Understanding Context Clues: A Detective Approach, Study notes of Grammar and Composition

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Context Clues: You be

the Detective

Context Clues – What Are They?

• Context clues are bits of information from

the text that, when combined with prior

knowledge, allow you to decide the

meaning of unknown words in the story or

article you are reading.

• As a reader you must act similar to a

detective and put together clues from

sentences surrounding an unknown word

in order to make an intelligent guess as

to what the definition of a word is.

Still Wondering What a Context Clue Is?

 Click on the link below to watch a

video clip. Pay careful attention to

what the song tells you.

 When the video is over click the back

arrow  in the upper left hand

corner.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=qgaSmJKR9HM

Types of Context Clues Authors use many different types of context clues when writing texts. Three of these types are: Direct definition context clues Synonym context clues Antonym context clues

Synonym context clues are words around a difficult word that mean the same or nearly the same as the word. EXAMPLES:  After seeing the picture of the starving children, we felt compassion or pity for their suffering.  In this sentence the word pity tells us that compassion means to have understanding for.  Mary admonished her students and they knew they were in hot water for their actions.  In this sentence the words in hot water tell us that admonished means cautioned or scolded.

Antonym context clues are words around a difficult word that mean the opposite or nearly the opposite as the word. EXAMPLE:  Joe was reluctant to take the job of captain of the team. He was afraid that the time it would take would hurt his grades. On the other hand, Billy was eager for the chance to be the team captain.  In this sentence the words on the other hand and eager tell us that Billy feels the opposite of Joe, therefore, reluctant means uncertain or cautious.

Context Clues Practice Activity Your friend Ryan has moved to a new country and is learning a new language. Read what he wrote in his diary and see if you can figure out the meaning to the underlined words. Dear Diary, I overslept this morning. I had to eat my bowl of poof-poofs very quickly, and I almost missed the tramzam. When I got to school, I realized I had forgotten my zilgping. Luckily, Ms. Jutzi is very zoosh, and told me I could bring it tomorrow. After school, some friends and I played plingming. It s a new game I am learning. We scored 7 points and they only scored 5 points, so we were the zoiters! Dad says that next weekend we re going to the fladder. I can t wait! I love to swim and play in the sand. I hope I don t get a sunburn though. Well, I better go to bed soon. I don t want to wake up late again and miss my tramzam! Until tomorrow, Ryan

Directions It s time for some detective work. Take each word from Ryan s diary that is written in his new language and use the context clues in the text to figure them out!

You re doing terrific…keep going!  What could the word plingming mean? ►The sentences tell me it is a game Ryan and his friends play against each other and that points can be scored. What do you think it is? ►The most logical guess would be a sport such as basketball or soccer.  What could the word zoiters mean? ►The sentences tell me that Ryan s team scored 7 points while the other team scored less points. What do you think it is? ►The most logical guess would be that it means winners.

Almost there…  What could the word fladder mean? ►The sentences tell me that Ryan s dad said he could go there and when he gets there they will swim and play in the sand. Ryan also mentions not wanting a sunburn. What do you think it is? ►The most logical guess would be a lake or a beach.  And, remember, we already figured out the word tramzam probably means school bus.

Context Clues Pretest and Posttest Context Clues Pretest

• http://www.shsu.edu/~txcae/ Powerpoints/prepostest/ contextclues1pretest.html
• Context Clues Posttest
• http://www.shsu.edu/~txcae/ Powerpoints/prepostest/ cluesdefinepostest.html Use these two links to test your knowledge before and after using the activities that follow this page.

On Your Own Activities

• Quia Context Clues Activity
  • http://www.quia.com/pop/117579.html
• Study zone lesson and activity
  • http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/e4topic.cfm? TopicID=
• TV 411 Activity
  • http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/reading.cfm? str=reading&num=7&act=
• Word Clues Activity
  • http://wps.ablongman.com/ long_licklider_vocabulary_1/0,1682,11855-,00.html

You did it!

• You have successfully completed a study on context clues!
• Go out into the world and see what you can do with your new knowledge of how to decode words!