Correct Response: A. Grouping words related to a text based on conceptual categories and the words' associative meanings helps deepen students' understanding of the vocabulary. Discussing and justifying connections among the words further enhances students' understanding of the words and promotes retention of new words. Option B is incorrect because, while exploring the etymology of target vocabulary words can also be an effective strategy for deepening students' understanding of the words, the activities described in the scenario did not involve exploration of word derivations. Nor did they involve using semantic or syntactic clues from the text to verify words' meanings (D). Option C is incorrect because studying the conceptual connections among key vocabulary in a text is not likely to enhance students' understanding of the text's structure.