1. Examining the Surrounding Text
Using Context Clues
Examining the Surrounding Text

2. What Are Context Clues?
Context clues are hints that help you figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words.
To find context clues, look at the words, sentences, and paragraphs that surround the unfamiliar word.
When Mary was a child, her garrulous nature often got her in trouble. She didn’t like to sit quietly. She liked talking to people, and she could ramble on for hours about any topic—the weather, her dog’s odd habits, her favorite cereal . . .

3. Using Context Clues
To figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word, combine the context clues provided in the text with what you already know.
Clues from the Text
+ Clues from Your Head
Word’s Meaning

4. How to Use Context Clues
1. Clues from the Text
Look at the surrounding text. Ask yourself,
What type of text am I reading? What topic might this word relate to?
Do any of the surrounding words have similar meanings? Do they have different meanings? Is an example provided?
How is the word used in the sentence? What words could I substitute for it?

5. How to Use Context Clues
2. Clues from Your Head
Use what you already know. Ask yourself,
What are some words I think of when I look at this word?
What other words does this word sound like?
Does this word have any roots, prefixes, or suffixes whose meanings I know?

6. How to Use Context Clues
3. Word’s Meaning
Combine the clues from the text with the clues from your head to figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar word.
Refer to a dictionary or glossary to check the meaning of the word.

7. Let’s Practice
One suggested alternative to landfills is to burn the trash. In some states, large incinerators are used to burn garbage, and the heat that is generated is used to produce electricity. But this solution has drawbacks. Burning trash pollutes the air with dioxin and mercury, which are highly poisonous. Furthermore, burning does not completely solve the landfill problem. Leftover ash produced by burning is often highly toxic, and it still has to be buried somewhere.
from “The U.S. Has a Garbage Crisis” by William Dudley
From "The U.S. Has a Garbage Crisis" from The Environment: Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion by William Dudley. Copyright © by Greenhaven Press, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

8. Let’s Practice Clues from the Text: Clues from Your Head:
Word’s Meaning:
The word is related to garbage disposal because this passage is from an article about the garbage crisis in the U.S. The text indicates that incinerators are used to “burn the trash” and to “burn garbage.” Incinerators also generate heat that can be used to produce electricity, and they produce ash.
Incinerators looks and sounds like incinerate, which means “to burn.” It has the suffix –or, which means “a person or thing that does something.”
Incinerators are devices or machines that burn trash. +

9. The Industrial Revolution
On Your Own
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution caused dramatic changes in how textiles were made. Before the Industrial Revolution, spinning thread was a slow process. Weavers had to employ several workers to spin the thread they needed to make cloth.
In 1770, James Hargreaves, an Englishman, invented the spinning jenny—a small, hand-powered machine that could produce several threads at one time. The previous year, the Englishman Richard Arkwright invented the water frame—a large, water-powered spinning wheel that could produce dozens of threads at one time. These two machines made it possible to produce cloth cheaply and quickly.

10. The End