Institute for the Professional Development of Adult Educators
Using Context Clues with Signal Words
When you come across an unfamiliar word in a text, do you skip it and move on? Practice using context clues to identify words you don't know with a thorough set of language arts lessons. The resource reinforces close reading and critical...
Curated OER
Using Context Clues
Teach your third graders how to find the meanings of words using context clues. Using this reading lesson, discuss how readers can find the meaning of a word by using the sentences around it. They then complete a worksheet in which they...
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Using Words as a Way into Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief
Use the Visual Thesaurus to predict the subject matter of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief. A pre-reading activity encourages middle schoolers to use context clues and word meaning to discover what the book is about. After they...
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Continued Close Reading of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle: Text-Dependent Questions and Vivid Words and Phrases
In the third activity from this unit based on the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, learners focus on using specific details from the text-to-answer questions about the habitat of bullfrogs. While reading the text, young scholars are...
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Reading in Context: The Diary of Anne Frank
Step into the hopeful and tragic world of Anne Frank with this lesson on reading in context. After complete a variety of activities related to the first two scenes of The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders participate in a read aloud to...
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Lesson 2:Context Clues
Using The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin by Bobbie Kalman, second graders practice defining unfamilar words with context clues. They come across new vocabulary words and read the entire sentence and the sentence before to find the...
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Using Context Clues
Middle schoolers receive a handout that lists the five types of context clues. The class divides up into groups of three or four, and each group chooses five unfamiliar words. They write a multiple-choice question for each of their five...
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Continued Close Reading of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle: Text-Dependent Questions and Vivid Words and Phrases
As 3rd graders continue reading Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, they focus on the concepts of predator and prey in the fifth lesson plan of this unit. Scholars further develop their ability to answer questions using evidence from the text...
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Vocabulary Instructional Routine: Multiple Meaning Words in Context
Tackle multiple-meaning words with your youngsters using this scaffolded instructional activity which features a detailed script. Begin with the word shoulder, using context clues to help scholars understand the meaning. Next, they...
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Reading Comprehension: Context Clues
Fifth graders use context clues to help them understand unknown words. In this context clues lesson, 5th graders practice identifying context clues on a worksheet, then work with a peer to write their own story. Stories are peer edited...
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Introduce: Comprehension Monitoring using About Trees
As scholars begin reading more difficult text, they need to acquire an arsenal of comprehension strategies. Here are few helpful ones to guide new readers through the informational text About Trees, which is linked here for printing....
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Context Clues
Work on context clues with your ninth graders in this lesson, which focuses on identifying and analyzing clues to define unfamiliar words. They identify context clues in a passage to recognize words they haven't seen before, and then...
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Juan Verdades
Cement comprehension skills using the strategies in this activity. After reading the story, Juan Verdades by Joe Hays, learners use context clues to answer questions, identify main ideas and details, and sequence events.
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Using Synonyms and Explanations as Context Clues
How can context clues help your young readers understand material better? Focusing on synonyms and explanations as ways to determine word meaning, this activity encourages your class to find context clues within a sentence. An attached...
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Using Context
Teams practice decoding and using context strategies to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. After verifying the meanings of words through the use of dictionaries, the Internet, thesauruses, and other sources, learners write the...
Prestwick House
Vocabulary in Context: Inside the World of Wizards
Enter the world of Harry Potter and learn new vocabulary at the same time. A high-interest reading passage provides insight into the history of Harry Potter. Follow-up activities incorporate key vocabulary strategies, such as using...
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Point of View: Comparing Esperanza's and Isabel's Perspectives About Life in the Camp (Chapter 7: "Las Cebollas/Onions")
Explore point of view and more with a Common Core-designed instructional activity. Learners experience different points of view by representing one of two characters from Esperanza Rising during a partner discussion. They must use...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Language Analysis Based on Stave 1
Class members meet the original scrooge, the Dickens character whose name has become synonymous with a cold-hearted, tight-fisted, miser. Using the provided worksheet, readers closely examine context clues to determine the meanings of...
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Vocabulary: Multiple Meaning Words in Context
Learners use context clues to define words with multiple meanings. After extensive practice with their teacher, learners read through six sentences, they then identify a word with a multiple meaning, and determine its meaning based on...
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Child Safety
Explore reading comprehension and child safety in this young adult literacy lesson. High schoolers practice using context clues to figure out word meanings after observing a teacher model this process. They read an article about child...
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Context Clues and Idioms
Kids practice using five types of context clues (definition, synonym, antonym, example, and general) to decode idiomatic language.
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Hyperbole and Idiom
Seventh graders use context clues to determine the figurative meaning of idioms and hyperboles. They practice writing idioms and hyperboles in sentences about real life situations around them. This lesson is a good way to improve variety...
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Mid-Unit Assessment and Discussing Themes in Esperanza Rising: (Chapter 9: "Las Ciruelas/PLums")
Give this skills-based assessment halfway through your unit on Esperanza Rising. After a brief review, class members take the test, which asks them to show that they know how to analyze the novel independently. They are asked to...
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Introducing New Vocabulary Words
Using context clues, synonyms, antonyms, dictionaries, and original sentences, middle schoolers work through a new list of vocabulary words. A SMART board file guides them through the process of learning and reinforcing the words. After...