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Using Context Clues for Word Meaning

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Using Context Clues for Word Meaning

This lesson teaches how to use the words around an unfamiliar or multiple-meaning word to figure out its meaning in a sentence, with simple, concrete examples and picture-style diagrams.

Introduction

Some words are tricky because they have more than one meaning. The word "bat" can mean a flying animal or a piece of sports equipment. How do you know which one a sentence means? You look at the other words around it. These are called context clues, and they help you pick the right meaning.

Context clues are the words and ideas near an unfamiliar word. They help you figure out what that word means. You do not always need a dictionary. You can be a word detective and use clues that are already in the sentence.

Read this sentence: "The dog ran fast across the yard." If you did not know the word "yard," you could guess it is an outdoor space, because a dog runs across grass, not inside a house.

Some words have two or more meanings. These are called multiple-meaning words. The same word can mean very different things depending on the sentence. Here are some examples.

  • "Bat": a flying animal, or a stick used to hit a baseball.
  • "Bank": the side of a river, or a place that keeps people's money.
  • "Trunk": part of an elephant, part of a tree, or the back storage part of a car.
  • "Ring": a piece of jewelry worn on a finger, or the sound a bell makes.

When you see one of these words, stop and ask, "What is happening in this sentence?" The other words will tell you which meaning fits.

The bat flew out of the dark cave at night. Clue words: flew, cave, night Meaning: flying animal She swung the bat and hit the baseball hard. Clue words: swung, hit, baseball Meaning: sports equipment
The same word "bat" means something different in each sentence. The clue words tell you which meaning to pick.

Follow these simple steps when you meet a word with more than one meaning, or a word you do not know at all.

  • Read the whole sentence, not just the one word.
  • Look for clue words that tell you what is happening, like actions, places, or things nearby.
  • Try each possible meaning in the sentence and see which one makes sense.
  • Keep reading to see if later sentences give you even more clues.

For example, in the sentence "The kids sat on the bank and watched the ducks swim by," the clue words "sat," "ducks," and "swim" tell you that "bank" means the land next to water, not a place with money.

Context Clues: Words and ideas near an unfamiliar word that help you figure out its meaning.

Multiple-Meaning Word: A word that can mean more than one thing, like bat, bank, or ring.

Clue Words: The exact words in a sentence that give hints about what another word means.

Surrounding Sentence: The full sentence, or the sentences nearby, that a tricky word appears in.

Read short sentences with a multiple-meaning word, such as bat, bank, ring, or trunk, and circle the clue words that tell you which meaning fits. Try writing your own two sentences using the same tricky word with two different meanings, just like the bat example above.

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