HOW TO "VOCAB"
 

Depending on your timeframe (see the Schedule page), you will need to address the improvement of your vocabulary.  That’s what we’re going to address now.

USING THE ONLINE NOVELLA

Read the novella, clicking the mouse on any words you have difficulty with.  Make a note of each of these words and its appropriate definition.  This gives you an active list of problem words.  Depending on your time frame, learn the words a few at a time, or try to master as many as you can.  A great way to check you memory is to read the novella again to see if you now know the correct meaning.  The context of the story should not only give you hints, but also give you some phrase and situations from the story that will serve as a memory aid.

Use the memory tips that are at the end of this section for helping you effectively memorize these words.
 

USING THE STUDY HALL VOCAB LIST

The Study Hall vocabulary list included with your text is split into four sections. Each section has words that can be learned a certain way.  This should help keep learning the words a fresher feel by varying the method for recalling the words.

 If you can find a friend to work with on the vocabulary  it can be even more effective.  Obviously you can quiz each other.  But one of the easiest, enjoyable, and VERY effective ways to remember the words is to play with them with your friend.  See how many of the words you can use in everyday life.  See how many ways you can tell someone they are smart, ignorant,  sneaky, attractive,  or nice.   Test each other or combine to show others how much you are learning.

The PREFIX-SUFFIX section contains prefixes, suffixes, and roots that can be used to take words apart and to see how meanings of words link.  Learing these can really help when you encounter completely unfamiliar words.  You can see how there are parts of the word that have a meaning you know.  From that you can derive a likely meaning for the word.

The MNEUMONIC section contains words that lend themselves to mneumonic devices....associations or connections with the words that images or phrases create.  For instance "disparate" means "different," so we suggest you visualize a red parrot and a green parrot.  "'Dis parrot is different from'dat parrot" is the phrase that links the word with its meaning.

The WORD in WORD section contains words whose meaning can be seen to a fair degree in the word itself.  The “word within a word” is in larger print for the student to easily identify it.  For instance “alienate” contains the word “alien” in it.  A student can easily remember that to “alienate” someone is to make them a “alien,” to drive them away.   The student should go through this section first because it will be the easiest to learn quickly.

The CLUSTER WORD section of words are clustered by their having similar or identical meanings.  For instance, the SAT loves words that mean stubborn, wealthy, active, inactive, etc.  We have clustered these words and others which have similar or linked meanings.  Try to see how many ways you can say the same things.  How many ways can you tell somone they are stubborn or wrong or correct.

The following MEMORY TIPS should help you learn and recall vocabulary words more effectively.

The first step is to take in the information. And when you take in the information you really must learn to fully attend to what you are doing. Involve yourself in what your taking in. WE use the phrase "Be where you are." Be truly focused.  Incorporate as many of the senses as you can. In other words, write it down, see it, even say it out loud sometimes. The more senses involved enhance the memory process.

And now you can reverse the learning curve. This is the key point here. You can reverse the learning curve by RECALL. The number of times you recall something helps move that piece of information from your short term memory to your long term memory.

To point out a specific technique that works the best:

Step number 1 - take in formation.

Step number 2 - about five minutes later, undisturbed, go over the main points of what you are trying  to remember.            That should only take you a minute or two.

Step number 3 - an hour later, do the same thing.

Step number 4 - three hours later, do the same thing. Just go back over the information a minute or two.

Step number 5 - six hours later, do the same thing. Then that night before you go to sleep, review the material one             last time.

Step number 6 - repeat that three times a day for the second and third days. Now you have that information for the     long term.

Now to the student first taking this in sitting there saying, Man, I'm not going to do that. That six times the first day, two to three times the next day. My goodness, there's no way I'm going to do that. That's just a lot of work.

Baloney! Think about it. That's 12 times the first day. The second and third days, you only do it 6 times. That's eighteen, let's round it to twenty times. That's twenty times you are reviewing that information over three days for a minute or two. That means you are spending forty minutes studying that information, and you have it. And you know it, you possess it, and it isn't going anywhere. How many hours do people spend studying? Think about it. Typically, people sit down and study a subject for an hour or more to try to learn it. This is simply a more efficient way of doing it in a more piecemeal fashion. And by spreading it out over a period of days and recalling it more and more, you move it into that long term memory and it stays
solidly there.