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Hi,

Would teachers please tell me how they are using Amsco's voc book? It is great until you get to the middle chapters that have scores of similarly defined words. Students complain about learning all these words and find it unmanageable.

How do you guys use the book and assess in these chapters?

Thanks!

Mr. M

I don't use this book, but have you tried having the students draw pictures of these words to differentiate between them?  I like the Picture Vocabulary books for SAT and ACT words.  Some of them are really corny, but it seems to work well.  If the students draw their own pictures as opposed to just copying and memorizing preestablished pictures, they do even better.  Good Luck!

I prefer Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis.

If you have to use the book, you have to; I have never liked it.  The book that I had the most success with, one that I used as a freshman in HS in 1959, is "30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary."  It has words that can be used in "real" life, most of which are demonstrated in context.  But I still think that the only way you really ever learn vocabulary is through exercise in context, specifically through the literature we read and other short selections chosen just for learning language skills.