*Use pictures, illustrations, and diagrams

*Ask someone to define the word for you

*Use dictionaries, thesauruses, and glossaries as tools

Goal: Expand VocabularyBy: Kyla Kresl

Use Pictures, Illustrations, and Diagrams•Use the story and background knowledge

while paying attention to pictures, illustrations, and diagrams to increase your vocabulary.▫Illustrations might give clues about the

meaning of the words and text.

Read a picture book or nonfiction book and stop when you come to a word you don’t know.

•Look at the picture to see if you can figure out what it means.

• Figure out the meaning based on your background knowledge and what is in the picture.

• Write the word in your word collector and/or celebrate figuring out the word.

Ask Someone to Define the Word for You•If you have a question about the meaning

of a word, you should ask someone if they know what the word means.▫Ask other students first before going to an

adult.

forpd.ucf.edu/strategies/stratsq4r.html

•Ask these types of questions if you are stuck on a word:

•What is the word?•What is the word like?•What are some examples of this word being used in a sentence?

•Now you can…

•go back and substitute the word.•read again using the definition.

spektrumku.wordpress.com/.../

Use Dictionaries, Thesauruses, and Glossaries as Tools• There are many ways to use word-learning

tools to understand words and texts that you read.

•Dictionaries are used to find the meaning of a word.

•Thesauruses are used to find synonyms and antonyms of words.▫Dictionaries and thesauruses can also be

found online.•Glossaries are in the back of nonfiction books

and define bold faced words.

*Dictionaries have a definition of the word and it is used in different sentences.

*Thesauruses have synonyms of words. You can plug synonyms of the word into the text and see what other words could have been written instead.

• Do some together as a class! Get out your books and learn some new words!

www.ebookee.com/Collins-English-Dictionary-an...

Online Resource

•Here is an online resource, a visual thesaurus!

•This gives synonyms and antonyms of the word in different forms:▫Nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs

▫Try Now!