Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

In this lesson plan which is adaptable for grades 3-12, students will use BrainPOP resources to learn about context clues and practice using context clues as a reading comprehension strategy.

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Students will:

  1. Use context clues as a comprehension strategy to determine the meaning of unknown words.

Lesson Procedure:

  1. Project the Worksheet for the class to see as they enter the classroom. Have students complete the Fill in the Blank portion as a warm up activity, either in writing or verbally with a partner.
  2. Talk with students about the strategies they used to figure out what each word means. Guide students to understand that using the other words in the sentence to help figure out an unknown word's meaning is called using context clues.
  3. Play the Context Clues movie for the class and talk with students about the strategies Tim explained.
  4. Pass out copies of the Graphic Organizer. Explain to students that as they conduct their reading assignment for the day, they will record five unknown words on the chart and the meaning of those words that they infer based on context clues. Provide time for students to read independently or in pairs and complete the graphic organizer.
  5. Allow students to use dictionaries or online dictionaries to check and record the meaning of their words. How accurate were their guesses? Can they now identify additional clues in the surrounding words that might have been helpful? Was it impossible to use context clues to find the meaning of any of the unknown words? What other reading comprehension strategies could be used instead?
  6. Tell students they will now have the chance to create a passage with an unknown word for a partner to figure out. Instruct students to make up a word and place it within the context of 2-3 sentences. Then have students trade papers with a partner and try to use context clues to figure out the meaning of the made-up word.
Filed as:  3-5, 6-8, 9-12, BrainPOP, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.6.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.7.4