CALT Vocabulary Development and Word Knowledge Flashcards

A CALT is working with a student who struggles to infer the meaning of the word 'benevolent' from context. The student knows the Latin root 'bene' means 'well' but cannot identify the second morpheme. Which instructional approach BEST addresses this specific gap in morphological knowledge?

Answer: Teaching the Latin root 'vol/vole' (wish/will) and connecting it to related words such as 'volunteer' and 'volition' to build a morpheme family network

When a student has partial morphological knowledge (knows 'bene' but not the second root), the most targeted intervention is to teach the unknown morpheme 'vol/vole' and connect it to a morpheme family (volunteer, volition, benevolent). This builds generative morphological knowledge — the ability to decode and infer meanings across new words — which is a core CALT instructional principle for vocabulary development.

According to Beck, McKeown, and Kucan's three-tier vocabulary framework, which of the following words would be MOST appropriately categorized as Tier 2 and therefore the highest priority for explicit instruction in an academic language therapy session?

Answer: Ambiguous

'Ambiguous' is a Tier 2 word — high-frequency across academic domains, unlikely to be learned through everyday conversation, and essential for academic discourse. 'Photosynthesis' and 'mitosis' are Tier 3 words (domain-specific, technical), which are typically taught within science content instruction. 'Table' is Tier 1 (basic, conversational). Tier 2 words yield the greatest instructional return because they appear across multiple subject areas and academic contexts.

A student with dyslexia demonstrates strong vocabulary knowledge when words are presented orally but scores significantly below grade level on reading vocabulary assessments. A CALT interprets this profile as MOST likely reflecting which underlying mechanism?

Answer: A decoding deficit that limits exposure to written text, creating a vocabulary acquisition gap through reduced print encounters

This profile — intact oral vocabulary with depressed reading vocabulary — is classic for a student whose primary deficit is decoding. Because reading is slow and effortful, the student has had far fewer exposures to written vocabulary across years of schooling. This is the 'Matthew Effect': poor decoders read less, accumulating fewer incidental vocabulary encounters from text. The gap is not a semantic processing disorder but a consequence of restricted print access. CALTs must address this by simultaneously building decoding fluency and providing explicit vocabulary instruction.

Which of the following BEST describes the distinction between 'polysemy' and 'homonymy,' and why this distinction matters for vocabulary instruction with students who have language-based learning disabilities?

Answer: Polysemy refers to words with multiple related meanings sharing a common etymology (e.g., 'run' a race / 'run' a business), while homonymy refers to words that sound alike but have unrelated origins and meanings (e.g., 'bank' of a river / 'bank' financial institution); students with LLD often overgeneralize one meaning, so instruction must explicitly map all senses

Polysemy describes one word form with multiple related meanings that share an etymological thread (e.g., all senses of 'run' trace to movement/flow). Homonymy describes distinct words that happen to share the same phonological form but have unrelated origins (e.g., 'bank'). This distinction is clinically important because students with LLD often anchor rigidly to one meaning of a word. Instruction that explicitly maps polysemous senses can leverage the shared semantic core, while homonyms require treating each meaning as a separate lexical entry.

A CALT is designing vocabulary instruction for an adolescent student using the 'semantic gradient' technique. This technique is BEST used to address which specific vocabulary learning objective?

Answer: Refining understanding of connotation, nuance, and degree among semantically related words

A semantic gradient (or 'word ladder') arranges semantically related words along a continuum from one extreme to another (e.g., frigid → cold → cool → warm → hot → scorching). This technique develops precision in word choice by helping students understand degrees of intensity, connotation, and subtle semantic differences among near-synonyms. It does not target phonology, morphology, or orthographic mapping — it specifically addresses the depth of word knowledge, which is distinct from breadth of vocabulary.

Research on incidental vocabulary acquisition from reading suggests that a student must encounter a new word approximately how many times in varied contexts before it is consolidated into long-term lexical memory, and what instructional implication does this have for CALT practice?

Answer: Approximately 10–15 exposures in varied contexts; CALTs must build distributed, repeated, multi-contextual encounters with target words rather than relying on one-time definitions

Vocabulary research (Nation, Beck et al., Stahl) consistently indicates that meaningful lexical consolidation requires approximately 10–15 varied, spaced exposures to a word. This has a direct instructional implication for CALTs: a single-session definition activity is insufficient. Effective practice requires spiraling target words across sessions, embedding them in multiple modalities (reading, writing, discussion, word sorts), and providing semantic and morphological elaboration. This is why structured vocabulary routines — not one-time look-it-up approaches — are foundational to CALT methodology.