The first in a three book series, The Skilled Reader, Updated Edition continues to offer students step-by-step reading instruction, a wide range of practice and test materials, and a rich selection of readings from textbooks and other sources for those reading at the 6-9th grade level.
The Updated Edition now offers more extensive coverage of key concepts such as main ideas, supporting details, thought patterns, and the reading process. In response to instructors overwhelming request to address reading process first, "A Reading System for Effective Readers" is now chapter one. Each chapter helps students frame the reading skill it covers with practice toward developing a system for reading. Numerous practices, review and application sets, review tests, and mastery tests in each chapter provide teachers and students with extensive assessment materials. Each chapter concludes with a chapter summary, three or four Applications, six Review Tests, and eight Mastery Tests. All practice materials are formatted for easy grading. Ten additional readings in Part II (from both textbook and non-textbook sources) are accompanied by an extensive apparatus, with questions on all of the reading skills (main idea, patterns of organization, vocabulary, supporting details, inferences, and so on) for each individual reading. Fifteen additional combined-skills tests are provided in Part III. Part IV includes an appendix of word parts, along with an introduction to critical reading: purpose and tone, fact and opinion, figurative language, and reading graphic material. A supplementary Lab Manual ends the book.