An integrated approach to vocabulary teaching at secondary school
What is the most effective way to teach vocabulary in the secondary classroom?
Explicit vocabulary teaching is needed to close the disadvantage gap, but how should secondary school teachers approach vocabulary instruction?
In this post, I explain why teachers need to introduce a word’s structure, spelling and pronunciation alongside its meaning, and describe how teachers can draw on morphology, etymology, orthography and phonology to support students.
I’ve divided it into three sections:
Section 1: What difficulties are caused by poor vocabulary, who is affected, and can vocabulary instruction help?
Section 2: Why is an integrated approach to teaching vocabulary needed?
Section 3: What are practical strategies for teaching vocabulary at secondary school?
Section 1: What difficulties are caused by poor vocabulary, who is affected, and can vocabulary instruction help?
What difficulties are caused by poor vocabulary?
It’s clear that poor vocabulary makes it harder for students to understand both oral and written language at school. If students don’t know what words mean, they will obviously struggle to understand what sentences mean. And, equally clearly, this will have a negative impact on learning.
We can look at the research to identify more specific impacts of poor vocabulary such as:
Negative impact on grades (Schuth et al. 2017)
Difficulty reading words that lack a clear relationship between letters and sounds (Ricketts et al. 2007)
Feelings of exclusion (Mac Ruairc, 2001, cited in Deignan and Jones, 2025)
Longer-term links to higher unemployment rates and more mental health issues (Schoon et al. 2010).
Poor vocabulary can also trap students in a vicious cycle of disadvantage. We know that some children ‘self-teach’ vocabulary through leisure reading (van der Kleij et al. 2022). Yet difficulty reading makes students less likely to read (van Bergen et al. 2022), so they miss out on the advanced vocabulary that is found even in children’s books (Dawson et al. 2021), which may further increase the vocabulary gap between these students and their peers.
Who is most likely to be affected by poor vocabulary?
Studies have shown that low socio-economic status is correlated with exposure to fewer words (Hart and Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2003) and vocabulary difficulties are most likely to affect economically disadvantaged students (van der Kleij et al. 2023). Students with English as additional language, those who struggle to read, and students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are also likely to feel the impact of poor vocabulary (Burgoyne et al. 2009; Cunningham et al. 2021; McGregor et al. 2020).
Can vocabulary instruction help?
Students encounter about 150,000 different words in texts over their school career (Zeno et al. 1995, cited in Hiebert, 2020), and there is little evidence that directly teaching a few words has an impact on general breadth of vocabulary (Cervetti et al. 2023). So, it may seem pointless to explicitly teach a few hundred words to students over the course of a school year.
However, there are reasons to believe that vocabulary instruction can be effective:
In the context of teaching a topic in school, there are likely to be a few key words that are integral to the understanding the topic and that will recur frequently. We know that direct instruction of specific words can be effective (Stahl and Fairbanks, 1986; Marulis & Neuman, 2010), so judicious selection of a few words to teach explicitly could have a big impact on whether students learn the key concepts that are taught in lessons.
Teaching students strategies for understanding words can be helpful for working out the meaning of unknown words (Cervetti et al. 2023).
Teaching morphemes (meaningful word-parts) as part of vocabulary instruction vastly increases the number of words that can be reached by explicit instruction. For example, teaching the base <aut> (meaning “self”) will help the student to understand words such as automatic, automaton, autism, autistic and autocrat. In English, it is estimated that about 80% of words are compounds or include derivational affixes (Korochkina & Rastle, 2025).
There is some evidence that explicit vocabulary teaching makes a particular difference for students with reading difficulties (Elleman et al. 2009), so it may be effective for reducing the disadvantage gap.
So, if the right words are taught in the right way, we have the opportunity to make a big difference.
As Alice Deignan and Marcus Jones point out in their book New Words, New Meanings (2025, p. 25):
“We believe … that emphasising academic and specialist language should help to support and empower all children. If we don’t do this, we are favouring students who are already privileged.”
Section 2: Why is an integrated approach to teaching vocabulary needed?
An integrated approach to teaching vocabulary is needed so that students can form high-quality lexical representations that are easy to retrieve during reading and writing.
This diagram is inspired by Seidenberg and McClelland’s (1989) ‘triangle model’, Perfetti’s (2007) Lexical Quality Hypothesis, and Kirby and Bowers’ (2017) theory of morphology as a binding agent. The diagram shows how a lexical representation is made up of phonological, morphological, orthographic, syntactic and semantic information. I have added etymology in a separate colour because etymology is unlikely to be part of our lexical representations unless it has been explicitly taught, but it can provide valuable additional information, particularly about orthography, morphology and meaning.
What is word-knowledge?
Let’s consider what ‘knowing’ a word involves…
Meaning
‘Knowing’ a word clearly involves knowing what it means (a semantic representation). But ‘knowing’ the meaning of word is not binary. We could know that an ostrich is a big bird that can’t fly, but we may not know that it has the largest eggs in the world, its feet have two toes, it can run at up to 70 mph, and it grows up to 2.7m tall. That is, we can know it very well (in-depth understanding), know it fairly well (reasonable understanding), or just have a passing familiarity with it (recognition, or shallow understanding), or we may never have heard of it.
And, of course, some words have more than one meaning (polysemous words). Perhaps we may be very familiar with capital as a description of an upper-case letter, but we may not know that it can also refer to money that could be used to start a business.
Different texts will require different levels of semantic knowledge to achieve comprehension – for example, a science textbook is likely to need a greater depth of semantic knowledge than a children’s storybook. But generally a more in-depth semantic representation is likely to generate a richer interpretation of any text.
How to use the word in a sentence
We need to know how to use a word in a sentence (syntactic information). What word class does it belong to? Does it belong to several classes? For example, capital is an adjective in the sentence Make sure you use a capital letter to write proper nouns, but it is a noun in the sentence Will you lend me the capital I need to set up my business?
Pronunciation
If we want to say a word aloud or recognise a spoken word, we need to know how to pronounce it and what it sounds like. Therefore, we need a phonological representation that includes phonemes (individual sounds in words), syllables and stress patterns. We may also need to know that word can be pronounced differently depending on the context. For example:
Sometimes the stress pattern might differ depending on the role a word is playing in a sentence.
I can’t wait to open my present (stress on the first syllable of present)
I’m going to present my research (stress on the second syllable of present)
Occasionally the word class may affect the number of syllables that are pronounced.
Can you put the knives and forks in separate piles? (generally pronounced as “sep-rut”)
We need to separate the cardboard and the plastic for recycling (generally pronounced as “se-puh-rate”)
The rate of speech or level of formality can affect the way we choose to say a word or phrase.
We’re gonna pop to the shop later.
We are going to visit the queen tomorrow.
Spelling
As we live in a literate society, we also need to know what a word looks like on the page – its spelling, or, more technically, its orthographic representation. We can have more or less precise knowledge of how a word is spelled; for example, maybe we can recognise the correct spelling of the word diarrhoea even if we can’t spell it ourselves.
Word structure
To understand a word’s meaning, spell it, and use it in a sentence, it helps to understand the structure of the word (its morphological representation). For example, as speakers of English, we know that /ʌs/ (“us”) at the end of a word is probably a suffix, that it is usually spelled <-ous>, and it is a good indication that a word is an adjective e.g. dangerous.
The history of a word
We don’t generally need to know the etymology of a word in order to understand it, say it and spell it. However, sometimes etymological information can help us to develop a more thorough understanding of the spelling and the meaning of a word. For example, if we know that Wednesday is named after the Norse god Woden, its unexpected spelling makes more sense, and we can also make the connection with other days of the week that are named after gods.
Connecting all of these aspects of word-knowledge together
If seeing a word on the page is going to give us rapid access to its meaning and pronunciation, we also need strong connections between the different elements of word knowledge. Perfetti (2007, 2017) discusses evidence that rapid access to high-quality word-knowledge can facilitate reading comprehension. And, if a lexical representation is low-quality, it takes more effort to retrieve a word’s meaning, and there may be less ‘mental space’ left over for processing the rest of the text, or more confusion with other words.
Building high-quality lexical representations
To summarise, teachers need to help students to build high-quality representations of words that create strong links between the following elements:
a deep understanding of a word’s meaning (semantic representation)
knowledge of how to use a word in a sentence (syntactic information)
confidence with a word’s pronunciation (phonological representation)
precise knowledge of its spelling (orthographic representation).
Developing a high-quality lexical representation is likely to involve teaching morphology and etymology because morphological knowledge helps to link the elements of word-knowledge together, and etymological information can support a deeper understanding of spelling, morphology and meaning.
That’s all a bit abstract, so let’s look at how to implement integrated vocabulary teaching in the classroom.
Section 3: What are practical strategies for teaching vocabulary at secondary school?
Things to consider when you plan vocabulary instruction
In practice, this means that whenever you plan vocabulary instruction, you should consider:
How will you promote in-depth understanding of a word’s meaning and its role in a sentence?
What is the word’s structure and origins, and there any relevant spelling conventions?
How will students practise pronouncing the word, and will mapping graphemes to phonemes will be helpful for your students?
How will you revisit words for consolidation and retention?
My impression is that secondary teachers tend to do a fair amount of Number 1 and possibly Number 4, but not enough of Numbers 2 and 3. This is probably because secondary teaching training programmes do not teach much about phonology, morphology and orthography!
How could you teach the word sophisticated effectively?
Let’s take the example of the word sophisticated, and address each of the numbered points above.
The suggestions below are examples of short questions and activities that can introduce the different types of word-knowledge.
#1. How will you promote in-depth understanding of the meaning of the word sophisticated and demonstrate its role in a sentence?
Introduce with a simple definition in everyday language:
Being sophisticated means having a good knowledge of culture and fashion.
Use example sentences to illustrate the meaning and to demonstrate how to use the word in a sentence context:
I envied her outfit because she looked so elegant and sophisticated.
A quick scan of her bookshelves showed that she had sophisticated taste in literature.
Develop a more precise semantic representation by considering near-synonyms.
How might these near-synonyms change the nuance of the sentences above?
well-dressed, classy, chic, stylish, grown-up
high-class, impressive, mature, intellectual
Define the semantic boundaries of sophisticated by discussing non-examples and finding words that would be more appropriate:
He wore that latest tracksuit bottoms with new trainers and a baggy T-shirt. I thought he looked incredibly sophisticated. (cool, laid-back, fit)
My brother is so sophisticated. He’s a total nerd who knows everything there is to know about programming. (clever, intelligent, smart, obsessive)
Encourage students to actively engage with the word by generating their own examples.
Describe a sophisticated character without using the word sophisticated.
Complete a sentence-stem that includes the word sophisticated:
I want him to think I’m really sophisticated because…
When I was younger I thought Tim was incredibly sophisticated, but…
Complete a sentence using the word sophisticated:
I’m so awkward at parties. I wish…
Explore any alternative meanings using example sentences:
There’s no doubt that we’ll win the battle because our weapons are far more sophisticated than theirs.
We need a more sophisticated plan if we’re going to outwit them.
Generate synonyms for the alternative meaning: complex, advanced, hi-tech
#2. What is the word’s structure and origin, and there any relevant spelling conventions?
Discuss the word’s morphological structure to reinforce the spelling and meaning.
What is the base of sophisticated, and what does it mean?
<soph> meaning “wise”, derived from Greek
How does the meaning “wise” connect to the modern English meaning of the word sophisticated?
Can you think of any other words that share the same base and how they might be connected to wisdom?
e.g. Sophia, Sophie, sophistication, unsophisticated
Can you draw a box around the base and underline any affixes?
Introduce the word sum for sophisticated. The drop <e> spelling convention is needed.
soph + ist + ic + ate/ + ed → sophisticated
The suffixes in sophisticated do not have a simple relationship to the meaning of the word, so they don’t need discussing in detail, but <-ed> could be mentioned as a suffix that can indicate an adjective.
A morphological matrix centred on the base <soph>.
Use a morphological matrix to help students make connections with other words in the same family and engage more deeply with the meaning of the base.
What words can you build from a morphological matrix centred on <soph>? (The drop <e> spelling convention is needed.)
How do these words connect to the meaning of the base?
Can you make a sentence using a word that you’ve built?
#3. How will students practise pronouncing the word, and will mapping graphemes to phonemes will be helpful for your students?
Make sure that students are confident pronouncing the word by ensuring that there are repeated opportunities to say the word during the discussion of its meaning.
To get students actively thinking about the pronunciation of the word, ask students to say sophisticated and sophistication and discuss the stress patterns.
For the word sophisticated, it would not be helpful to map every grapheme to every phoneme because the word is too long. However, it is worth considering whether there any ‘tricky’ graphemes that may cause reading or spelling difficulties.
<ph> for /f/ is an indication that a word derives from Greek.
The final syllable may be pronounced as [ɪd], but it is spelled as <-ed>. <-ed> is a suffix that can create adjectives.
#4. How will you revisit words for consolidation and retention?
Starter activities could be an opportunity for planned retrieval practice:
Use the words sophisticated and naïve in a sentence.
Show how could you give the impression that a character is sophisticated by describing their behaviour or actions.
Write the word sum for sophisticated and describe how the meaning of the base links to the modern-day meaning.
Write as many near-synonyms as you can for sophisticated.
Write an antonym of sophisticated.
Build as many words as you can from a matrix with the base <soph>.
Incidental encounters with the word can also be used as opportunities to consolidate the meaning. If vocabulary words have been carefully selected because they are important to a topic, they are likely to be encountered in the course of normal teaching.
How long does explicit vocabulary instruction take?
Teachers may be concerned that explicit vocabulary teaching that addresses multiple elements of word-knowledge will be too time-consuming. However, although the example above includes lots of activities, most are very short, and you certainly don’t need to do them all. The primary goal is stop thinking about vocabulary instruction just in terms of a word’s meaning and pronunciation, and ensure that mentioning the structure and spelling of words becomes the normal way of introducing them.
Explicit vocabulary teaching is not all or nothing; not every word needs careful planning (though planning is advisable for key terms). As you and your students get used to thinking about words in this way, it will become easier and quicker to spot the morphemes in words, notice which spelling conventions might be helpful, and realise when etymology might be needed to explain something unexpected.
Vocabulary workshop for secondary teachers
To find out more about teaching vocabulary using an integrated approach that includes morphology, etymology and orthography, take a look at my vocabulary workshop for secondary teachers.
Useful books about vocabulary instruction
Great on building an in-depth semantic representation of words. Loads of practical activities.
Good on the connections between words, and grouping words for teaching.
Examines the way that vocabulary differs at primary vs secondary school.
Good general introduction to vocabulary teaching.
Click on the pictures to read the full reviews.
References
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