During reading aloud from a nonfiction text, a teacher models looking for clues in surrounding sentences to infer meaning. Which vocabulary-development strategy is being demonstrated?

• A. Contextual analysis
• B. Morpheme analysis
• C. Dictionary-based lookup
• D. Suffix analysis

Answer: (A)

Using context clues to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words. When the teacher reads nonfiction aloud and points to clues in the sentences around a difficult word—definitions, examples, or restatements—the focus is on how the surrounding text helps reveal meaning. This approach trains students to infer meaning from the writing itself, which is a key strategy for vocabulary growth in nonfiction. This differs from analyzing word parts (morphemes), simply looking up a word in a dictionary, or focusing on suffixes alone; those strategies rely on parts or external references rather than the clues provided by the surrounding text.