OK—the title of this blog post is probably a little misleading because my guess is there are quite a few 9th graders who don’t have strong vocabulary skills. Hopefully, as an adult you do because understanding vocabulary is extremely important to reading comprehension. Research has shown that kids need to understand 98% of the words they read to understand what they are reading.
The following words are part of a list that was compiled by the Hyde Park School District (New York) last year. How many of them do you know without having to look them up in your online dictionary?
absolve
connotation
dearth
digress
exacerbate
exposition
implausible
indolent
mortified
pacify
pertinent
ponder
rapport
simulate
viable
Having a good vocabulary to draw from can not only help you speak more effectively, but it also help with your writing skills. Students and adults alike need to use a more formal tone when writing – not conversational language – and to do that, they need a richer vocabulary to tap into those words we don’t necessarily use when we speak.
Now PONDER that!
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