In this study the aim is to find out what methods teachers in Science, Social Science and Swedish usewhen working with new and complex words in grades 7-9 in a Swedish school. The aim is also tofind out how the teachers reflect on this, and how they work with students with special needs. Threeteachers were observed and interviewed. The results show a variety of methods being used, often theones preferred by the teachers themselves, and methods that these teachers believe are suitable formost students, including those with learning disabilities. There is however a lack of instruction whenit comes to teaching the students how to use contextual and morphological clues to find out themeanings of words. In conclusion, many students, mainly those with special needs would benefitfrom working explicitly with methods and strategies favouring word comprehension and learning.Implementing such methods in schooling and education is therefore an important issue.