3. What on earth does that mean? When we read we often come across words and phrases that we don’t know or don’t understand. This is normal. It is also important because if we didn’t learn new words and phrases we wouldn’t increase our vocabulary or learn new things.
4. How many words are there in the English language? About 500. Ooops! I mean about 500 000! That’s half a million words! It’s impossible for everyone to know them all.
5. So what can we do about it? So what does a good reader do when they don’t understand a word or phrase? What do you do? Do you try to work it out?
6. How can we work it out if we don’t know it? We have to be like detectives and look for clues. Clues can be in the same sentence as the word or phrase we don’t know. Clues can be in the sentence before or the sentence after. Clues can be somewhere else in the text.
7. For example... What do these phrases mean? ...digestive proteins called enzymes. ...disgorges the enzyme mixture. They are hard to understand out of context.
8. For example... As busy as a bee. When a bee laps nectar from a blossom, it stores it in its honey stomach where it is mixed with digestive proteins called enzymes. Once full the bee returns to the hive and disgorges the nectar-enzyme mixture for the other bees to transfer to a honey cell. Inside the cell the enzymes slowly convert the nectar to honey while other bees fan the cell with their wings to evaporate excess water. Finally when the cell is full, the bees seal it in place until the honey is needed as food for the hive. The phrases underlined might be difficult to understand on their own. However, if we read them in context, as part of the full paragraph, it makes a lot more sense.
9. Lighting (English Mosaic p140) Read the text about lighting. There are some difficult words and phrases that you may not know. If there is anything you are not 100% sure about underline it. Share with the class. Can the rest of the text give us any clues as to what the words or phrases mean?
10. Endangered Species (Humanities Alive p252) Read the article about endangered species. There are some difficult words and phrases that you may not know. If there is anything you are not 100% sure about underline it. Share with the class. Can the rest of the text give us any clues as to what the words or phrases mean?
11. Reading challenge In your independent reading today, your task is to look for any words or phrases that you don’t understand. You need to try and work out what the word or phrase means from the other words and sentences around it. This is what good readers do and this is what you need to start doing if you don’t do it already. If you can work out some words and phrases write them down in your reading notebook and explain how you worked out what the words meant.
