Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2016

Staircase to vocabulary success
Decoding versus reading

When you walk up a set of stairs, you move closer to your goal of reaching the top. Think about learning new words in terms of a set of steps. The bottom step is the word. Your goal is to figure out what the word means. The meaning is at the top step. If you are reading a passage and come across a word that you don’t know the meaning of, then try climbing the staircase to success. At the first step, look the word up in the dictionary. Remember to use the first or second definitions first because they are the most common meanings.

At the second step, decide if the definition has a positive connotation, a neutral connotation, or a negative connotation. Recall our discussion of all the different connotations associated with the word heart? The word heart has a positive connotation because, as we noted earlier, we think of it as one of the most important organs in our body, relate it to having great spirit, or associate it with love. Connotation is the definition and meaning you associate with the word. A word that has a negative connotation would be the word plague. Even though you may not know the exact definition for plague, you know it is a bad thing. You know it has a negative connotation. A plague is a widespread disease or sickness. The word software has a neutral connotation. Software is the program you place on your computer. We don’t really have a positive or negative feeling toward software; therefore, it’s neutral. When you see those three words, you can mentally assign them faces that express their connotation.

At the third step, provide a synonym for the word. A synonym is a word that has the same meaning or nearly the same meaning as the word you are defining. For example, a synonym for confidant, who is someone you can tell your secrets to, is friend.

At the fourth step, offer an antonym for the word. An antonym is a word that has the opposite meaning of the word you are defining. For example, an antonym for the word confidant would be enemy. The words synonym and antonym can be confusing. Just remember synonym means same and antonym means opposite.

At the fifth step, use the word in a sentence. For example,

Because Fonda was my closest confidant, I told her my secret.

When you read a word you don’t understand and you look it up and use the word, you are committing it to memory. By taking all these steps, you are ensuring that you probably won’t have to ever look this word up again!

The final step, the last step before the top of the staircase, is fun. Draw a picture of the word! This isn’t art class, and no one expects you to be van Gogh. All you have to do is roughly sketch out the image that appears in your head.

This may seem like too much work to learn one word. But, not understanding just one word can confuse the writer’s entire message. Climbing the staircase guarantees you reach your goal of learning the word. Not only will you learn the single word, but you will better understand what you read, which means you will do well on your work for school. The staircase is a good exercise to use when studying for vocabulary tests for any subject and foreign language tests as well.

Let’s Practice!

Here is a passage about a famous short story. Read the passage and then climb the vocabulary steps for the three words that are underlined.

In the short story, “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, the main character undergoes a metamorphosis from a man into a cockroach. Kafka’s tale is surreal, yet it is a metaphor for how low man can go if he forgets he has as much power to be great as he does to be nothing.

Let’s Practice!

Read some more about Ringgold’s artistic choices. When you see a word underlined, create a vocabulary staircase for that word.

Ringgold’s artistic themes dealing with racial and feminist issues and her desire to address social and political problems were not considered to be a part of the mainstream art of the 1960’s and therefore were another roadblock to her gaining recognition as a legitimate artist. The mainstream art of the 1960’s was a cool and detached product, not a vehicle for communicating ideas to viewers.

Many artists, both black and white, held this as an ideal way to create. The Social Realist style of Faith Ringgold’s American People Series and other similar works was seen as being out of touch with the artistic trend of the time. Ringgold comments: “Issue oriented art was dismissed as being naïve, if not down right vulgar. Art was a conceptual or material process, a commodity and not a political platform.”

Ringgold also dealt with stylistic problems when attempting to render faces of both black and white people similarly. She experimented with flat, stylized shapes with less attention to realism and perspective that drew influence from both African Masks and Cubist faces. She used this new style in painting both black and white people, avoiding the negative connotation of caricature drawings of people of African descent by rendering both in the same manner. These renderings of people consist of groupings of curves and interconnected oval shapes.

REFLECT ON WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED!

1. Which vocabulary strategies worked best for you?

2. Which tools will you add to your toolbox?

3. Why do you think they are good tools for you?

Set # 5

Use the strategies you learned in Chapter Two to figure out the answers to the following multiple-choice questions.

1.Remember, flag words are words that signal you, alert you, or clue you in about the meaning of what you are reading. In the following sentence, what is the flag word and the category that the flag word falls into? It is important to note that taking notes and summarizing are two of the most important strategies to use for academic success.

a. Most and emphasis

b. Important to note and illustration

c. Important and cause and effect

d. Important to note and emphasis

2.You can define a word by both its denotation and connotation. What is the denotation of a word?

a. The feeling of the word

b. The meaning the reader gives the word

c. The dictionary definition of a word

d. The connotation of the word

3.What context clue would you use to figure out what the word spurious means in the following sentence? I immediately recognized the spurious nature of the writing because the research the writer used was inaccurate information.

a. The writer restates the word’s meaning in the same sentence.

b. The writer explains what the word means in the next sentence.

c. The writer provides an opposite meaning of the word.

d. The writer uses the flag word because to explain the word.