AHELECT M1: Enrichment of Academic Vocabulary With academic/ technical vocabulary being known

only to a handful of people, it may serve as a

Defining Reading
According to Kenneth Goodman, reading is a
psycholinguistic guessing game. Based on this, it
means that reading is both a psychological or mental
(psycho-) process that happens inside the head and a
process that is tied with language (-linguistic). It is so
because:
hindrance to comprehension, especially to those
whose exposure to it is limited; however, there are
ways by which such a problem may be countered so
that reading in general and understanding in particular
are still possible. Once overcome, unknown
vocabularies can subsequently be personally used.
Reading Techniques in Unlocking Unknown Academic
Vocabulary

1.) Reading involves interpreting or giving meaning to
printed symbols such as letters and/ or pictures;
2.) Reading begins with perceiving or recognizing
symbols and ends with comprehending or
understanding the meanings of the said symbols; and
Aside from the very obvious way of using references
such as dictionaries and thesauruses whenever
unfamiliar academic vocabularies come up, readers can
use any of the following ways in the absence of or
when there is restriction to the access of the
aforementioned usual references:

3.) Reading involves using pieces of information called
inputs in various ways such as dividing them into
smaller parts (i.e., analyzing), putting them together
(i.e., synthesizing), or even relating them to other
sources of information.
(1) Morphemic Analysis. This is done when a given
vocabulary can be divided into smaller parts called
morphemes. Examples of morphemes are affixes (e.g.,
prefixes, infixes, and suffixes) that give hints about
what a given word may mean.

In a nutshell, reading means understanding the Consider the following research abstracts containing
meanings behind various inputs that may come in possibly unknown academic vocabularies boxed in red
various printed forms, e.g., letters, words, sentences, whose meanings can be correctly derived through
and/ or graphics/ pictures. With almost everything in morphemic analysis:
the world having printed inputs that must be
understood, it is a must for a person to possess
competence in deriving correct meanings from what is
presented. This is especially true for people in the
academe since a huge part of their lives is dedicated to
studying/ learning from printed materials such as
lectures, books, journals, or researches.

Academic Vocabulary

The first step to better ensuring that comprehension

will be at hand is to enrich one’s vocabulary. Without the help of any reference material, what
Vocabulary refers to the collection of words that a might the vocabulary word “interview” mean? Can the
person is capable of defining, explaining, and/ or using. vocabulary word be broken down into smaller parts? If
yes, what words will emerge from the process of
While people’s vocabulary varies from person to breaking it down?
person, it can be generally divided into two
categories: (1) general and (2) academic/ technical.
The first one refers to words that are used in daily or
ordinary interactions between and among people; on
the other hand, the second one talks about the
collection of words used in academic situations, being
known only to selected people engaged in specific
fields of study or work. In addition, in some other
cases, the second one is further subdivided into (a)
general academic, (b) discipline-specific, and (c)
nominalization.
Morphemic Analysis in Action: Given the prefix of the
said vocabulary which is “inter-,“ meaning between
two individuals, objects, or groups  and its root word
“view,” meaning opinion or outlook, then it, the
vocabulary “interview,” may mean getting to know
about people’s opinions on a given issue through a
conversation between the researcher and the
participants.
Without the help of any reference material, what
might the vocabulary words “telehealth” and
“posttraumatic” mean? Can the vocabulary words be
broken down into smaller parts? If yes, what words
will emerge from the process of breaking them down?
Morphemic Analyses in Action: Given the prefix of
the first vocabulary which is “tele-,“ meaning far such
as in television, telegraph, and telephone  and its root
word “health,” meaning the physical and/ or mental
condition/s of a person, then it, the vocabulary
“telehealth,” may mean checking on then providing
assistance to the physical and/ or mental conditions of
a person, from afar. For the vocabulary
“posttraumatic,” it has the prefix “post,” meaning after;
and the suffix “-tic” added to the root word “trauma,”
meaning a deeply painful mental or physical
experience. It may then mean actions that people do
after they have experienced a deeply painful mental or
physical experience.
(2) Contextual Analysis (AKA Context Clues). This is
done when the meaning of a given vocabulary can be
derived from the clues found in the situation, i.e.,
sentence or paragraph, where it is used.
These clues can come in the forms of examples,
synonyms, antonyms, definitions, or explanations also
provided somewhere in the text.
Consider the following research abstracts containing
possibly unknown academic vocabularies boxed in red,
whose meanings can be derived through contextual
analysis:
Without the help of any reference material, what
might the vocabulary word “interview” mean? Are
there parts of the text that provide additional clues
regarding its meaning? If yes, which parts are they?
Contextual Analysis in Action: The correct meaning of
the unknown vocabulary “interview” in the abstract
may be gained from the part that says, “was also done
to ask their experiences in using the EC (electronic
cigarette).” The said part provides an explanation or an
example of how an interview can be done and that is
through raising questions between the researcher and
the participants.
Without the help of any reference material, what
might the vocabulary “out-of-field teacher” mean? Are
there parts of the text that provide additional clues
regarding its meaning? If yes, which parts are they?
Contextual Analysis in Action: The correct meaning of
the unknown vocabulary “out-of-field teacher” in the
abstract may be gained from looking at the parts
where the words or phrases “teachers who teach
across their specialization” and “specialization-
workload mismatch” are found. The said parts provide
an explanation about and/ or synonymous details with
what kind of teachers are those who are “out-of-field,”
and they are those who teach a subject that they do
not specialize in or were not trained for.
Summary and Conclusion
Reading is a complex process that begins with first
recognizing printed symbols followed by being able to
give correct meanings to the said symbols in order to
ultimately comprehend their message. In academic
setups where texts range from simple lectures to
complex researches, it is inevitable to encounter
words that may not immediately be defined, let alone
understood, so it is a must to employ reading
strategies such as morphemic and contextual analyses
that can prove helpful so that comprehension may be
achieved and expansion of one’s vocabulary may be
possible.