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Vocabulary Decoding Strategies

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Vocabulary Decoding Strategies

Use word parts, context clues and known words to work out unfamiliar vocabulary. For each answer, show the clue or reasoning that helped you.

The coastal clean-up challenge

Read the message, then answer the questions. You do not need a dictionary. The class reached the beach just after sunrise. A volunteer handed each group a bucket and gloves. Near the dunes, they found a fragment of blue plastic tangled in seaweed. It was small, but it had a sharp edge, so Maia placed it carefully in the bucket. A sign warned that rubbish could contaminate the water. One group recorded the debris they collected: bottle tops, food wrappers and fishing line. Their tally was incomplete until they checked the far end of the beach. By midday, the teams had removed an astonishing amount of litter. The work was tiring, yet everyone felt determined to return next month.

1.Use the sentence clues to choose the closest meaning of fragment: “We found a fragment of blue plastic … It was small, but it had a sharp edge.”

A whole object
A small broken piece
A type of seaweed
A container for rubbish

2.In the sign’s warning, what does contaminate mean? Quote or describe the clue that helped you decide.

3.Break incomplete into its meaningful parts. What does the prefix in- contribute, and what does the whole word mean?

4.Which strategy best helps decode volunteer in the first paragraph? Choose one, then explain your choice using the sentence.

Use the surrounding action and object clues
Look for a prefix that means “before”
Assume it names a type of beach
Ignore the word and sentence

5.The word astonishing is related to astonish. Which meaning fits the sentence “an astonishing amount of litter”?

Very surprising or impressive
Carefully hidden
Not important
Easy to carry

6.Match each word from the message to the word part or clue that helps explain it.

determined
volunteer
debris

Firmly decided to keep going
A person who chooses to help
Scattered pieces of waste or broken material

7.What does re- usually mean in return? Use that meaning to explain what the clean-up teams plan to do next month.

8.Which detail best supports the meaning “determined” for the teams?

They reached the beach after sunrise.
They found a fragment of plastic.
They felt tired but planned to return next month.
A sign warned about the water.

9.A student says incomplete means “inside complete”. Explain why this is not the best interpretation in this passage. Name the clue or word-part strategy you would use instead.

10.Choose one of these words—fragment, contaminate, astonishing—and write a new sentence that makes its meaning clear without defining it directly.

11.When you meet an unfamiliar word, describe two decoding strategies you could try and explain when each would be useful.