If I overhear a part of a conversation at the next table in a restaurant where a woman says she pushed her brother off the bridge, I am likely to want to call the authorities.  But if I had heard the part of the conversation before that, I would know that she and her husband had been discussing mischievous things they did as children and that the bridge she was referring to was only about ten feet above the lake where she and her brother spent their summers.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right CONTEXT for making a sound conclusion about what I heard.

Context refers to the words or sentences that surround a particular word, idea or passage which either greatly influence or outright define it.  In reading, it is especially important to master the skill of figuring out a new word’s definition by paying attention to the words before and after it. 

There are four types of context clues that are important when trying to either discover the main idea of a paragraph or understand an unfamiliar word in a sentence: Definition or Restatement, Synonym, Antonym/Opposite/Contrast, and Example or Explanation.

Because of its importance in and out of the classroom, context is introduced early in a child’s education. For example, the primary grades learn context thematically, such as through Dolch words definitions, math definitions or science definitions and context games. As kids in grades 3-5 are encouraged to read chapter books, they are taught context not only through subject-specific materials like science words definitions but also as it relates to books they may be reading in class, including Tom Sawyer vocabulary games or Bridge to Terabithia vocabulary games. At the middle school level, it becomes particularly important for kids to determine the context of FCAT math vocabulary definitions correctly just as high school students must be familiar with the SAT math vocabulary definitions, for a thorough understanding of how to use SAT context clues is crucial.

Whatever the level, learning about context is as important to discovering the main idea in a paragraph or understanding vocabulary in context as it is to making inferences in a real-life situation. Fun online games, such as the ones on Vocabulary.co.il  are an excellent way to practice one’s context and definitions abilities.