SAT Vocabulary–Increase It The Scientifically Proven Way

Research shows there are two ways to actually improve your vocabulary. And the great thing is you’ll actually enjoy at least one of these activities.

What Does Not Work

First let me tell you what the research says does NOT work (I’ll provide references at the end of this post so you can see for yourself.)

Studying vocabulary words out of context (ex. Studying with flashcards) does NOT work.

I know this strategy has been used in SAT test prep since back in the olden days but research says that you can only learn about 300-500 words a year that way.  This is compared to the 3,000 – 5,000 words a year students already learn without trying to study vocabulary. Of course many of these words won’t be on the SAT.  That’s one reason why test prep companies will try to help you by choosing words that have shown up on past SAT exams.

But here’s the sad thing.  Even if  you do study 300 high-level, SAT words a year with flash cards and can recall their exact definitions, you probably won’t be able to use those words on the test or in your SAT Essay.  Studies show that students who were taught the dictionary definitions of words were not able to understand a passage of text any better than students who were not taught those words.

Then why do so many test prep companies still waste time teaching you to memorize vocabulary when it’s proven to be both inefficient and ineffective?

Because when instructors teach students vocabulary out of context, students are able to show they’ve “learned” the material if you test them out of context.  And that’s exactly what most teachers do when they teach vocabulary.  They follow up with a vocabulary test and if you get a high score they say “see you’ve learned these words.”  Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use them because they were learned out of context.  So in reality you’ve learned nothing.

So How Do You Raise Vocabulary?

There are actually two surefire ways to raise your vocabulary that have been proven effective in scientific studies.

1.  Reading books and other reading material that contains SOME words you don’t know.

2.  Listening to people speak who use SOME words you don’t know… and use those words properly.

Both of these strategies work because they expose you to new words.  And being exposed to new words over and over again is what develops new vocabulary.

This is how babies learn to talk.  This is why 4-year olds usually know about 5,600 words and by age 6 they’ve nearly tripled their vocabulary to 14,700 words.  By the age of 9 you probably knew about 29,300 words.

Your vocabulary grew and grew without you studying a single vocabulary word. (And by the way if you did study 20 words a week out of context, we know that you could only retain about 300 words a year that way, so most of this learning was NOT from explicit instruction but came from exposure.)

I hope you’re not disappointed.  If you’re a serious student you probably already read a lot for school.  And you may be wondering how you can read any more than you already do.

And how can you listen to people who use some words you don’t know and use them properly?  You probably don’t want to spend more hours in class listening to your teachers in order to raise your vocabulary.

Two Ideas… One Of Which You’ll Love

OK.  So here are two things you can do, at least one of which you’ll probably enjoy:

1.  Read books you enjoy reading.  If you like to read science fiction read it.  If you like romance novels read them.  Believe-it-or-not this will raise your vocabulary because authors of novels tend to use a range of words that most people never bring up in conversation.  And remember it’s exposure-in-context that builds vocabulary so reading a lot gets you great results.

2.  Listen to books on tape, CD or MP3.  Recorded books have the same high levels of vocabulary as the printed books.  The advantage here is that you can kick back and relax and just, well… listen.  So if your eyes are tired or you just don’t want to do any real work at the moment.  Just fire up your MP3 player and listen to a good Stephen King Novel, Twilight or Harry Potter.  You’ll be entertained and be preparing for the SAT at the same time.

So to sum up, you can save hours of time that would normally be spent on learning vocabulary and use that time to study other parts of the test or just enjoy yourself reading and listening to books.  You never again have to spend time on a strategy that’s been proven NOT to work.

Let me know what you think of this article by leaving me a comment below.

References:

Nagy, W.E. and Herman, P.A. (1987). Breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge: Implications for acquisition and instruction. In M. McKeown and M. Curtis (Eds.), The Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition, (pp. 19-35). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. [My Note: Students only learn 300 words a year through explicit instruction yet learn thousands a year without it.]

Stahl, S.A. & Fairbanks, M.M. (1986).  The effects of vocabulary instruction:  A model-based meta-analysis.  Review of Educational Research, 56(1), 72-110. [My Note: Teaching students dictionary definitions of words did not aid reading comprehension.]

McKeown, M. G., Beck, I. L., Omanson, R. C., & Pople, M. T. (1985). Some effects of the nature and frequency of vocabulary instruction on the knowledge and use of words. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 522–535. [My Note: Students need to be exposed to new words 12 times to gain their meaning.]

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