Lesson 1: Active Reading

Purpose

In this lesson, you will be introduced to active reading, which includes questioning, predicting, visualizing, and marking up the reading text by highlighting and underlining. You will be asked to practice a response strategy that will help you become an active reader.

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What You Will Learn

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

1. Predict what is going to happen in a text passage.
2. Ask questions as you read.
3. Visualize as you read.
4. Use active reading strategies to become an active, engaged reader.
5. Identify different types of sentences.
6. Identify synonyms and antonyms.
7. Use a thesaurus.
8. Define new vocabulary words.

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Reading Assignment

Read the Discussion section before reading the assignment in the textbooks.

Daybook of Critical Reading and Writing

• Introduction: Active Reading, pages 7–16

Writers Express

• Types of Sentences, page 415
• Kinds of Sentences, page 416
• Use a Thesaurus, page 292

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Discussion

Active readers remember what they read and can use what they learn to help them understand other readings. Active reading is very different from the type of reading you do for pleasure. Both types of reading are valuable, but they are used for different reasons. You will use literature selections to practice these active reading strategies and then write responses based on what you have learned through each passage. If you learn these strategies to become an active reader, you will be able to master reading and writing challenges that are more complex.

Your Daybook will tell you that good students mark up the textbook to get the most out of their reading. When you use this active reading strategy, you will underline important ideas, circle words, highlight descriptions, etc. It will be easy for you to find important ideas and things you want to remember when you look back at the textbook, because important things will “stand out.”

For each reading section you complete in the Daybook, you will find questions in this discussion to think about as you work. You might want to keep a notebook to jot down answers to these questions. (A notebook in which you write down your thoughts and writings is sometimes called a journal. I will tell you more about using journals as you go through these first few lessons.) These questions are to get you thinking rather than to test your understanding, but I will provide you with some feedback on these questions to help you, especially in the first few lessons.

In addition, you will often find a list of vocabulary words that appear in the Daybook selections. If the words are unfamiliar to you, try to figure out the meaning from the text (this is called using “context clues”) or practice your dictionary skills to find out the meanings. You and your parent/teacher might also decide that it would be a good idea to keep all your vocabulary words in one place. That way you can add to them and include other words you learn along the way.

In this lesson, I will take you through the active reading process slowly so that you can learn the techniques you will be using throughout this course. Here is the way you will approach this and future lessons:

1. READ: First, read the introduction to the activities provided in the Daybook. Then read the selections.

2. PRACTICE: Complete the activities that go along with the selections in the Daybook. I will also provide you with some questions to think about as you do the activity and give you some additional information to help you as you work.

3. CHECK: You will have a link to feedback on the questions I provide, as well as feedback on the activities you will practice in your Daybook. Be sure to use the feedback link to gather more information about the activities you are doing.

4. SHARE: As you go through each part of the lesson, share your work with your parent/teacher.

5. Following each Daybook lesson, you will find a skill lesson on grammar or mechanics. I will give you instruction and practice in these skills, as well as a link so that you can check your answers.

6. Sometimes you will submit a part of your Daybook work for assessment as part of the progress evaluation. Other times there might be a written or multiple-choice progress evaluation for you to complete. (There is no progress evaluation for lesson 1. The learning you have done in this lesson will be assessed as part of the progress evaluation you will find after lesson 2.)

OK, let’s get started!

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Read and Practice

Mark Up the Text

Open your Daybook and read page 7. After you have read page 7, turn to page 8 and read the first page of the selection by Richard Peck entitled “The Three-Century Woman.” You will then complete the lessons in this Introduction unit.

Self-Check: Ask yourself these questions as you complete page 8 in the Daybook:

1. Why do you think the words “It’s the state of the art and better than her car” are circled?

2. Why is there underlining on “you’ll keep those Whispering Oaks people from letting the media interview Grandma”?

3. What types of Response Notes do you notice on the lines to the left of the passage? (Example: Questions)

4. Would you mark other things in this text? Why?

Once you’ve written your responses, check your answers with my suggestions.

Predict

Your textbook (page 9) tells you that when you make a prediction, you are telling what you think will happen in your reading. There will be clues in the text to help you do this. You can write your predictions in the Response Notes and then go back later to see if your predictions were correct. Making predictions can help you get involved with your reading.

Self-Check: Ask yourself the question below as you complete page 9 in the Daybook. Once you’ve written your response, check your answer with my suggestion.

1. What predictions did you make, and what information did you use to make your predictions?

Question

If you ask questions while you are reading, it will help you think about what you don’t understand and make connections with what you are reading. Asking questions is a powerful reading strategy, because it keeps you focused on what you are reading. During your reading, you can ask “who?” “what?” “when?” “where?” “why?” and “how?”

Self-Check: Ask yourself the question below as you complete page 10 in the Daybook. Once you’ve written your response, check your answer with my suggestion.

1. What types of questions do you notice in the Response Notes?

Visualize

This section of your textbook tells you that when you create pictures in your mind while you are reading, you are visualizing. Creating mental pictures is one of the best ways to concentrate on what is happening while you are reading.

Self-Check: Ask yourself the question below as you complete page 11 in the Daybook. Once you’ve written your response, check your answer with my suggestion.

1. How might visualizing help you become a better reader?

Apply the Strategies

You will now practice the skills from this lesson so that you can use them through the rest of the lessons. Continue to build your active reading skills as you go. Like any new skill, active reading must be practiced. After you finish the section, review the different skills.

Self-Check: Ask yourself the questions below as you complete pages 12–16 in the Daybook. Once you’ve written your responses, check your answers with my suggestions.

1. What words, sentences, or key ideas do you want to remember?
2. What questions do you have about the story or the characters?
3. What predictions can you make about what is going to happen?
4. What pictures can you sketch in the Response Notes to capture the parts of the story?

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Answers to Read and Practice Questions

1. “State of the art and better than her car” has been circled to make it stand out for the reader, and it connects to the comment that has been written in the margin response notes.

2. The sentence “…you’ll keep those Whispering Oaks people from letting the media in to interview Grandma” has been underlined, because it identifies a question that the reader has thought about and wants to find out the answer to later in the reading. This is a good way for you to pay attention to things that might not make sense to you, so that you can keep them in mind while reading.

3. In the Response Notes, you probably noticed personal connections, questions, and things that stand out for the reader.

4. If you keep a highlighter handy while you are reading, you can quickly identify words that are new to you. This way you can come back later and see if you were able to figure them out by using the context of the sentence, or if you need to look them up or ask someone about them. This is a great way to increase your vocabulary. Think of a system for marking up the text that makes sense to you. You can use symbols, question marks, smiley faces, explanation marks, etc.

1. When you make a prediction, it is not just a guess. Did you make at least two predictions and then really look at how you arrived at them? When you are reading actively, if you are aware of your predictions, you can stay “tuned in” to your thinking. Different readers will have different predictions based on their experiences. Always check to see if your predictions are correct as you read.

1. The question already written for you in the Response Notes deals with the meaning of the word “Alzheimer’s.” It also makes a prediction within the question by wondering if this might be a type of sickness. As you read on, you might have questions about vocabulary, what is happening, what the author meant, etc. Make sure you actually go back to your questions to see if you were able to find the answers.

1. You might have sketched Grandma, the TV reporter, or what the room looked like—whatever popped into your mind as your read. A sketch of this sort doesn’t need to be a piece of art. It just helps to show you what is going on in your brain as you read. You may not use this technique a lot during your reading, because it takes more time and sometimes can get you off track, if you get more wrapped up in the sketching than in the reading. If you use sketching in future responding, make sure to make just a quick sketch.

1. The important part of this question is “…you want to remember.” Zeroing in on things you want to remember will keep you from getting caught up in things that aren’t really important. These details help to explain the key ideas that help you understand the author’s purpose and what the story is all about. You should be very careful not to underline or highlight the whole paragraph. If you finish a page and have underlined almost everything, you should return to the story and try to pick out only one or two things on a page.

2. You may not have many questions about some passages you read. Other passages may be more confusing or make you think of lots of questions.

3. You should have predicted that Grandma was “pulling the man’s leg” (making up fantastic stories) and that Grandma would be the one in charge of the interview. You might also have predicted that Megan would learn something about her Grandma that she would like. Whatever your predictions, were you correct? If not, what things threw you off? Do you think authors sometimes try to “fool” you and have you make incorrect predictions?

4. If you were to divide the story in half, you probably were able to sketch something that “summed up” the scene. Do you think that some passages are easier to see in your mind than others?

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Skill Lessons

Remember that I told you there would be skill lessons on grammar or mechanics included with most lessons? Well, here is your first one. You will not use your Daybook for these skill lessons. Instead, you will be using your Writers Express textbook to provide you with additional information. I will give you some practice exercises, but you and your parent/teacher may also decide to do some additional practice on these skills. Some of these skills may be new to you, and others may build on learning you have already done.

Ready? OK, let’s get started with a lesson on types of sentences.

Types of Sentences

Sentences are groups of words that express a complete thought. Sentences that are put together correctly include someone or something and tell what that person or thing did. This makes a complete sentence. If a sentence does not include someone or something and/or it does not tell what that person or thing did, we call it a sentence fragment, because it is incomplete. You will use different types of sentences in your writing. (See pages 415–416 in Writers Express.)

Declarative: This type of sentence makes a statement and ends with a period. Most sentences you read will be declarative.

We sang songs together at camp this summer.

Interrogative: This type of sentence asks a question and ends in a question mark.

What do you think will happen after Andy finishes the poster of the pyramid?

Imperative: This type of sentence gives a command or makes a request and ends with a period. Sometimes it might include words like “please,” but it is not a question.

Go to the gym and get one of the basketballs.

Exclamatory: This type of sentence expresses very strong feelings and ends with an exclamation mark. It expresses a great deal of feeling. The exclamation mark helps the reader to understand the feeling. Without the exclamation mark, the sentence would most likely be a declarative sentence.

We’re going to be late if we don’t run!

This is exclamatory, because it seems like someone might be yelling or excited. This same sentence (with different punctuation) could also be declarative, because it is simply a statement and doesn’t imply that there is any excitement or urgency attached to the sentence.

We’re going to be late if we don’t run.

Self-Check: Use the drop-down choices to identify whether each sentence below is declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory, then check your answers.

Now try writing some sentences of your own in your journal. Write at least two of each type of sentence. Check Writers Express (page 416) if you have questions or need more information about something you are unsure of. Share your work with your parent/teacher.

Synonyms and Antonyms

In your own writing, you want to make sure that you use specific language. Specific language makes it easy for the reader to visualize a scene in a piece of writing. For example, look at the two sentences below. Which one helps you visualize the scene more clearly?

The dog ran down the street.
The mutt trotted down the dusty path.

“Trotted” is almost the same as “ran,” but it helps readers visualize what is happening. The same is true of “mutt” used in place of “dog.” A word that means almost the same thing as another word is called a synonym.

Self-Check: Think of other words that could be synonyms of the following words, type them into the boxes (or write them down), and then check your answers.

If you have trouble finding synonyms, you can use a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a reference book that is a lot like a dictionary, except that it lists words that are synonyms. You might decide to use these words in place of less descriptive words. To me, it seems like magic. If I can’t think of the “perfect word,” I can go to a thesaurus for help. If you have a thesaurus, look up the words above and see what other words it suggests. Share your work with your parent/teacher.

A thesaurus contains thousands of words, each called an entry word. You use a thesaurus the same way you use a dictionary. All of the words in a thesaurus are arranged alphabetically, so you will find the “A” words first and the “Z” words last. If you are asked to find an entry word in the thesaurus, you will not want to flip through the book page by page. You want to be able to use this book very quickly. Try to “chunk” the alphabet into parts and skip to the appropriate part before you start to find your word. You know that the letter m is in about the middle of the alphabet, so you can start your search at about the middle of the thesaurus. (Writers Express has a section on using the thesaurus on page 292.)

Self-Check: Sometimes a thesaurus will also list antonyms. An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. Can you find antonyms for the words you worked with earlier? You can often find synonyms and antonyms in a dictionary. Think of other words that could be antonyms of the following words, type them into the boxes (or write them down) and then check your answers.

You will notice that using synonyms can help make your writing more specific and create more vivid images for your readers. You will practice using synonyms for this purpose in later lessons. The more specific your language is, the more your readers can understand what you are trying to say in your writings. It’s one of the most important skills you can learn as a writer.

You do not have a progress evaluation for lesson 1, since the information you learned will be included in the progress evaluation you find at the end of lesson 2. When you have finished this lesson, you are ready to go on to lesson 2, where you will build on and practice the active reading skills you learned in lesson 1. You will actually use the skills you have learned in this lesson in each of the remaining lessons in this course. You can always return to this lesson to review strategies for active reading.

You are on your way to becoming an engaged, thoughtful reader who will build a foundation to help you in all of the reading and writing you will do in the future. Go on to lesson 2. I will not be as specific in guiding you through the process of using your Daybook in the remainder of the lessons, since you have practiced the process through this first lesson. Don’t forget—you can always return to lesson 1 for review.

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Self-Check Answers

1. This is an imperative sentence
2. This is an interrogative sentence.
3. This is an exclamatory sentence.
4. This is a declarative sentence.

Here are some possibilities. There are many others, so check a thesaurus. Which word you choose will always depend on the context of the sentence you are writing. (The context is how the word is used in relationship to the other words in the sentence and the subject.)

1. pretty: lovely, enticing, gorgeous, desirous
2. nice: friendly, appealing, luxurious, awesome
3. green: emerald, moss, forest, lime
4. flower: blossom, daisy, frond, bloom
5. boat: outrigger, canoe, sloop, frigate

1. pretty: ugly
2. nice: mean
3. green: red (on the color wheel) or brown (to contrast green grass or leaves)

Many words do not really have a word that means the opposite. The words “flower” and “boat” are not words that we would probably need to find an opposite for, are they?

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Progress Evaluation

There is no progress evaluation for lesson 1. The lesson 2 progress evaluation will cover topics from lessons 1 and 2.

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