Word Attack Skills

Students who don’t read much often have weak “word attack skills.” When they come across a new or challenging word, they will hurry through it, get annoyed at how difficult it is, and basically try to jump to the words beyond it. When asked why they do this, they might say, “Well, I’m not going to use this word after today, so why do I need to know it?”

Yikes! Yet there is some truth to this. Our speaking vocabulary is probably the smallest subset of words that we use. We could get by with a modest vocabulary if that is all we used. Our writing vocabulary is hopefully larger – we stretch our expressiveness and precision of statement when we write. Even bigger still is our reading vocabulary – here we need to have recall of a vast repository of words, enabling us to comprehend as we read complex texts and listen to articulate speakers, and using the context of those words we know to bridge our understandings to new words all the time.

Practicing our Word Attack Skills is huge and will benefit us in expanding our writing, listening and reading vocabulary. To do this, sound words out that are new or difficult. Be willing to make mistakes. Break the words into syllables. If a teacher or friend who knows a word better corrects you, repeat the word with that pronounciation. Fearlessly "attack" (go after) the word. Cultivate a "growth midset" and set monthly and yearly goals for yourself in order to build your vocabulary, using websites such as Vocabtest.com or Quizlet.com. Look for clues, such as word roots, prefixes, suffixes, capital letters (proper nouns), placement-in-the-sentence and part of speech cues, usage and diction clues.

Wikipedia's article on Written Vocabulary cites worthwhile degrees of knowing a word:

"Within the receptive / productive distinction lies a range of abilities which are often referred to as degree of knowledge. This simply indicates that a word gradually enters a person's vocabulary over a period of time as more aspects of word knowledge are learnt. Roughly, these stages could be described as:

1. Never encountered the word.

2. Heard the word, but cannot define it.

3. Recognize the word due to context or tone of voice.

4. Able to use the word and understand the general and/or intended meaning, but cannot clearly explain it.

5. Fluent with the word – its use and definition"