The best technique for fair comprehension is to "guess" the meaning of the word in the context of the sentence or passage where it is found. This can be done by substituting a synonym for that word that appears to work in that passage. Readers often do this as it would be tedious to look up every word in a dictionary. However, if you want to intentionally build your vocabulary, it is a good idea to choose some words to look up in the dictionary and record in a reading log/list.
