8th Grade Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills (2009)

Students need strong reading comprehension skills to succeed in middle school, high school, and beyond. The 31 lessons in this book help students understand what they read and prepare them for writing assignments.

This book will help students:
- Build critical reading, thinking, and writing skills
- Prepare for school and state exams
- Improve reading comprehension
- Get better grades on writing assignments

The text also provides:
- A pre- and posttest to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and show progress
- 31 lessons that gradually increase in difficulty
- Practice exercises to help students master essential reading and writing skills

CONTENTS
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
PRETEST

SECTION 1 BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION
LESSON 1 Becoming an Active Reader
LESSON 2 Finding the Main Idea
LESSON 3 Defining Vocabulary
LESSON 4 Distinguishing between Fact and Opinion
LESSON 5 Putting It All Together

SECTION 2 STRUCTURE
LESSON 6 The Parts of a Plot
LESSON 7 Organizing Principles
LESSON 8 Similarities and Differences: Comparison and Contrast
LESSON 9 Cause and Effect
LESSON 10 Summaries and Outlines
LESSON 11 Putting It All Together

SECTION 3 LANGUAGE AND STYLE
LESSON 12 Point of View
LESSON 13 Word Choice
LESSON 14 Style
LESSON 15 Literary Devices
LESSON 16 Putting It All Together

SECTION 4 READING BETWEEN THE LINES
LESSON 17 Finding an Implied Main Idea
LESSON 18 Identifying an Author’s Purpose
LESSON 19 Assuming Causes and Predicting Effects
LESSON 20 Analyzing Characters
LESSON 21 Putting It All Together

SECTION 5 INTERPRETING NON-LITERARY SOURCES
LESSON 22 Instructions
LESSON 23 Advertisements
LESSON 24 Graphs
LESSON 25 Visual Aids
LESSON 26 Putting It All Together

SECTION 6 WRITING SKILLS
LESSON 27 Prewriting
LESSON 28 Organizing Ideas
LESSON 29 Writing with Focus and Clarity
LESSON 30 Reviewing and Revising
LESSON 31 Putting It All Together

POSTTEST
APPENDIX Suggested Reading for 8th Graders