Using context clues in word recognition and comprehension
1970; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1936-2714
Autores Tópico(s)Reading and Literacy Development
Resumoundoubtedly every reader who comes to reading with a pre vious knowledge of the mother tongue makes some use of context in word recognition and comprehension. Out of the thousands of words each person knows and uses, relatively few have actually been taught or learned through consulting a dictionary; context has supplied the rest. Through the use of what Bond and Tinker (1967) call expectancy clues, an individual comes to understand most of these words as meaning simply what they to mean because they have regularly occurred within a certain context or setting. Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky sentences are a good example ? Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Even nonsense words like these seem to fall into typical sentence structure and to yield some degree of meaning, as long as they appear within logical, sensible context. Finally, cloze pro cedures, wherein each nth word is deleted and then replaced by the reader, give an insight into the use of context, with most readers able to replace half or more of all the deleted words in material they are able to understand. At this level, then, the use of context becomes essentially an automatic act?primarily an artifact of the reader's background of language experience?with little mental manipulation of the adja cent discourse necessary. Thus, little direct instruction by the teach er is needed here, beyond perhaps an occasional admonition to ask yourself what word or meaning ought to make sense at this point. At other times, however, particularly as students progress in school and begin to encounter mature, technical, content-oriented reading materials, a different kind of contextual aid begins to appear. This occurs when an author or editor, consciously antici pating that a new word will be troublesome, purposely provides helpful context. Here the reader faces a true, deliberate context clue?the sort of aid he will continue to encounter throughout all his adult reading life?and here he must know specifically how to
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