Basic English Words For Students

[Margaretha Palone]

Astudent's maximum level of reading comprehension is determined by his or her knowledge of words. This word knowledge allows students to comprehend text. As the teacher, you can explicitly teach word meanings to improve comprehension. However, to know a word means knowing it in all of the following dimensions:

For English language learners (ELLs), vocabulary development is especially critical for their ability to read and comprehend texts. The selection of vocabulary words to teach ELLs can be grouped into three tiers.

Tier 1 words are words that ELLs typically know the concept of in their primary language, but not the label in English. For example, a Tier 1 word might be butterfly. This is a word that English language learners may not know, but it can be easily taught by pointing to a picture of a butterfly during text discussion.

Another Tier 1 word might be march (move like a soldier). A word like march can be easily instructed during text discussion by marching in place. But because this word has multiple meanings, it also merits further instruction. This can be accomplished through oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

We take it for granted that native English-speakers know most Tier 1 words, but this is not the case for ELLs. Many Tier 1 words may be unknown to ELLs and key to the comprehension of a passage. Different types of Tier 1 words require different teaching strategies:

Tier 2 words appear in grade-level texts. They can be worked with in a variety of ways so that ELLs build rich representations of them and connect them to other words and concepts. Different types of Tier 2 words require different teaching strategies:

These are low-frequency words that are found mostly in content books in the upper grades. Examples include witticism, isotope, procrastinate, amoeba, or words that are not demonstrable or cognates. These words are rarely encountered in the early grades, but if they do appear, you can translate them or briefly explain them in either English or in the ELLs' first language.

Note: It is advisable at all grade levels to have bilingual dictionaries available in the classroom. If you do not know the translation for a vocabulary word into students' native language, it is an easy reference and clarification tool. Also, when reading texts on their own, students can look up unknown words and ensure their own comprehension.

At least for Spanish speakers there are many cognates. I am currently working with children who speak a language that has no cognates with English. Additionally my private school requires the students to learn 3 new languages simultaneously. It is too many languages at once and the results are poor.

Colorn Colorado is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of bilingual, research-based information, activities, and advice for educators and families of English language learners (ELLs). Colorn Colorado is an educational service of WETA, the flagship public broadcasting station in the nation's capital, and receives major funding from our founding partner, the AFT, and the National Education Association. Copyright 2023 WETA Public Broadcasting.

Artwork by Caldecott Award-winning illustrator David Diaz and Pura Belpr Award-winning illustrator Rafael Lpez is used with permission. Homepage illustrations 2009 by Rafael Lpez originally appeared in "Book Fiesta" by Pat Mora and used with permission from HarperCollins.

Morphology is the study of words and their parts. Morphemes, like prefixes, suffixes and base words, are defined as the smallest meaningful units of meaning. Morphemes are important for phonics in both reading and spelling, as well as in vocabulary and comprehension.

Teaching morphemes unlocks the structures and meanings within words. It is very useful to have a strong awareness of prefixes, suffixes and base words. These are often spelt the same across different words, even when the sound changes, and often have a consistent purpose and/or meaning.

If a word has an inflectional morpheme, it is still the same word, with a few suffixes added. So if you looked up in the dictionary, then only the base word would get its own entry into the dictionary. Skipping and skipped are listed under skip, as they are inflections of the base word. Skipping and skipped do not get their own dictionary entry.

Another example is : run (base form), running (present progressive), ran (past tense). In this example the past tense marker changes the vowel of the word: run (rhymes with fun), to ran (rhymes with can). However, the inflectional morphemes -ing and past tense morpheme are added to the base word , and are listed in the same dictionary entry.

Derivational morphemes are different to inflectional morphemes, as they do derive/create a new word, which gets its own entry in the dictionary. Derivational morphemes help us to create new words out of base words.

Students with reading learning difficulties may have problems with one or more components of literacy (phonology, orthography and oral language). For these students, the teaching of word morphology (a sub-component of oral language) has the potential to help improve both word decoding and reading comprehension, as word morphology transfers to other components of reading (Good et al. 2015). The development of morphemic awareness involves the teaching of prefixes, suffixes and base/root words to build a conscious awareness of morphemic structures in words and the meaning of various morphemes.

Word morphology research focused on teaching students with reading learning difficulties highlights several strategies, which can be used to support students struggling to learn to read (Denston et al. 2015; Fallon and Katz 2020; Good et al. 2015). The research suggests:

Students with learning difficulties who are at different stages in their learning to other students in the class often require more focused word morphology instruction. For students in the early years of primary school it is recommended that structured word morphology teaching includes:

Teaching word morphology to students with literacy learning difficulties from Grade 3 onwards involves consideration of the diverse range of subject-specific words used in texts and the increased complexity of the morphological patterns. To be effective, the teaching of word morphology in these year levels benefits from the inclusion of:

Compound words (or compounds) are created by joining free morphemes together. Remember that a free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand along as its own word (unlike bound morphemes - e.g. -ly, -ed, re-, pre-). Compounds are a fun and accessible way to introduce the idea that words can have multiple parts (morphemes). Teachers can highlight that these compound words are made up of two separate words joined together to make a new word. For example dog + house = doghouse

Highlighting the morphology of words is useful for explaining phonics patterns (graphemes) and spelling rules, as well as discovering the meanings of unfamiliar words, and demonstrating how words are linked together. Highlighting and analysing morphemes is also useful, therefore, for providing comprehension strategies.

It may be useful to know which words all of your students have encountered when you are preparing class activities or writing assignments. This article will show you how to find the list of common words for your students.

It's time to roll up those sleeves and start building your accounting vocabulary. To help you get started, we compiled an assortment of basic financial terms and acronyms and created this simple accounting glossary for beginners.

Assets (fixed and current) definition: Current assets (CA) are those that will be converted to cash within one year. Typically, this could be cash, inventory or accounts receivable. Fixed assets (FA) are long-term and will likely provide benefits to a company for more than one year, such as a real estate, land or major machinery.

Asset class definition: An asset class is a group of securities that behaves similarly in the marketplace. The three main asset classes are equities or stocks, fixed income or bonds, and cash equivalents or money market instruments.

Certified public accountant (CPA) definition: A designation given to an accountant who has passed a standardized CPA exam and met government-mandated work experience and educational requirements to become a CPA.

Cost of goods sold (COGS) definition: The direct expenses related to producing the goods sold by a business. The formula for calculating this will depend on what is being produced, but as an example this may include the cost of the raw materials (parts) and the amount of employee labor used in production.

Credit (CR) definition: An accounting entry that may either decrease assets or increase liabilities and equity on the company's balance sheet, depending on the transaction. When using the double-entry accounting method there will be two recorded entries for every transaction: A credit and a debit.

Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) definition: A set of rules and guidelines developed by the accounting industry for companies to follow when reporting financial data. Following these rules is especially critical for all publicly traded companies.

Liabilities (current and long-term) definition: A company's debts or financial obligations incurred during business operations. Current liabilities (CL) are those debts that are payable within a year, such as a debt to suppliers. Long-term liabilities (LTL) are typically payable over a period of time greater than one year. An example of a long-term liability would be a multi-year mortgage for office space.

Present value (PV) definition: The current value of a future sum of money based on a specific rate of return. Present value helps us understand how receiving $100 now is worth more than receiving $100 a year from now, as money in hand now has the ability to be invested at a higher rate of return. See an example of the time value of money here.

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