Know What I Mean?

Since good writing involves the use of specific language, I want my students to have a rich vocabulary of precise words. But as those of us who work with advanced ELLs know, it can be difficult to determine how much a student actually understands.

I recently came across a site with a great description of what it really means to know the meaning of a word. The text below is excerpted from Vocabulary Ideas Compiled by Deb Smith:

What does it mean to know a word?

Stage 1: Never saw it before.
Stage 2: Heard it, but doesn’t know what it means.
Stage 3: Recognizes it in context as having something to do with _____.
Stage 4: Knows it well.

[A]n individual’s knowledge about a word can also be described as falling along a continuum. We suggested the following points on such a continuum.

• No Knowledge
• General sense, such as knowing mendacious has a negative connotation
• Narrow, context-bound, such as knowing that a radiant bride is a beautifully smiling bride, but unable to describe an individual in a different context as radiant.
• Having knowledge of a word but not being able to recall it readily enough to use it in appropriate situations.
• Rich, decontextualized knowledge of a word’s meaning, its relationship to other words, and its extension to metaphorical uses, such as understanding what someone is doing when they are devouring a book.

Cronbach wrote in 1942:

• Generalization: The ability to define a word.
• Application: The ability to select or recognize situation appropriate to a word.
• Breadth: Knowledge of multiple meanings.
• Precision: The ability to apply a term correctly to all situations and to recognize inappropriate use.
• Availability: The actual use of a word in thinking and discourse.

What it means to know a word is clearly a complicated multifaceted matter, and one that has serious implications for how words are taught and how word knowledge is measured.