New words from pictures and nearby words
When you meet a new word, do not stop. Look at the picture first. Then read the words near it. Look at the little words: a, an and the come before a noun. An adjective often comes before a noun: a rusty key. A verb often comes after the person or thing that does it: Hassan found, he turned. A word ending in -ly often tells us how somebody does something: gently. Use these clues to guess if the new word is a noun, a verb or an adjective, and what it means. Then check in a dictionary or ask a grown-up.
| Words | Clues | Part of speech |
|---|---|---|
| a rusty key | a comes before; key is a thing | rusty = adjective, key = noun |
| he turned it | he does the action | turned = verb |
| turned it gently | -ly, how he turned it | gently = adverb |
Hassan found a rusty key in the garden shed. It was tiny, with a curly end. He turned it gently in the lock of an old wooden box, and the lid opened with a click. Inside, there was a small photo of his grandfather as a boy.
Word detective. The grown-up writes six unknown words from a book on cards with the sentence around them. The child reads the sentence, looks for clues and says: I think it is a noun because it follows ‘the’. I think it means ... Then they check in a dictionary.