Vocabulary and 3 Step Comprehension

In an attempt to make up for the fact that I missed class on Monday and because it happened, I would like to share a little bit about the vocabulary that I taught over Spring Break. Just recently, my family has become engrossed in reading. I have always had a large vocabulary, and so I am often the person consulted when strange words are encountered.

The list of words I taught for this trip are:

Expeditiously (by repeating it at my siblings while trying to get them to move quickly across the airport and anywhere else they were moving slowly)

Persnickety (while describing my dad and his habits when we prepare to leave for a trip)

Loathing (by bursting into the song from Wicked after my baby brother encountered it in his Rick Riordan Book (he had been in NY earlier in the week and had seen Wicked so it applied)and then defining it)

Parabola (when we went to the Arch, describing its shape and telling my baby brother he'd be learning about it in Algebra I next year)

Tourniquet (which my baby brother and I both defined for our other brother because he didn't understand the reference in Evanescence's song--leading to a rousing discussion about poisonous snakes and amputated limbs)

OD (Overdose) (explained to my baby brother who was using it incorrectly while talking about various celebrities and their hamartias)

Needless to say, though the words themselves may not have a common theme, I do think everyone learned something on the trip about vocabulary.

As for class on Wednesday, we briefly reviewed the definition of comprehension and the three levels of comprehension (literal, interpretive, and applied). I think, for students who might need help visualizing the levels of comprehension, a theatre analogy works pretty well in outlining the three concepts. If we think of a text as a play, literal comprehension are the lines. Interpretive comprehension would be the "sub-text" or what the character (author) is thinking as they speak those lines, and application comprehension would be actually getting up and acting out the scenes of the play (costumes optional).

We also discussed 3-level, pattern, concept, and selective reading guides. I spent a great deal of time a little confused here just because I had missed class on Monday and was having trouble processing all of the information and knowing which document I was supposed to be opening at what time, but essentially the reading guides are all ways to deepen the three levels of comprehension. 3 level, and selective RGs focus on all three levels, while pattern and concept can focus on all three or just interpretive and applied.

While I understand the need for reading guides as a way of reinforcing or building comprehension for struggling readers, I cannot help but feel as though they are fairly tedious over all. Perhaps this is because I viewed them as tedious as a student (if easy) or because there is not much that you can do with a reading guide to break it out of that worksheet form. For struggling readers and students looking to improve their test scores, RGs can be a great way to improve comprehension and to key in to the important information within a text, but how do we keep our at-level and advanced readers from boredom?

I do think I will use reading guides in the future--but not the selective reading guide because while modeling was necessary I had difficulty comprehending it and did not like the layout of the RG. I do see myself using concept guides and pattern guides more often with my students, and perhaps even a basic 3 level guide at the start of texts when everyone is still getting familiar with characters and things.

Today's vocabulary word is Hamartia, by the way.