Gap-filling strategy helps us to close our vocabulary knowledge gaps. Learn to apply them correctly. Download sample worksheets from Learning Guide 14 at www.languagelab.sg/books or ALL 10 worksheets by sharing about this topic on our FB Page! https://web.facebook.com/languagelabgroup

1. Languagelab 14.3
Master Gap-Filling Strategy

2. Power of Vocabulary
Vocabulary helps you in:
1) Making meaning – when you are thinking
of the right words to say
2) Understand others' meaning – when you
are reading what others say
3) Create better meaning – when you
express yourself skillfully with words
A lack of vocabulary knowledge affect your
answers.

3. Poor Vocabulary
A lack of vocabulary knowledge affect your
answers.
In Comprehenion OE for example, what
happens when you are asked for the
meaning of a 'big' word?
For e.g.,“What does the writer mean when he
says he is 'ponderous'?”
In these cases, vocabulary skills come in
handy to 'guess' or 'estimate' the meanings
of unfamiliar words.

4. Scanning for Contextual Clue
Scanning for Contextual Clues helps fill in
vocabulary gap.

5. Using Contextual Clues
'Contextual' comes from the word 'Context'
which means the 'the surrounding text'
This means that the surrounding words
around any big word is important to help
in determining its meaning.

6. Using Contextual Clues
In Example 1, the clue is it doesn't say
much. Guessed Meaning is 'short'

7. Using Contextual Clues
In Example 2, the clue is hanging on the
clothesline. Guessed Meaning is
'undergarments'

8. Using Contextual Clues
In Example 3, the clue is before the game
started. Guessed Meaning is 'short speech'

9. Other methods of learning words
To know the meaning of a big word, we
can:
1) look for them in the dictionary
2) ask our teacher or friend
3) leave it and be none the wiser
4) read it many times in different books
and form a guess
All the above takes time.

10. Scanning for Contextul Clue
This strategy will help in:
Booket A – Grammar
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Cloze
Booklet B – Editing
Comprehension Cloze
Comprehension OE

11. Learning Activity
1. We felt a funny sensation when the
poison ivy brushed against our skin.
Guessed Meaning:
2. He lost his sense of sight in an accident
and he walks around with a stick now.
Guessed Meaning:
3. It was insensible for her to jog alone in
the forest at night.
Guessed Meaning:

12. Learning Activity Answers
1. We felt a funny sensation when we the
poison ivy brushed against our skin.
Guessed Meaning: feeling
2. He lost his sense of sight in an accident
and he walks around with a stick now.
Guessed Meaning: ability , perception
3. It was insensible for her to jog alone in
the forest at night.
Gussed Meaning: unwise

13. Learning Milestones
What is Contextual Clue?
How does it help us fill vocabulary gaps?

14. Learning Milestones Check
Contextual clues help us make educated
guess of big words as they point to the
meaning.
We combine the clues and make an
educated guess to the meaning of a
word.

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16. More on Master Gap-filling
Strategy
Download free worksheets from:
www.languagelab.sg/books
(Look for Learning Guide 14)
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