What do you usually do when you come to a word you do not know while reading?
Do you a) look it up in the dictionary?
b) ask your teacher?
c) ask a friend?
d) try to guess what it means?
Advantages of guessing
It is fast because you don’t have to interrupt your reading.
It helps your comprehension because you stay focused on the general sense of what
you are reading.
It helps you remember words within their contexts.
It allows you to enjoy your reading more because you don’t have to stop often.
When you try to guess the meaning of an unknown word, you use the text surrounding the word
–the context– to provide you with clues. Sometimes you can guess the meaning of a word from
other words within the sentence but sometimes you may need to read several sentences in
order to find the clues