ABSTRACT
Students also make connections to their own background knowledge when deciding what a new word means. The word context, as it refers to word recognition or determining the meaning of words, appears approximately thirty-eight times in the K–12 Common Core English Language Arts Standards. The expectation that students should be able to use context to determine the meanings of words and phrases actually begins in first grade. Reading Standard 4 in Literature, Informational Text, History/Social Studies, and Science and Technical Subjects also focuses on the ability to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases when reading stories, poetry, drama, and nonfiction, including historical documents as well as scientific and technical materials. The ability to identify context clues also becomes highly important in the way new standardized assessments have been designed. Savvy readers almost subconsciously scan and analyze the surrounding text when they spot an unfamiliar word or phrase.
