How can you tell they’ve got it: Vocabulary Strategies?

If they’ve got it, you’ll see things like: Use context clues (the overall meaning of a sentence, a word’s position or function) to infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word; Break down a word using known Greek or Latin roots and affixes to deduce its meaning (e.g., 'malevolent' = mal- (bad) + volent (wishing)); Look up a word in a dictionary to verify or refine an inferred meaning. Or just try it together: When your child encounters an unfamiliar word in a book or article, can they work out its meaning using context clues, word roots, or a dictionary — and then check whether their guess was right?

English Vocabulary Ages 11–14

Vocabulary Strategies

Your child can work out a new word in more than one way. They use the sentence around it, its word parts, or a dictionary.

In curriculum terms

Determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases using a flexible range of strategies — including context clues, Greek and Latin affixes and roots, reference materials, and verification of inferred meaning

Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Use context clues (the overall meaning of a sentence, a word’s position or function) to infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word
Break down a word using known Greek or Latin roots and affixes to deduce its meaning (e.g., 'malevolent' = mal- (bad) + volent (wishing))
Look up a word in a dictionary to verify or refine an inferred meaning

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Try this together

When your child encounters an unfamiliar word in a book or article, can they work out its meaning using context clues, word roots, or a dictionary — and then check whether their guess was right?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Spellings from Greek, French and Latinages 8–10KS3 word-solving extends KS2 etymological patterns (Greek, French, Latin)

Using a Thesaurus to Choose Wordsages 10–11Using reference materials extends KS2 using thesaurus for synonyms

Vocabulary Strategiesthis skill · ages 11–14

Unlocks

Academic Vocabularyages 11–14Acquiring new vocabulary requires word-solving strategies to learn words independently

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E5LA08medium confidenceYear 5 · Language

understand how vocabulary is used to express greater precision of meaning, including through the use of specialist and technical terms, and explore the history of words

AC9E6LA07low confidenceYear 6 · Language

identify and explain how images, figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to meaning

AC9E5LA03low confidenceYear 5 · Language

describe how spoken, written and multimodal texts use language features and are typically organised into characteristic stages and phases, depending on purposes in texts

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN3-VOCAB-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 3

EN3-SPELL-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 3

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2E6LY04medium confidenceEnglish · Level 6 · Literacy strand

VC2E5LY09medium confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Literacy strand

VC2E5LA08medium confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Language strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Academic Vocabularyages 11–14 Advanced Figurative Languageages 11–14 Choosing Formal Vocabularyages 10–11 Dialects & Registersages 10–11

All Vocabulary skills →