Lesson 1E - Introduction to Context Clues

Lesson 1E Overview

In Lesson 2, we will begin exploring poems, narratives, memoirs, and nonfiction writing on our theme, Challenges and Hope. As a preview, you will read an informational text (which is a true/nonfiction piece of writing) with some good tips for handling stress.

As you read, you will practice the active reading strategies you learned in Lesson 1.

First, let’s preview some of the new vocabulary you will come across in “Coping Mechanisms,” by the CommonLit Staff.

We will begin by using context clues to see if you can figure out the meaning of the words below, even if you have never seen the words before.

Simply using a dictionary to look up words you don’t know is a good strategy for understanding literature, but there are other things you can do too. You can find out a lot about what a word means just from its placement in the sentence.

 Apply

Look at each sentence, below, from your first reading assignment, “Coping Mechanisms.” In the exercise below, read each sentence, then use context clues to try to define the word in bold.  When you think you've got it, click the card to flip over and see the answer:

As suggested in the coming week, practice active reading strategies on something you read. Remember that it can be a book you are reading for fun, a short reading assignment for a class, or a longer reading task. Then, select at least three pages from that reading. Practice each of the reading responses at least once for each page — predicting, reacting, questioning, connecting, and evaluating.

If you take your time with this activity, you will see how using active reading strategies helps you better understand and connect with a passage. The use of these strategies will be really helpful in this course to ensure stronger reading comprehension. This will make difference in your performance in both assignments and assessments. They will also help you discover that reading is FUN!