Structured Reading (5th Edition) - Softcover

Troyka, Lynn Quitman; Thweatt, Joseph Wayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0136519776 ISBN 13: 9780136519775

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 1998

Synopsis

The highly regarded, exceptionally effective approach of Structured Reading is grounded in psycholinguistic theory and based on the principle that readers improve their skills not by reading about reading, but rather by guided, hands-on experience with reading. Throughout the book readers encounter essays from books, magazines, and texts. They use this material to develop their critical thinking, reading, and vocabulary skills. Focuses on vocabulary, dictionary skills, and reading strategies that apply to texts, newspapers, and popular books. Provides information on the major skills of reading analytically and critically; reading speed; vocabulary building; context clues; and mapping for comprehension. For anyone wanting to further develop their reading skills.

About this title

From the Publisher

The highly regarded, exceptionally effective approach of Structured Reading is grounded in psycholinguistic theory and based on the principle that readers improve their skills not by reading about reading, but rather by guided, hands-on experience with reading.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In writing Structured Reading, Sixth Edition, we remained convinced that students learn best from guided, hands-on experience with complete, not partial, reading selections. We believe, too, that the best approach starts with detailed instruction in the separate drills areas that assure movement to college-level reading abilities, followed by extensive, repeated practice with many complete reading selections that comprise five-sixths of this book.

In flight training, student pilots spend some instructional time in a training simulator. But within a short time, the instructors move students from the simulator to the cockpit of the airplane to give the students hands-on practice in flying the plane. Few passengers would fly with a pilot who had only simulator experience. Most want a pilot who has logged many hours of real flight time in the cockpit. Likewise, we want students to move quickly from the skills (the simulator) to actual reading (the cockpit) for extended practice. This method has worked well since the first edition of Structured Reading and is evidenced by its continued use by hundred of teachers and thousands of students in the United States and Canada.

We've consistently had our students in mind as we've talked through our revision decisions for this Sixth Edition of Structured Reading. We've learned from our reviewers and teaching colleagues that many students look for a detailed introduction to the separate college-level reading skills they need ("Central Theme and Main Ideas"; "Major Details"; "Inferences"; "Critical Thinking"; and "Reader Response"). To that end, we offer in this Sixth Edition a comprehensive, new Part One, "Skills for Reading." This fourteen-chapter part explains and demonstrates each reading skill. It also offers extensive skills-based exercises to prepare students for their hands-on experience with the thirty complete reading selections in Parts Two through Six.

Another demonstration of our focus on students in Structured Reading is the topics of the thirty complete reading selections. Some students say that they avoid reading because nothing they're assigned to read interests them. While we know that such feelings derive as much from a lack of confidence in reading abilities as from specific topics, we've always strived to provide engaging topics that appeal to a diverse audience. To this end, we've replaced five reading selections with new ones on more current, absorbing issues.

Here are the major features of Structured Reading, Sixth Edition:

• NEW! Part One, "Skills for Reading" explains the reading process. Using an FAQ approach, it gives students down-to-earth advice—with lots of chances for practice—about how to improve reading speed, expand vocabulary, make useful predictions during reading, read "on, between, and beyond" the lines, find central themes and main ideas, identify major and minor details, make inferences, read critically, and respond to ideas.
• Thirty reading selections, with five new for this edition, represent our desire to offer an instructive, stimulating balance of readings from books, magazines, newspapers, and textbooks in disciplines across the curriculum. The final mix represents male and female writers, as well as writers from a variety of ethnic groups.
• Exercises are deliberately structured to promote analytic and critical reasoning. Indeed, our structured sequences of exercises following every reading selection are the key feature that teachers and students have been praising from the first edition of Structured Reading: "Vocabulary," "Central Theme and Main Ideas," "Major Details," "Inferences," "Critical Thinking" ("Fact vs. Opinion" and "The Writer's Craft"), and "Reader Response." This structured sequence demands concentrated work in reading for literal meaning, for inferential meaning, and for critical thinking. This approach, used repeatedly, leads students to internalize successfully complex reading and thinking skills.
• The answer options for our structured exercises may look to some like multiple-choice items, but the similarity stops there. Structured Reading exercises are unique, which can be seen as soon as anyone looks beneath the surface. We've written the incorrect answers (called "distracters") to propel students into close reading and active analysis. They're forced to marshal their higher-order reasoning powers to think through mental challenges. Students' powers of persistence and focus can become habit when teachers require them not only to identify a correct answer (called "the key") but also to analyze and articulate why other choices are incorrect.
• Complete, authentic dictionary entries accompany each reading selection to help students tackle the more difficult words in the piece. This unique, popular feature of Structured Reading provides students hands-on experience with dictionary use. We have again been fortunate to offer entries from Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. Our Appendix, "Guide to Dictionary Use," helps students—in plain English—retrieve information from dictionary entries.
• The book has six parts. Part One teaches the reading process and its college-level skills. Parts Two through Six contain reading selections with increasingly difficult readability levels (see the Instructor's Edition of Structured Reading), and with short-to-longer selections within each part.
• "Thinking: Getting Started" sections, another unique feature of Structured Reading, open Parts Two through Six to help students engage in predictive reading. We use posters, photographs, advertisements, cartoons, and other visuals to prepare students for the topics to come.

Here are highly useful supplements for our Sixth Edition:

• NEW! The Instructor's Edition (ISBN 0-13-047512-2) of our Sixth Edition of Structured Reading marks another milestone on behalf of teachers. For the first time, we provide instructors with a special edition that includes answers to all exercises right on the student text pages, along with a 45-page "Instructor's Guide" bound at the back of the text. The "Instructor's Guide" contains additional teaching strategies, readability levels for the thirty Reading Selections, and tips on using Structured Reading in either a classroom setting or a self-paced lab. We hope this special edition will help new teachers along with their more experienced colleagues. Free to instructors.
• An Instructor's Resource Manual (ISBN 0-13-047515-7) provides additional material for instructors as they prepare for class. This manual contains transparency masters, comprehension boosters, extra vocabulary exercises, and supplementary dictionary exercises. We have designed these materials to support instructors and lab tutors as they work with students. Free to instructors.
• NEW! Companion Website for Structured Reading at www.prenhall.com/troyka. This website includes additional textbook readings at varying reading levels. For these readings, we offer the same structured exercise sequence as in the print book: Vocabulary, Central Theme and Main Ideas, Major Details, Inferences, Critical Reading, and Reader Response. Exercises (excluding Reader Response) are self-grading for students, and they can e-mail the results directly to their instructor.
• NEW! The Prentice Hall Reading Skills Test Bank, which contains 100 exercises on each of eleven different reading skills. Available online, designed for use with any text, this test bank has over 1,000 exercises, covering word analysis, context clues, stated main idea, implied main idea, tone and bias, details, major vs. minor details, style, study reading, reading rate, and visual aids. Questions are multiple choice, matching, or true/false. The test bank is available in printed format or electronically. ISBN (printed): 0-13-041249-X. Instructors can contact their Prentice Hall representative to request the electronic version. Free to instructors upon adoption.
• NEW! Free dictionary offer: Students can receive a free New American Webster Handy College Dictionary packaged with their text when instructors adopt Structured Reading, Sixth Edition. This dictionary has over 1.5 million Signet copies in print with over 115,000 definitions, including current phrases, slang, and scientific terms. It offers more than 1,500 new words, with over 200 not found in any competing dictionary, and it features boxed inserts on etymologies and language. It also includes foreign words and phrases and an international gazetteer with correct place-name pronunciations. Instructors can ask their Prentice Hall sales representative for the ISBN of the package.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0136519776
• ISBN 13: 9780136519775
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 364