There are two functions of ほど that may throw you off when you first encounter them.  The first is a sentence such as this:

修理には一週間ほどかかります。

Here it is synonymous with くらい or ぐらい: The repairs will take about a week.  You will know that it is functioning in this way when it follows a quantity.  Note that it is not used with times or dates that do not involve duration.

The other unusual use of ほど is actually just a stealth version of the basic “extent” sense.  Consider this example:

悪い奴ほどよく眠る。

This sentence, which is the title of a film by Kurosawa Akira, means “The more evil someone is, the better they sleep.”

One more example:

そういう言葉ほど、・・・はっきりくっきり聞こえた。

松田青子、「おにいさんがこわい」

This sentence means, “The more the words were of that sort, the more clearly and distinctly he could hear them.”

This ほど is not actually a different sense; it can be thought of, instead, as an abbreviation “であればあるほど”.