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SLP · General Ed · ENL · Vocabulary

Semantic Feature Analysis

Type a goal, a skill, or what you’re working on today. We’ll generate three related words and walk the student through the semantic features of each — building deep word webs for retrieval and understanding.

Paste an IEP goal, name the skill, or just describe what the student needs to practice. Any phrasing works.

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Quick start

Tap a sample goal to jump in.

How this helps (research)

Semantic Feature Analysis (Boyle 2004, 2010; Coelho et al. 2000) strengthens lexical retrieval and deepens word knowledge by mapping the semantic features of each target word — category, function, location, appearance, parts, synonyms, antonyms — into an interconnected web. The deeper the network, the more reliably the student can access the word.

Three related target words per session intentionally build generalization: Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013) show that Tier 2 vocabulary learning is strongest when students encounter the same features applied across multiple exemplars. Marzano (2004) supports the same principle with academic content vocabulary.

Typical IEP goal this targets: “Given a target word, [Student] will produce at least 3 semantic features (category, function, attribute) with 80% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions.”