Strategies to Improve Your Vocabulary
There are several proven benefits in improving your vocabulary, but how should we go about learning new words most effectively? By using the following vocabulary-building strategies, you are guaranteed to develop a wide and active vocabulary and keep improving it every day.
Click on each strategy to find out more.
Review
Complete the following 8 questions/exercise about what you just read.
Vocabulary Journals
Some useful strategies to learn a new word include writing it down, learning more about the word, for example, its parts of speech, and using the new word in sentences. Keeping a personal vocabulary journal is a very effective way to do all these things. Depending on the word or words you are learning, you might prefer to create a more visual journal entry similar to Sample 2 below.
If you have never kept a vocabulary journal or if you have but want to make it more effective for you, it is a good idea to look at some sample vocabulary journal entries for ideas on the different ways you can organize and design your journal. Some people prefer a handwritten journal, while others prefer a digital one. Choose what works best for you.
Below are a few samples of vocabulary journal entries.
Sample 1
Image of vocabulary journal entry for the word employee by Dara Cowper. License CC BY NC SA
Sample 2
Sample 3
Digital Vocabulary Journal Template
Attributions
Text Attributions
- This chapter was adapted from Strategies to Improve Your Vocabulary by Lumen Learning. Licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 licence.
Media Attributions
- Image of Animal Concept Map by Nathanael Crawford retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hierarchical_Model_Mental_Lexicon.png Licensed under a CC BY CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Image of vocabulary journal entry for the word employee by Dara Cowper. Licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 licence.
