Seeing the Unseen

Even adults have difficulty with total, reading comprehension when vocabulary is challenging in literature.  And, research tells us that we will not fully comprehend our reading, if we run across words unknown to us.  Our mind, then, focuses on the “mystery” word/term, and takes focus away from the remaining literature.  For elementary readers through adulthood, I would like to offer a strategy that takes some time to produce, but will offer a more complete understanding of any given reading, where vocabulary is new and challenging.

As students read, have them jot down words/terms that are unknown to them, and have them try to define those words in their own language.  Next, ask students to collect true and false examples of those words.  Lastly, students should generate questions that will bring a deeper understanding of that term or word.  For example:

Step 1 “Double Jeopardy” (Unknown Term)

Step 2   Being brought to court for a crime a second time. (Own definition)

Step 3 Examples   True – OJ Simpson was tried twice in court but not for the same crime.

                                 False – OJ Simpson can be tried again for the murder of Nicole Brown.

Step 4 What caused the creation of the Fifth Amendment of the US?

 

Another way students might work to See the Unseen, is to make an Error List before doing a particular assignment in order to prevent errors from being made.   Before the assignment is started, create a list of mistakes one might make.  And, place a star next to those you are particularly prone to making.  Begin the assignment and don’t think about the list.  Before handing in the work, go back over the list paying attention to one error at a time, and fixing those you catch.  For example:

Error List

1. Fragments, spelling, capitalization
2. Writing illegiblely
3. *Using a comma in a compound sentence