Context Clues Reviews
Learning
words in context helps us remember their definition. Vocabulary knowledge can
be acquired gradually and incrementally in a myriad of contexts through
repeated exposures, Kusumarasdayti (2003: 3,4). Also, we will discover that
learning words in context helps us remember the meaning of the words, McGraw (2008).
A
good way to make sense of an unfamiliar word is to look at the context: the other
words in the sentence and other sentences in the paragraph that might.give
clues to the meaning of the word, Dougal (2000: 4). Context clues have a powerful effect on
students’ comprehension of words and sentences. Context clues are the syntactic
(structural) and semantic (meaning) clues that help a reader to identify an
unknown or difficult word. They are the “hints” about the meaning or
pronunciation of an unknown word based on the words, phrases, or sentences that
surround it. Syntactic clues relate to the sentence structure or grammar of the
English language. For example, in the sentence, I can ride a ____, the
syntax, or the way the sentence is structured, indicates that the missing word
must be a noun. It would not be structurally correct to say, I can ride a
jumping. That sentence does not “sound right”.
Semantic
clues relate to the accumulated meaning of the sentence. In the previous
example, I can ride a ____, the syntax required the word to be a noun.
However, it cannot be just any noun. Semantics narrows the possible word
choices to those nouns that would fit with the meaning of the sentence. It
would not “make sense” to say, I can ride a tangerine. The semantics
or meaning of the sentence dictates that
the missing word must be something that can be ridden. Context clues are useful
in a number of ways.
Although
context clues play an important role in effective reading, research also
confirms that the use of context clues is limited for purposes of word
learning. The use of context alone will rarely lead to the identification of an
exact word. It will narrow the possibilities; however, the reader must
orchestrate or cross-check, the use of the visual, graphophonic information
about the word (phonics/decoding strategy), the structure of the sentence
(syntax), and the meaning of the sentence (semantics) to determine the exact
word in a text.
Association
and oral repetition are powerful memory tools. If we are like most people, we
will discover that from now on, we will remember the meaning of travesty used in this example. We
applied the memory devices of placing the word in context, making mental
associations with our own experience or information we already know, and
repeating the word or phrase out loud. According to Hill (2008: 4) state 5
types of context clue :
1.
Synonym and definition
2.
Contrast clue
3.
Example clue
4.
General sense
5.
Clue from another sentence