1.3 Strategies During Reading

Look Up New Words

Most of the time when you read, you can figure out an unknown word by the context of the other words around it. You can use context clues. For example:

The steak was chewy as leather, so I cut it into small pieces using a fork and aen cooto.

(Did you guess that aen cooto is a knife? If so, you are right! You used the context clues and learned a little Michif too! It is the language of the Métis.)

But sometimes this does not work. In these cases, use a dictionary or do an Internet search of the word (with adult approval).

Also, sometimes an interesting topic might come up and you want to learn more about it. It never hurts to research background information to get a deeper understanding about what you are reading.