

10. Learning Activity for 2 PS nd

Write down the contextual clues for each
highlighted word. They are all phrases.
He was once a successful businessman with many
businesses. He succeeded in many of them,
making big sums of money. He was recognised
with many awards as he ran all of them
successfully. Until all the successes got into his
head and puffed up his mind.

11. Learning Activity for 2nd PS (cont.)
• Write down the contextual clues for each
highlighted word. They are all phrases.
He was once a death-defying motorcycle
stuntman, doing dangerous stunts all over the
world. He cheated death many times in his
stunts, narrowly avoiding serious injury. For
each injury he suffered however, people
thought he would die for sure. He survived all
his injuries until the last stunt proved deadly
when his bike leapt too far and crash landed.

12. 3 PS – Prefixes and Suffixes
rd
You know that big words are derived from small
words. These are called Derivatives – with
prefixes and suffixes added to the Root Words.
1. The epidermis, ...
2. We can alleviate ...
3. The soldiers, numerous …
'dermis', root – which means 'skin' (dermatology)
'numer', root – which means 'number' (numerical)
'ous', suffix – which means 'lots of' (poisonous)

13. Learning Activity for 3rd PS

Write down the meaning of the prefix or suffix
in the following highlighted words.
• The businessman was so successful that he
started thinking who would be his successor.
Since he had no children, the matter of the
succession had to fall onto his trusted protege,
whom he had successfully groomed to succeed
him one day should he choose to retire.
E.g. 'ful' – full of
If there's none, write 'NA'.

14. Discussion

What are the 3 powerful reading strategies (PS)
for building vocabulary?

Describe each briefly.

15. In summary

Powerful Reading Strategies help us to improve
our vocabulary.

Parts of Speech (1st PS) help us to identify the
function of the word so we know the role it
plays in a sentence.

Paragraphs and sentences (2nd PS) provide us
with contextual clues to the word's meaning.

Prefixes and Suffixes (3rd PS) help us to break
the word apart for the meaning of its parts.