Building blocks of meaning
- 1. Building Blocks of Meaning Strategy for Improving Reading Comprehension
- 2. What Are The Building Blocks? It is possible to break down sentences and even longer passages into the following: 1. The action (The verb of the sentence) 2. The actor (The subject of the sentence) 3. The circumstances (The situation and/or details surrounding the action and actor) Practicing this can help to give you a clearer mental picture of what is going on in the passage.
- 3. How To Identify The Building Blocks? ACTION ACTOR CIRCUMSTANCES Verb Subject The situation and/or details surrounding the action and actor Ask yourself: What is happening? What is the action? Ask yourself: Who or what is performing the action? Ask yourself: Who or what is performing the action…where? …when? …why? …how? …to /with whom?
- 4. Example The cow chased Kieron around the savannah. ACTION ACTOR CIRCUMSTANCES Verb Subject The situation and/or details surrounding the action and actor What is the action? Chased Who or what chased? The cow The cow chased whom? Kieron The cow chased Kieron where? Around the savannah
- 5. Example The lightning split the tree in half. ACTION ACTOR CIRCUMSTANCES Verb Subject The situation and/or details surrounding the action and actor What is happening? What is the action? split Who or what split? The lightning The lightning split what? the tree The lightning split the tree how? in half
- 6. More Complex Sentences Hoping to place first in the exam, Sunita studied all night. ACTION ACTOR CIRCUMSTANCES Verb Subject The situation and/or details surrounding the action and actor What is happening? What is the action? You may notice that there are a few action words in the sentence: “hoping”, “to place” and “studied”. Focus on what is actively happening in this sentence. What is the main action? studied Who or what studied? Sunita Sunita studied when? all night Sunita studied all night why? Hoping to place first in the exam
- 7. More Complex Sentences In the previous example, we see that even though Sunita is not at the start of the sentence, she is the main actor and so, is the subject. Realising that “hoping to place first in the exam” is part of the circumstance rather than the main action, helps us to understand that this phrase is modifying the main action of the sentence: Sunita studying. In other words, it gives us more detail about Sunita’s action of studying. Breaking down the sentence in this way also helps us to see the cause and effect relationship between Sunita’s wants and her actions.
- 8. Summary • To have a clearer understanding of what is going on in a sentence or passage, it is helpful to break it down into its units of meaning or its “building blocks of meaning” • The building blocks of meaning are: the action, the subject and the circumstance. - To identify the action, ask “What is happening/What is the action?” - To identify the subject, ask “Who or What is doing the action?” - To identify the circumstance, ask “Who or what is performing the action how, where, when, why or to/with whom?