How to Read for New Vocabulary

Having trouble with the vocabulary? Ken Goodman had an idea about reading, which he considered similar to Noam Chomsky's, and he wrote a widely-cited article calling reading a "psycholinguistic guessing game". And, that is what it is! When we are reading, we do not need to understand the exact dictionary definition of each word to know what it means. 

In the guided reading book, Last Man in Tower, we do not need to know the meaning of the word "banyan" because the next word is "tree" and later it is described as large and green so what more do we need to know? It is a big green tree. 

Look at the word you don't know and then the words around it. Maybe they will help you. Maybe the meaning is in the next sentence or the previous sentence. Is it a verb? That would probably indicate some kind of action. Is there a "the" or an "a" before the word? That would be a sure sign it is a noun. If it is a noun, does it start with a capital letter? Is it a name or a proper noun (a person, place or thing)? What does the verb after the noun indicate about the action that the noun is performing?  Does it end in -ly (a sure sign that it is probably an adverb)? Is it before a noun (probably an adjective)? 

Use all of your previous knowledge. You know more than you think you know. If you see the phrase "It was a whopper of a lie" and you have ever been to Burger King, you know that a Whopper is their biggest burger. So, the word means something is big. You didn't need a dictionary.

If all these techniques fail, keep on reading because a single word will not keep you from understanding the story!