Choose a book for your middle school student to read. Find a book that will captivate his interest and that is appropriate for his skill level. If the book is too advanced, the student may be intimidated, but a book that is too easy will lose his interest.
Give the student a dictionary and notebook to write down words from the book that she does not know. Instruct her to looked up each word in the dictionary, and write down the words and their definitions in the notebook.
Ask the student to write sentences with the new words to be sure he fully understands the meaning of the new vocabulary words. Once the student is able to use the vocabulary in a new context, he will become familiar with it.
Copy a list of Latin and Greek roots onto index cards with black marker to make flash cards. Write the root word on one side and the meaning on the opposite side. Much of English is made up of Latin and Greek root words. Learning these roots will help students when they encounter new words. Rather than only learning individual vocabulary words, students will familiarize with roots such as "anti," which means against, and "derm," which means skin.
Place the cards into an old shoebox to play a game with the roots. Seat all the students in a circle on the floor. Ask a student to randomly choose a card. If she knows the meaning, she stays in the circle. If she doesn't, then she leaves the circle. The last student seated is the winner.