Question

A first-grade student read the following sentence: "I was scared of the dog, but it retreated into the house when its owner called." The student was unfamiliar with the word "retreated" but used its placement with the sentence to help understand the sentence as a whole. What type of cue did the student use?

Answer 1

The first-grade student used a contextual cue to understand the meaning of the word "retreated" in the sentence. Contextual cues involve using the surrounding words and the overall context of a sentence or passage to make sense of unfamiliar words or phrases. In this case, the student recognized that the dog's action of "retreating into the house" followed the owner's call, which indicated to the student that "retreated" meant the dog went back or withdrew to the house. This demonstrates a basic form of context-based comprehension, a critical skill in reading and language development.

Answer 2

The first-grade student used contextual cues to understand the word "retreated" in the sentence. They looked at the words and sentence structure around "retreated" to figure out that it meant the dog moved away or went back inside the house.