Strategies Employed by Mexican Secondary School Students When Facing Unfamiliar Academic Vocabulary

Bibliographic Data

ID22047160
AuthorsKarina Hess Zimmermann (0000-0002-8960-2205, Autonomous University of Queretaro, corresponding author), María Guadalupe Hernández Arriola (0009-0002-7783-3791, Autonomous University of Queretaro), Gloria Avecilla-Ramírez (0000-0001-9308-700X, Autonomous University of Queretaro)
Year2025
Volume15
Issue7
Pages917
Publication date2025-07-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/educsci15070917
OpenAlexW4412964320
LanguageEN
References cited32

This article examines the strategies employed by Mexican secondary school students to understand unfamiliar academic vocabulary and the relationship between these strategies and their reading proficiency. Within the broader Latin American context—where low reading comprehension levels remain prevalent—the study focused on a sample of 40 first-year secondary students, categorized according to their reading level. Using two instruments, the research identified the vocabulary learning strategies used by students and assessed their effectiveness in deriving word meaning. Findings indicate that while students across reading levels use similar strategies, those with higher reading proficiency more frequently and effectively apply complex strategies such as contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, rereading the text, and full morphological analysis. Morphological analysis proved to be the most effective strategy, provided students possessed the metalinguistic skills necessary to decompose and reconstruct word meaning from all morphemes. The study concludes that the successful use of vocabulary strategies is closely linked to students’ reading proficiency, and that reading comprehension and academic vocabulary knowledge are mutually reinforcing. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly teaching academic vocabulary in school settings as a means to enhance students’ reading performance

Curriculum · Language proficiency · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Morpheme · Pedagogy · Reading comprehension · Teaching method · Vocabulary · Vocabulary development · Computer Science · Literacy and Educational Practices · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Artificial Intelligence