Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2016
Reading context clues and solving the puzzle
Decoding versus reading
When you are reading and get stuck on a word, skip it. Ask yourself whether the rest of the sentence makes sense without it. Can you understand the sentence without knowing what that word means? When you read, don’t expect to know what every single word means. No one expects you to be a human dictionary! But, if you don’t understand the writer’s message and you need to understand what the word means, then try this. See if you can figure out what the word means in context. You may have heard your teachers tell you to use the context or the context clues. Context clues are the words around the word you are trying to decipher.
Sometimes the writer will tell you what the word means by restating the meaning directly after the word. For example,
She is a vivacious girl, full of life.
Vivacious means full of life.
Sometimes the writer will give you the definition in the next sentence. For example,
When creating a scrapbook, be sure to use archival paper. Archival paper will last forever because it is acid free and won’t fade or crumble.
In the first sentence, you stumbled over the word archival. But after you read the next sentence, you understood that archival paper is paper that can be preserved.
Writers also help you to understand a difficult word by giving you the opposite meaning. For example,
Mary was defiant, but her twin sister was cooperative.
You may not know what the word defiant means, but you understand cooperative. And, you know by the way the sentence is set up with the use of the word but that Mary is different from her twin. So, because you know that one sister is cooperative or helpful and easy to get along with, you infer that Mary is defiant or difficult to get along with.
Here is another example.
So far, the evidence presented at the trial has been insignificant, but her testimony proved to be poignant and marked a turning point in the trial.
You may not know what poignant means, but you know that insignificant means not important so poignant must mean important. The writer says that the testimony marked a turning point in the trial, which means something important happened at the trial so the poignant testimony must have been important.
Let’s Practice!
Read the following sentences. Using the context clues strategies to define the words flepid, abert,and vemoxly. Also, describe the strategies you used to figure out those words.
John was always flepid and excited when it came time to discuss politics.
Susan’s use of abert marked a change in the way scientists viewed laboratory testing. Abert, a part vinegar and part salt solution, was a remarkable way to see faster results.
Because of his disorganized locker, uncombed hair, and generally sloppy appearance, everyone was shocked when Ryan came to school dressed so vemoxly.
Guess what? Those words are nonsensical! There are no such words as flepid, abert, and vemoxly. But, I wanted you to see that even if a word looks really strange to you and you have never heard or seen it before, you can still figure out what it means.
Let’s Practice!
Read the following passage about artist Faith Ringgold. There are three sentences in italics. Within each of those three sentences, there is a word that is underlined. When you see those three sentences and the three words, use the context clues discussed earlier in this chapter to assign meaning to the difficult word so that you can understand the sentence in the text.
Art and English Selection: “The Powerful Work and Words of Faith Ringgold” by Julie Strawhacker
Faith Ringgold’s art and words, both written and spoken, have a powerful effect upon any person who is fortunate enough to experience them, myself included. In 1993, after hearing Maya Angelou read her poem at President Clinton’s inauguration and seeing Ringgold’s art quilt called Tar Beach, I was inspired to create a quilt of my own using Angelou’s words. The quilt contains the poem within its border and faces of people from different racial backgrounds painted as petals of intertwining flowers in the fabric pattern in its center. I was presented with the opportunity to meet Faith Ringgold for the first time on April 3, 1995, as she was introduced to me, first by the flyer I had received in my painting class at Ball State University, announcing her visit, and then later by name as she shared her time discussing my work with me. I immediately felt Faith Ringgold’s presence; the presence of a proud and confident woman, like no other I had known before. It filled the room and me with a powerful energy. [Sentence 1]
I waited for my turn, took a deep breath, and shared with Ringgold how her unique way of creating the Tar Beach had inspired my work. She, in return, expressed her approval of my quilt and the admiration she had for the work of Maya Angelou and thanked me for sharing my quilt with her. The apprehension I felt before she spoke was immediately erased and replaced with admiration and gratitude. I will always remember her gentle demeanor as she listened, speaking with a quiet kindness that was meant only for me. [Sentence 2] I greatly admire Faith Ringgold for her sincere kindness to me as a young artist, and also for her conviction as a black female artist who has the courage to speak with honesty and great wisdom. [Sentence 3] Never have I heard someone speak so candidly to a group of art students and teachers, including myself. The slides of her work, along with her words, provoked questions within me while providing some answers that had been missing from my limited education of United States History, specifically the gaps involving the struggles of African American people. I have been educated and emotionally changed because of Faith Ringgold.
Ringgold has found much success as an artist, including receiving more than seventy-five awards and seventeen honorary doctorates of fine arts, both National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim fellowships and having her work in the collections of the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Today, her work appears in a variety of public places as a result of various commissions, some of which include murals that reside in the 125th Street Harlem subway station, a Brooklyn school library, a Women’s House of Detention on Riker’s Island, and Bronx College and a quilt in the Crown Heights Public Library.
1. What is the difficult word in sentence 1?
✵ What does that word mean?
✵ What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?
2. What is the difficult word in sentence 2?
✵ What does that word mean?
✵ What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?
3. What is the difficult word in sentence 3?
✵ What does that word mean?
✵ What context clues strategy did you use to assign the word meaning?
Let’s Practice!
Now, it’s your turn to be the writer. Create three new words. Have some fun and make them really strange. Place each made-up word into three different sentences. Use the context clues strategies outlined earlier.
1. Give the definition within the sentence.
2. Give the definition in the next sentence.
3. Give the opposite definition within the sentence.
4. See if your friends can “read” your words and tell you what they mean.
Deciphering the dictionary
How many times have you asked your teacher what a word means and the teacher said, “Look it up!” So, after you finally find the dictionary, you aren’t sure how to find the word and so you ask someone else in the class for help. Has this happened to you? Using a dictionary can be confusing, but it is an important and necessary skill that you will use forever. Even if you look online and not in an actual book, you still must understand what you are looking at. If you don’t know how to use a dictionary, finding the word can be difficult, and then when you do find the word, the entry can look like it was written in a foreign language.
Inside the dictionary
Grab a dictionary or use an online dictionary, and follow along with me. Words in a text dictionary are arranged alphabetically. In the top left corner of each page of a dictionary, you will see the first word on that dictionary page. In the top right corner of each dictionary page, you will see the last word on that dictionary page. If you use this structure, you can see the alphabetical range of words on those two pages and can more quickly find the word you are looking for. The larger dictionaries with many words have alphabet tabs on the side so that you can more easily access the first letter of the word. For online dictionaries, you simply have to type in the word you want defined and it will appear. However, both online and text dictionaries use the same format for entering words.
Look at the following entry from www.dictionary.com for the word decipher, which appears in the following sentence: Sheila deciphered the math problem by using the same method as the teacher had shown them in class.
de•ci•pher (dĭ-sī'fər)
tr.v. de•ci•phered, de•ci•pher•ing, de•ci•phers
1. To read or interpret (ambiguous, obscure, or illegible matter).
2. To convert from a code or cipher to plain text; decode.
de•ci'pher•a•ble adj.
de•ci'pher•er n.
de•ci'pher•ment n.
Let me help you decipher the dictionary entry for decipher. After the word decipher, in parentheses, is the pronunciation guide: (dĭ-sī'fər). The tr.v means it is a transitive verb. Transitive verbs have a direct object; in other words, you can answer who or what after the verb. After the tr.v are common but different versions of the word decipher. And the numbers 1. and 2. precede the definitions of the word. Below the 1. and 2. are again other versions of the word that are commonly used. For your purpose of looking up the meanings or denotations of words, we will concern ourselves with the part of speech, the commonly used versions of the word, and the definitions.8
Parts of speech
There are eight parts of speech. Most of the words you look up will be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. Remember, nouns are persons, places, things, or ideas; verbs are words that take action either in your head or with your body; adjectives give extra information about or describe nouns; and adverbs give extra information about or describe verbs. You need to know the part of speech so that you can identify if the word is the subject or object, if the word is tying the subject to an action, or if the word is describing. For example, since you know that decipher is a verb, you can look to see what is being deciphered, which helps you to understand that decipher is an action. When you look up the word, first see what part of speech it is and then reread the word in the sentence.
Versions of the word
The word you are looking up may not appear in the dictionary exactly as it does on your page. Make sure you are looking up the correct word by reviewing the different versions of the word.
Definitions
Finally, read the definitions. Often the first definition is the best definition because it is the most commonly used definition. But, sometimes you will read a definition that simply repeats the word you are looking up, which doesn’t help! So you must read on until you read a definition that makes sense to you.
