The River Bank or the Money Bank?
During a small-group reading lesson, four students read the sentence: 'After the long hike, the tired students sat on the bank and skipped stones across the water.' The teacher asks what 'bank' means here. Student A says, 'It means a place where people keep money, because a bank is a place.' Student B says, 'It means the edge of the river, because they sat there and skipped stones across the water.' Student C says, 'It means a row of switches, because the sentence is about a machine.' Student D says, 'It means to tilt to one side, because the students were tired.' The teacher wants to use the disagreement to teach context clues, not just give the answer. The class has already learned that a word can have more than one meaning and that readers should check the words around it. The teacher also wants students to explain their thinking with evidence from the sentence.
1. Which student's reasoning is strongest, and what two words or phrases in the sentence support it? Explain why the other students' ideas do not fit.
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Student B's reasoning is strongest. The phrase 'sat on the' shows that 'bank' is a noun naming a place, and 'skipped stones across the water' shows that the place is next to water. Those clues fit the edge of a river. Student A's money-bank idea does not fit because nothing in the sentence mentions money, a teller, or a building. Student C's switches idea does not fit because there is no machine in the sentence. Student D's tilt idea does not fit because 'sat on the bank' needs a noun, not a verb meaning tilt. The key move is to check the words around the unknown word, not just pick a meaning the student already knows.
2. If the sentence were 'The teller counted the money and put it in the bank,' how would the meaning of 'bank' change, and which student's idea would then fit? Explain why the word alone is not enough.
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In the new sentence, 'bank' would mean a place where money is kept. Student A's idea would then fit because 'teller' and 'money' are strong clues. The word 'bank' itself did not change, but the surrounding words did. That is why a reader cannot decide a multiple-meaning word by memory alone. The reader has to ask: What is happening in this sentence? Who or what is around the word? In the first sentence, sitting and skipping stones point to a riverbank. In the second, counting money points to a money bank. The same spelling can carry different meanings, and context decides which one is active.