Chances are you or your students come across words you don't understand when reading on the . Try as you might to discern the word's meaning using context clues, sometimes the necessary info just isn't there, or you are focused on the task at hand without adequate time to figure out what the word is. There's a super easy and quick way to figure out an unfamiliar word or term you come across online if you are using Google Chrome.
Just Highlight & Right-Click!
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| Click This GIF to View a Larger Demo of the Highlight/Right-Click Process |
- Double-clicked the word to select/highlight it.
- Right-clicked the word and selected Search Google for "Schadenfreude".
- Read the definition in the new tab that opened up.
- I also clicked the sound icon under the word to hear how it is pronounced.
After getting an idea of what the word meant, I returned back to the tab with the article I was reading and carried on.
Train Yourself & Teach Your Students to Use This Trick
I encourage you to train yourself and teach your students to use this quick trick for improving vocabulary and comprehension. Teaching a new skill in context when the need arises helps transfer it to long-term learning. Quick and natural in context ways to teach this trick include:- When you and your students are discussing online information which you are projecting in front of a group or the whole class, highlight and right-click a word your students seem unfamiliar with.
- When a student approaches you to ask what a word they are reading online means, talk them through the highlight and right-click trick
I hope this tip has been helpful! If you know other quick tech tricks that enhance learning, please share in the comments below, so we can all learn together.
All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Please see specifics on my re-use policy before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.
