Lexical Inferencing strategies
Strategies
Form-focused Analyzing
strategies
Associating
Definitions
Analyzing a word using knowledge of prefixes,
suffixes, punctuations, or grammar.
Attempting to infer the meaning of the target words
with other similar words.
Repeating
Repeating the target words or part of the text
containing the target word out aloud.
Guessing from Guessing the meaning of the target word by using the
Meaningtextual clues
surrounding context clues.
focused
strategies
Using prior
Using prior knowledge or experience to infer the word
knowledge
meaning
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing or translating part of the text that
or translating
contains the target words.
Inquiry
Questioning their own inferences.
Evaluating
strategies
Verifying
Confirming/disconfirming the inferences made by
using the information in the text.
Commenting
Making evaluative comments about the target word.
Stating failure Making statements about the failure of inferencing or
Monitoring
or difficulty
the difficulty of the target word.
strategies
Suspending
Postponing the inference making and leaving it for a
judgement
later time.
Reattempting
Discarding the old inference and attempting to make
a new one.
Taxonomy of lexical inferencing strategies by Nassaji (2004: 117)