Using Analogies to Grow Vocabulary Skills
Most (all) of my high school speech therapy students have deficits in the area of vocabulary. Analogy activities are a great way to teach and reinforce vocabulary because they promote making connections between words, thus building students’ lexicons. Analogy tasks also require that students use reasoning and deductive skills to solve problems which is another critical skill in the classroom.
What’s an Analogy?
An analogy is a type of word problem that requires students to figure out the relationship between words.
Analogies can be quite simple:
apple : red :: banana : _______
a. peel b. fruit c. yellow d. soft
In this example, all 4 choice are words that are related to the word “banana” but only one word, yellow, is the correct answer. Why? Because the relationship between the first two words (apple : red) are an object/color relationship, so the 3rd and 4th words must share the same relationship (banana : yellow).
Analogies can also be quite difficult:
impression : caricature :: tension : _______
a. pressure b. prorate c. proverbial. d. protract
In this example, students would need to have knowledge of all 3 of the analogy words to deduct that the answer to the analogy is “pressure.” Without some knowledge of each of the words, this analogy would be very difficult to solve.
Before students can solve analogies, they need to be introduced to analogy problems and learn strategies for solving them.
Analogy Strategy #1
One helpful strategy for solving an analogy is to make up a sentence about how Words 1 and 2 are related. Students can then substitute Words 3 and 4 into the sentence to complete the analogy.
Hot : Cold :: Stop : _______
a. high b. grey c. go d. car
Hot is the opposite of cold. Stop is the opposite of _______ (go)
In my 100 Simple Analogies activity, I provide step-by-step teaching materials introducing and practicing this strategy!
Strategy #2
Another way to set your students up for analogy success is to introduce many of the common ways that words can be related.
synonyms (drowsy : sleepy)
antonyms (upbeat : forlorn)
part to whole (finger : hand)
describing (marathoner : fast)
item to category (pear : fruit)
object to function (stove : cook)
user to object (doctor : stethoscope)
person to action (inventor : innovate)
cause and effect (cut : bleed)
item and degree (sprinkle : rain)
Practicing recognizing these common word relationships can help students find patterns between words when they’re completing analogies and when they’re reading!
Practice Makes Perfect
The great thing about analogies is that each one is different, but the strategy to solve them remains the same. I practice analogies in a variety of ways in my small group speech therapy sessions and in my large group push-in classroom instruction. SLPs, special education, and general education teachers can all use the following strategies to teach analogies!
My 100 Analogies & Teaching Materials are excellent for teaching and structured practice. Each worksheet is multiple choice and has 10 analogies to the page which makes taking data a breeze. You can also use the printable task cards while playing a game or the digital task cards to present to a group!
If I don’t have a ton of time, I pull up one of the MANY Baamboozles that target analogies. My students love Baamboozle, so everyone is happy if they see the familiar blue grid on the projector wall when they walk into speech!
You can also ask students to create their own analogies. This works best by giving them a target word relationship and ask them to come up with the first 3 words and 4 multiple choice solutions. Students can trade their analogies with peers, or you can solve them!
Similar to #3, students can create analogies using vocabulary words that are being targeted in class. They can look up the meaning of the target words and create analogies with them. The easiest way to do this would be to use synonym / antonym analogies, but the sky’s really the limit with this task.
If your students are still struggling with analogies, it can be helpful to just work on defining the relationship between two words. I love the website Random Word Generator for tasks like this. You can easily pull up a list of 50 random words and make up a word relationship “on the fly.” Provide students with a list of common word associations and let them determine how the two words are related!
I hope these ideas and strategies have made you feel confident about introducing analogies to your students! Don’t forget to check out my 100 Analogies and Teaching Materials to get you started with this excellent vocabulary skill!
