Strategies for understanding new words

When you read a difficult text, new and challenging words can get in the way of your
understanding. If you are in an exam, you won’t have a dictionary to help you, so you will need
to find other ways to understand these words.

1. For your text, make a list of the words you don’t understand below.

Word Meaning

2. Read the list of strategies below, and try some of these out on the words you have listed.
Add your ideas for the meanings in the table above. When you use a strategy, tick it off.

Use the meaning of the root of the word, or a word similar to one you already know.

Use your knowledge of prefixes (such as ‘un’, ‘dis’, ‘im’, ‘anti’) to help you.

Use your knowledge of suffixes (such as ‘ing’, ‘ful’, ‘ness’, ‘able’) to help you.

Work out what part of speech it is (e.g. adjective) and then what words it is connected
to (e.g. noun) and think about them both together.

Read the whole sentence carefully to ‘get’ the meaning.

Find a clue in a sentence before, or one that follows.

Use the meaning of the whole paragraph to help you.

Find a synonym, explanation or example included in the text.

Find a signposting word or phrase (such as ‘in contrast’, ‘but’, ‘although’) to point you
in the right direction.

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