VSA Future’s Vocabulary and Reading Workshop: Strategizing for Success VSA Future’s Vocabulary and Reading Workshop: Strategizing for Success By Rachel, Grade 9 The 9-week-long VSA Future Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Workshop covers intensive vocabulary training as well as reading a variety of different literary pieces and teaching students how to connect to the text. Throughout the vocabulary portion, a list of 10 new words is demonstrated every session. During the first few classes, students review the definition, part of speech, and application of the word in a sentence with the support of their instructor. The instructor creates different presentations including various examples, visual representations and synonyms for multiple study methods. Visual learning is one of the most efficient language learning tools. VSA Future presents vocabulary lessons that are intriguing yet simple enough for learners to grasp quickly. During the reading comprehension portion, students are introduced to a plethora of different literary texts that challenge and engage a reader’s mind. We read from historical fiction to autobiographies to non-fiction stories and answered a variety of questions that support defining key ideas and themes. Some of our most frequently assessed questions include main idea identification, character development, theme exploration and symbol analysis. At the end of each session, instructors provide students with a brief yet comprehensive quiz. The vocabulary part of the quiz includes definitions, parts of speech, sentence usage, and analogies. The reading comprehension portion is based on the reader’s ability to identify key features and synthesize central ideas. Attending the VSA Future Reading Comprehension/Vocabulary Workshop has really helped me improve as a reader and a writer. The overall writing process will benefit from the vocabulary development and text structure study offered throughout this course. After attending the summer course at VSA Future, I can confidently analyze complex texts knowing that I’ll be able to easily pick out the key features of each type of text.
