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This section has four chapters. The first three match the three reading objectives: Word Structure and Context Clues, Main Idea and Supporting Details, and Basic Comprehension Skills. The fourth chapter pulls everything together and shows how the reading skills turn into practical classroom support. If it has been a while since you studied reading, take your time with the examples. Each one is built to show you not only the right way to think about a question but also the wrong turns test takers often make.

This chapter covers the Word Structure and Context Clues objective. You will learn how to break words into prefixes, roots and suffixes, how to use the words around an unfamiliar word to figure out its meaning, how to recognize figurative language, and how to handle words that have more than one meaning or that sound alike. These skills help you answer vocabulary questions on the test, and they are the same skills you will teach students who get stuck on a hard word.

Many English words are built from smaller pieces, much like a house is built from bricks. A root carries the core meaning. A prefix attaches to the front and changes the meaning. A suffix attaches to the end and usually changes the part of speech or adds a shade of meaning. When you know the common pieces, you can make a strong guess about thousands of words you have never seen.

Consider the word unbreakable. The root is break. The prefix un- means "not." The suffix -able means "can be." Put together, unbreakable means "cannot be broken." You did not need a dictionary; you needed the parts.

Not every word that begins with the same letters actually contains a prefix. The letters re at the start of reread are a prefix meaning "again," but the letters re at the start of ready are just part of the word. Always check that the leftover piece is a real word or a recognizable root.

Common Prefixes and Their Meanings

Memory Aid: Notice that several prefixes all mean "not": un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, dis- and non-. The spelling often matches the first letter of the root. Words beginning with l take il- (illogical), words beginning with r take ir- (irresponsible), and words beginning with m or p often take im- (immature, impatient).

Common Trap: The prefix in- does not always mean "not." In words like inside, inhale and include, it means "in" or "into." Read the whole word and the sentence before deciding. Inflammable, for example, means "able to catch fire," not "unable to burn."

Suffixes often tell you what job a word does in a sentence. A word ending in -ly is usually an adverb. A word ending in -tion or -ness is usually a noun. This helps on both reading and writing questions.

Common Suffixes and Their Meanings

Notice that -er has two jobs. In teacher it means "one who," and in taller it means "more." The sentence tells you which one is at work.

Many English roots come from Latin and Greek. You do not need to memorize hundreds, but the most frequent ones show up again and again in school texts and on tests.

Common Greek and Latin Roots

Long words frighten many young readers, but most are just familiar parts linked together. A good routine is to cover the prefix, cover the suffix, read the root, and then put the word back together. For the word unpredictable, a student would read un, then pre, then dict, then able. Once the pieces are read separately, the whole word comes much more easily.

A second routine is to split words into syllables using vowel patterns. Every syllable has one vowel sound. In a word like basket, the two consonants in the middle split apart (bas-ket). In a word like tiger, a single consonant between vowels often goes with the second syllable (ti-ger), which makes the first vowel long. In a word like table, the consonant plus -le at the end forms its own syllable (ta-ble). You do not need to know the technical names of these patterns for the test, but you should recognize that breaking a word into syllables or meaningful parts is a strong decoding strategy.

Exam Tip: When a test question asks which strategy would best help a student read a long, unfamiliar word, look for answers that involve breaking the word into prefixes, roots, suffixes or syllables. Answers that tell the student to skip the word or simply wait for the teacher to say it are usually weaker.

Context clues are hints in the surrounding sentence or paragraph that point to a word's meaning. Good readers use them constantly, often without noticing. On the test, many vocabulary questions give you a sentence with an unusual word and ask what it means "as used in the sentence." The answer is almost always hiding in the words nearby.

Types of Context Clues

Each clue type appears in one of the following original sentences. Read the sentence, find the clue, then decide on the meaning.

"When the principal asked for feedback about the new lunch schedule, most teachers were polite and vague. Ms. Rowe, however, was candid. She said plainly that the schedule left her students only twelve minutes to eat and that it needed to change."

Many common words have several meanings. The word bark can be the sound a dog makes or the outer covering of a tree. The word present can be a gift, the current time, or the action of showing something to an audience. Context decides which meaning applies.

Consider the word bank in three sentences:

"We sat on the grassy bank and watched the river." Here bank means the land beside a river.

"Mom deposited her paycheck at the bank." Here bank means a business that holds money.

"You can bank on Grandpa to arrive early." Here bank means "rely on."

Exam Tip: Questions about multiple-meaning words often ask which sentence uses a word with the same meaning as in a given sentence. Decide the meaning in the given sentence first, put it into your own words, and then test each other sentence with that same meaning.

A synonym is a word with the same or nearly the same meaning (big and large). An antonym is a word with the opposite meaning (ancient and modern). The test may ask you to choose the best synonym for a word in context, which means you must pay attention to shades of meaning, not just the general idea.

Words that look or sound alike cause confusion for both students and adults. The terms can be tricky, so use the following table to keep them straight.

Homonyms, Homophones and Homographs

Memory Aid: "Phone" means sound, so homophones sound the same. "Graph" means write, so homographs are written the same. "Nym" means name, so homonyms share the whole name, both spelling and sound.

Common Trap: Many people use homonym loosely to cover all three types. On the test, read the definition offered in the question carefully. If the question says the words sound the same but are spelled differently, it is describing homophones.

Denotation is a word's dictionary meaning. Connotation is the feeling or association a word carries. Words can share a denotation but differ sharply in connotation.

Consider three words that all describe someone who does not spend much money: thrifty, frugal and stingy. Thrifty and frugal sound positive, suggesting a wise saver. Stingy sounds negative, suggesting a selfish person who will not share. In the same way, curious and nosy both describe someone who wants to know things, but curious is positive and nosy is negative.

Connotation Examples

Connotation is important for questions about tone and author's attitude. If an author describes a new library as "a cramped, outdated building," the word choices signal disapproval even if the author never says "I dislike this library."

Figurative language uses words in ways that go beyond their literal meanings to create a picture, a feeling or emphasis. Students meet it in poems, stories and even everyday speech. The test may ask you to identify the type of figurative language or to explain what a phrase means.

Types of Figurative Language

Simile and metaphor are the two most often confused. Both compare, but a simile uses the words like or as, and a metaphor does not. "Jamal runs like a cheetah" is a simile. "Jamal is a cheetah on the track" is a metaphor.

Common Trap: Not every sentence with like or as is a simile. "I like pizza" and "She is as tall as her brother" are literal statements. A simile compares two things that are basically different, such as a person and an animal or a voice and honey.

Idioms deserve extra attention because they are especially hard for English learners and for students who interpret language literally. Some common idioms and their meanings:

"Break the ice" means to ease tension when people first meet.

"Hit the books" means to study.

"Under the weather" means feeling sick.

"Piece of cake" means very easy.

"Bite off more than you can chew" means to take on more than you can handle.

"Let the cat out of the bag" means to reveal a secret.

Worked Example: Identify the figurative language and explain the meaning in this sentence: "By the end of the field trip, my feet were screaming at me to sit down."

Feet cannot literally scream, so this is not a literal statement.

The meaning is that the speaker's feet hurt badly and the speaker needed rest.

Result: The sentence uses personification to show that the speaker's feet were very sore.

Classroom Connection: When a student reads "The wind howled all night" and asks whether wolves were outside, you can explain that the author is using personification. Ask the student, "What does a howl sound like? Why would the author compare the wind to that sound?" This helps the student connect the figurative phrase to the image the author wanted, rather than simply giving the meaning.

Break unfamiliar words into prefixes, roots and suffixes; then check that your meaning fits the sentence.

Context clues come in five main types: definition, synonym, antonym, example and inference. Signal words such as however, or and such as point you to them.

For multiple-meaning words, the right meaning is the one that fits this sentence, not just any dictionary meaning.

Homophones sound alike, homographs are spelled alike, and homonyms share both spelling and sound.

Connotation is the feeling a word carries; it reveals an author's attitude.

Similes compare with like or as, metaphors compare directly, personification gives human traits to things, hyperbole exaggerates, and idioms mean something different from their literal words.