Books & Videos for Teaching Context Clues

1. Baloney (Henry P)

By, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

This is my go-to mentor text for introducing context clues. Baloney is a fun story that centers around Henry, an alien kid who needs to come up with an excellent excuse for being late for school.

Throughout the story, Henry uses alien vocabulary words surrounded by different types of context clues. Students have so much fun determining the meaning of the crazy words! It’s a fun and engaging text that allows students to practice a critical vocabulary skill.

2. The Boy Who Loved Words

By, Roni Schotter

This story’s main character, a boy named Selig, is an avid word collector. He wants to find his life’s purpose and a reason for his love for all of these vivid words, so he goes on a journey.

After helping a poet along the way, Selig realizes that his purpose is to spread these wonderful words to others. This text contains a ton of great, enriching vocabulary, which makes it an excellent choice for teaching context clues!

3. The Word Collector

By, Peter H. Reynolds

Similarly to the text above, The Word Collector follows Jermome’s journey of collecting words from various adventures. Students can use the illustrations as clues to determine the meanings of the new words.

In addition to being a great supplement to a context clues unit, it’s also great to help reinforce the magic of learning new words. It shows students the “why” behind searching for clues and determining meaning.

4. Gumption

By, Elise Broach

Gumption! is a fun picture book that follows Peter and his Uncle Nigel on an adventure through the jungle.

After reading Gumption out loud, I like to have students point out context clues to help us determine the meaning of the title.

And, as always, I like to connect this one to social-emotional aspects to show the importance of persistence through challenges.

5. Pirate Pete

By, Kim Kennedy

Pirate Pete will surely have your class laughing and engaged the entire time. They’ll forget they are even learning about context clues!

Throughout the text, Pete uses different pirate terminology that your students will enjoy determining the meaning with the help of the other words and vibrant pictures.

6. Fancy Nancy

By, Robin Preiss Glasser

With so many Fancy Nancy stories to choose from, the series is a great addition to your context clues unit.

If you aren’t familiar with Fancy Nancy, she loves to use “fancy” language throughout. Although the author does explain the language, it’s fun to stop after each “fancy” word to allow your students to decode the unfamiliar vocab.

7. Weslandia

By, Paul Fleischman

In this story, Wesley creates his own language for his new civilization. The use of higher-level vocabulary and some made-up words makes it the perfect addition to dive into context clues.

A fun follow-up activity would be to have your students come up with their own secret words and have peers decode them using picture and word clues.

8. The Spider and the Fly

By, Tony DiTerlizzi

If you happen to be teaching context clues around Halloween, this is a fun read-aloud to add to your collection!

The story uses a variety of complex vocabulary words (weary, cunning, dismal, etc) that will lead to great discussions around context clues.

9. A Walk in the Words

By, Hudson Talbott

Although this is not my first go-to book when teaching about context clues it does have its benefits. However, each year I have students who do not like to put in the effort to determine the meaning of unknown words.

I like to use this book as a reminder that it’s okay to not know every word and show the importance of using your resources and clues around you to determine unknowns.

1. 4 Types of Context Clues for Kids

In this video we help kids learn the 4 types of context clues and put them into practice so that they can have an easier time learning hard words while reading. It can be especially frustrating for students when they come across a word that they haven’t seen before. Using context clues is a very valuable skill that helps kids enjoy learning and reading.

2. Context Clues (Mind Blooming)

Like the above video, this short video does a great job explaining the different types of clues at a lower level. It’s also animated and just over 3 minutes long.

3. Vocabulary: Context Clues

This video is ideal for teaching students how to define unknown words by using clues around the word to figure out the meaning. It shares context clues where the definition is given, synonym, antonym, and an example. When kids use context clues they are better able to understand complex text.