Context Clues are never to be set aside and disregarded in any grade taught…yet so often we give and “give” the definition rather than leading them to discover it on their own. Try making yourself overdo it for a week. Stop after every decent vocabulary word and have students search:1.words 2. phrases 3. sentence meaning 4. paragraph meaning
…around the chosen one. Lead them into the right direction at first and let them pick up on the skill with modeling and practice. Key words: 1. modeling the way to figuring out the word aloud and 2. letting them practice it individually and partners or in small groups.
And most important, as the weeks go by after that, remember to let the take their time picking apart (dissecting) the words, phrases, sentence, and paragraph to find the meaning of the word.
The next lesson that will no doubt present itself soon will be dissecting for “which” meaning of the word it is meaning. Multiple meaning words should be focused on about two weeks after teaching basic context clues to build on how to dissect them as well.
So in review, teach true context clues till you are blue in the face one week, next week keep modeling and giving wait time for them to practice, next week introduce multiple meaning words. You can do this in mini-lesson form to not take away from other objectives other than the first day. You will want to commit a good twenty minutes to the first introduction so to model and practice, model and practice.
ELA On The Move 