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Reading and Writing 6-8 / Week 04 / Tuesday
2/6
Week 04 · Word Choice and Tone

Tuesday

Context clues
// Every word casts a shade
⏱ about 20 min

Tuesday: Context Clues

Raven pins a Signal notice to the corkboard. "The garden cleanup notice. Rocket, read the second line."

Rocket reads it. "Volunteers should wear sturdy shoes. What does sturdy mean?"

"Keep reading," Raven says. "The notice tells you, if you look around the word."

He reads on. "Sturdy shoes, the kind that protect your feet from stones and roots." He stops. "Oh. Strong. Tough."

Nova circles the sentence with her light. "The clue was waiting right after the word," she says. "Clues often are."

"So I never have to stop at a hard word?" Rocket asks. Raven smiles. "You stop. Then you look around it."

Learn it: look around the word

A context clue is a word or phrase near an unknown word that points to its meaning.

Raven thinks aloud: "The text says the volunteers were weary and sat down, too tired to talk. So weary must mean very tired."

After you guess, read the sentence again with your meaning in place. If it still makes sense, you have it.

  • Definition clue: the sentence explains the word right there.
  • Example clue: the sentence gives examples of the word.
  • Contrast clue: a word like but or unlike shows the opposite.
  • Whole-sentence clue: the rest of the sentence or paragraph makes only one meaning fit.
WHICH KIND OF CLUE?
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
The path was slick, so slippery that Raven held the rail. Which clue type?
Rocket was restless, unlike Raven, who sat still for an hour. Which clue type?
The desk held tools: pencils, string, pins and tape. Which clue type?

Read it

Read it
Cleanup Day at the Garden
A Signal report from the Maple Street community garden, in the crew's neighborhood.
Saturday morning was brisk. The air was cool and quick, and everyone kept their jackets zipped.
Twelve neighbors arrived with rakes and gloves. A few came reluctant, dragging their feet and glancing back toward their warm porches.
By nine, nobody was reluctant anymore. The leaves were abundant, so many that the paths had disappeared under them.
Rocket raked a pile taller than the garden gate. Raven filled six bags and tagged each one with a card.
A small gray cat scurried along the fence, moving in quick short bursts, then vanished under the shed.
The hardest job was the old trellis, the wooden frame the vines had climbed all summer.
It leaned like a tired fence post. Three people had to coax it upright, easing it a little at a time with soft pushes.
By noon the volunteers were weary. They sat along the low wall, too tired to talk, and watched the clean paths.
Then Rocket stood up. "One more thing," he said, and he hung a Signal card on the gate.
It read: Thank you. The garden looks like spring already.
The leaves will be back next fall. So will the neighbors.
CHECK IT: WHAT DOES THE WORD MEAN?
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
In the passage, brisk means
Reluctant neighbors were
Abundant leaves means
When the cat scurried, it
CHECK IT: THE CLUES
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which clue told you what reluctant means?
Which word is defined by the phrase right after it: the wooden frame the vines had climbed?
By nine, nobody was reluctant anymore tells you the neighbors had become
Tagged each one with a card means Raven
Which word in the passage means very tired? Type the word.
Which word means to ease something gently into place? Type the word.
Which word describes the cool, quick morning air? Type the word.
SentenceTrue or false?
The passage is a Signal report about the crew's community garden.?
The volunteers stayed reluctant all morning.?
A trellis is a wooden frame that vines climb.?
The cat helped rake the leaves.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEBy nine nobody was reluctant. The passage defines trellis right after the word.
Try it
Find one word you do not know in anything you read today.
Before you look it up, write a guess from the words around it.
Then check. Were the clues enough?

Strangers become friends when you look around them. Tomorrow is Writing Lab, and words start to mean more than they say.

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