Reading

Your neighbor Rita has given you a note that she received from a friend. The note has some blanks, so the message remains a secret. Rita wants you to help her decode the note.

This lesson will give you clues about the missing words. The clues will be in the form of analogies.

Analogies are word pairs that make comparisons. They can help you explain new concepts. For example, instead of saying that cold and hot are antonyms, you could say the following:

"dark is to light as cold is to hot"

Analogies consist of two pairs of words or ideas. By understanding the relationship of one pair (dark and light), you can understand the relationship of the other pair (cold and hot).

Analogies are often written in an abbreviated form using colons. Here is an analogy using synonyms:

Small is to little just as adequate is to enough.

A single colon (:) stands for "is to" and a double colon (::) stands for "just as." The analogy looks like this:

small : little :: adequate : enough

In this lesson, you will complete some analogies to find the missing words in Rita's note. You will be given one pair of words. The other pair will be missing a word. Here is an example:

small : little:: adequate: _______

Read the analogy out loud using the words "is to" and "just as."

Here is an example:

small: little :: adequate: ______

Read:

"Small is to little just as adequate is to ______ ."

Hearing the analogy out loud should help you to understand the relationship between the words.

Determine the relationship in the complete pair of words.

small: little :: adequate: ______

To choose the correct word to complete the second pair, you need to understand the relationship of the first pair. In this analogy, you know that "small" and "little" are synonyms.

Apply the relationship from the first pair of words to the second pair.

small: little :: adequate: ______

To complete the second pair in this example, think of a synonym for "adequate."

Pick the word that completes the relationship for the second pair.

For the example, you might insert the word "sufficient" or "enough."

In prior lessons, you learned the following skills:

• Synonyms are words that have similar meanings. "Funny" and "humorous" are synonyms.
• Antonyms are words that are opposite in meaning. "Hot" and "cold" are antonyms.
• Homonyms are words that sound the same but have different meanings and different spellings. "Sail" and "sale" are homonyms.
• Idioms are commonly used expressions that mean something other than what they appear to mean. "Hit the nail on the head" is an idiom.

This lesson will give you practice with these types of words and phrases in the form of analogies.

These are the four steps that help you complete analogies:

1. Read the analogy out loud using the words "is to" and "just as."
2. Determine the relationship of the complete pair of words.
3. Apply the relationship from the first pair of words to the second pair.
4. Pick the word that completes the relationship for the second pair.

Use the scroll bar to review any of these steps or the opening story.