Chunking Long Words by Meaningful Parts

Read long words aloud by breaking them into morpheme chunks instead of single letters.

Long words become pronounceable when you break them into chunks, and the best chunks are meaningful parts, not random letter groups. Try 'misinterpretation'. Read letter by letter, it is a jumble of seventeen letters. Chunked by meaning, it is mis- (wrongly) + inter (between) + pret + -ation, which you can say as mis-in-ter-pre-ta-tion. Then the meaning arrives too: a wrong interpretation, an understanding that went wrong.

Chunking works because English reuses the same parts constantly, so your brain already knows how to say 'inter', 'tion', and 'mis'. Practice on: 'environmentalist' (en-vi-ron-ment-al-ist: a person concerned about the environment), 'counterproductive' (counter-pro-duc-tive: working against the goal), 'uncharacteristically' (un-char-ac-ter-is-tic-al-ly: in a way not typical of someone). When a long word appears in a textbook, do not skip it.

Spend five seconds chunking it, and you get both the sound and a strong start on the meaning.

• 1Chunk long words by meaningful parts, not single letters.
• 2Familiar chunks give you both sound and meaning.
• 3Spend a few seconds chunking instead of skipping.