Abstract of

A Seven-Step Instructional Plan for Teaching English-Language Learners to Comprehend and Use Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs

Julie Jacobson

Diane Lapp

James Flood

For English-language learners, comprehension can be hindered by a lack of understanding of homonyms, homophones, and homographs, but the right instructional strategies can alleviate this problem. Following a discussion of issues such as the importance of being aware of a student's literacy skills in his or her home language and the need to preteach key vocabulary words, the authors provide examples of a structured approach to teaching homonyms, homophones, and homographs.

This seven-step instructional process, which incorporates reading, illustrating, comparing and contrasting words, and categorizing vocabulary by using symbols to represent grammatical structures, can be used to teach all students, but it accommodates particularly the challenges encountered by English-language learners. The seven steps are

1. Reading and/or listening to a story

2. Defining and visualizing words

3. Identifying parts of speech

4. Categorizing words

5. Completing cloze activities

6. Producing a skit or creating a visual

7. Playing a word game with new words

The authors offer explicit examples of instruction at each step and conclude with a discussion of how to assess students' proficiencies as they discern word meanings and begin to use words efficiently.

Abstract from Jacobson, J., Lapp, D., & Flood, J. (2007, October). A Seven-Step Instructional Plan for Teaching English-Language Learners to Comprehend and Use Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 98–111. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.51.2.2