Language Comprehension Interventions

Teaching students to use context clues to understand word meanings is a critical reading comprehension skill. If your student has difficulty understanding words while reading, or skips words in the text that he or she does not know, then you will want to intervene to support this skill. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to develop your student's understanding of defining vocabulary words in context. As you read, consider which of these interventions best align with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains.

Explicit Instruction

If you are intervening to support your students' ability to define vocabulary words in context, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:

• Explain the Skill/Concept. Define vocabulary words in context, and explain activity. ("When I am reading a text and I come across a word I don't know, it is important for me to stop and make sure I understand the definition based on the way the word is used in the sentence. This skill is called defining vocabulary words in context." "Today, we will be practicing skills that will help us define vocabulary words as we encounter them in a text.")
• Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about defining vocabulary words in context.  ("Listen as I read this sentence: 'The baby bird was habituated to living in trees, so it wasn't sure what to do when it fell out of the nest.' In this sentence, I don't know what the word habituated means. So, I'll try to figure it out. First, I can try using the sentence to figure it out I know that baby birds live in trees, so maybe habituated means live. I'll try that word in the sentence 'The baby bird was live to living...' No, that doesn't make sense. Maybe it means 'used to' because the bird fell out of the nest, and that was something new, which means it was used to living in trees does that make sense? 'The baby bird was used to living in trees. That makes sense. I think habituated means something like 'used to.'" )
• Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about what happens if you don't stop and figure out a word. ("If I read the sentence and I don't stop to figure out the word in the sentence, I might not know what is happening in the story. If I continue to read sentences without knowing the vocabulary words, I will be really lost when I get to the end of the page! It's important that I stop and see if I can figure out the vocabulary words I don't know as I read.")
• Practice the Skill. Engage in one or more of the activities below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try defining vocabulary words in context..")

Activity A: Contextual Clues 
Context clues is a foundational strategy that allows students to use clues from the text to define word meanings. If your student is having difficulty understanding words as she reads, teach Contextual Clues. Like all strategies, Contextual Clues can first be practiced whole group and then gradually released as the student learns to apply it as she reads her own text. The steps to teaching Contextual Clues, adapted from Heafner and Massey (2012), include:

1. Choose words. Identify ten target words that you want students to learn from a text they are reading.
2. Predict definition from background knowledge. Have students use the template to predict the meaning of the word.
3. Read the text. Direct students back to the text to read the line containing each target word. 
4. Predict definition from context. Have students revise their prediction based on reading the sentence in the text, and ask students to identify which type of context clues support their predictions.
5. Actual definition. Give (or have students look up) definition of word. 
6. Discuss. As a class, discuss how using context clues helps students understand definitions of words. 

Click here for a Contextual Clues Template

Lubliner, S. I., & Scott, J. A. (2008;2014;). Nourishing vocabulary: Balancing words and learning. Corwin Press.

Contextual Clues in Action
Give students a graphic organizer, and ask them to read the target words. Tell them to make a prediction about the word's definition based on their background knowledge. Then, have them read the text and revise their prediction. Afterwards, give students the actual definitions, and discuss as a class how contextual clues helps facilitate understanding. 
Note about context: Students are studying animal behavior, and the lesson utilizes this text.

Teacher: "Today, we will practice using contextual clues to learn the meanings of vocabulary words in the text. On your graphic organizer, read the words on the left-hand side, and make a prediction about what they mean, based on clues from their word parts, and your background knowledge. Then, read the text and revise your predictions in the second column. Finally, I will give you the actual definition, and we will discuss how contextual clues help us understand the meanings of words as we read." 

Teacher: "Let me show you how I use contextual clues for the first word. The word is structural adaptation. First, I will make a prediction based on word parts and my background knowledge. Well, I know that a structure is a building. I also remember learned that an adaptation is something an animal does, but I'm not exactly what it means. Since I don't know how these two pieces fit together, I'm going to write down what I do know." (Teacher writes in first column.) "Now, I'm going to read the text. Okay, I've just read the sentence that uses structural adaptation, so I will stop reading and revise my prediction. The sentence says 'An adaptation can be structural, meaning it is a physical part of the organism... An example of a structural adaptation is the way some plants have adapted to life in the desert.' Ah! That must be what it means. I'll write down, How some plants have adapted to life in the desert. Now, I'll look up the real definition, which is that a structural adaptation is the way an organism physically develops that is passed down from one generation to the next.' Ok, so let's talk about what I did: first, I used parts of the word part to make a prediction, and then I used the context and the examples in the book to make a prediction. Using text clues helped me understand more about the vocabulary word."

Contextual Clues Example PDF

Wilson, A. (2016). Contextual Clues Template. Copyright at Relay GSE. New York, NY:  Relay Graduate School of Education. Adapted from Heafner, T., & Massey, D. (2012). Targeted vocabulary strategies. Culver City, CA: Social Studies School Service.

Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught a lesson about how to use contextual clues to understand word meanings: 
     Teacher: "What are your contextual clues for understanding the word structural adaptation in the sentence?" 
     Student: "I don't know; it's like a building because it has the word structure." 

In such a case, what might you do? 

When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your students will make errors throughout the activity. Here are a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and some students might respond better to different types of feedback than others.

If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might try to adjust the activity so as best to meet your student's needs.