1. Teaching Vocabulary from Literature Using News Sources to Teach Domain-Specific Words Teaching Shades of Meaning

Why Context Matters

Imagine yourself facing forward, repeatedly bending your knees, and then jumping as you extend your arms, pushing upward at a 45 degree angle. This might seem to be a pointless exercise until you are handed a basketball and learn that this motion prepares you to make foul shots and earn your team points.
Or, imagine yourself viewing a screen on which a woman has tears streaming down her face. You would likely wonder why she is crying. Are her tears from the loss of someone? Are they tears of joy or relief? Is she in physical pain? Until you see the full situation that explains her tears, you do not understand the reason for them.
As these examples show, a person's limited knowledge prevents one from fully understanding how a single aspect of the situation functions within the framework of the scene. Likewise, learning vocabulary words outside of the context in which they are used prevents a person from fully understanding how the word functions within the framework of our language. To best understand a word, knowing its context, or circumstances, is key.
When determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word, it is often helpful to see the word used in a sentence and to find clues within the sentence that suggest the word's meaning. For example, consider this sentence:
The radiance of the electric light display almost blinded the audience.
To determine the meaning of the word 'radiance,' one can identify other words such as 'electric,' 'light,' and 'blinded' as clues. Considering the word's part of speech, a noun, also helps to determine meaning.
Avid reading is probably one of the larger determinants of vocabulary success. The more often you see a word in context, the more likely the word will find its way into your internal lexicon. Based on the context of the previous sentence, can you determine the meaning of 'lexicon?' If you thought 'dictionary' or 'word list,' that is correct. As people build up their vocabulary banks, they will encounter many unknown words, so to help make those meanings stick, there are some key methods for successful comprehension and retention.