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encourage students to use that knowledge, as well as the tools outlined below, as they move from oral
language to written language. Reading comprehension strategies develop a student’s critical thinking
skills by encouraging them to rely on the text, question what they read, and support opinions or responses
from the information given.

• Context: When the meaning of a difficult word is implied or inferred, readers can use
sentence structure and syntax to find context clues. Readers must look within, before, and
after the sentence in which the word is used.

• Restatement: Sometimes the meaning of a difficult word is clarified within a sentence.
Common words that signal restatement clues include: such as, or, otherwise known as,
which is, that is, some say, in other words.

• Comparison/Contrast: Sometimes a sentence will provide a comparison or a contrast
statement that helps the reader understand the meaning of an unknown word.

Common comparison clues include: like, similar to, as, also, same as, other.

Words that signal contrast clues include: but, although, unlike, however, rather than, on
the other hand, yet, as opposed to.

• Cause and Effect: Identifying cause-and-effect relationships in passages will help
students understand sentence structure as well the meaning of difficult words. One effective
way to have students identify cause and effect in a passage is to have them map the
relationships in a cause-and-effect chart.

Let’s take a look at how this information might be presented in a test question.

Question

In the following sentence, which context clue could the reader use to understand the word Proterozoic?

It was cold in the Proterozoic Age; why do you think they called it the Ice Age?

A Restatement

B Comparison

C Inference

D Contrast

Answer

The correct answer is A. Though Proterozoic Age is not explicitly defined, the author uses the signal word
"called" to introduce the more familiar term for the period, Ice Age. You might also want to note that the