KEY FEATURES:
1. Focus on the basics.
Ten Steps to Improving College Reading Skills explains in an extremely clear, step-by-step way the ten skills most needed for literal and critical reading comprehension. Many examples, practices, tests, and feedback are provided to ensure that students understand and master each skill. In general, the focus is on teaching the skills, not just on explaining or testing them.
2. High interest level.
The readings in the book have been chosen not only for the appropriateness of their reading level but also for their compelling content. They should engage teachers and students alike.
3. Integration of skills.
Students do more than learn the skills individually in Part I. They also learn to apply the skills together through the reading selections in Parts I and II as well as the combined-skills tests in Part III. They become effective readers and thinkers by means of a good deal of practice in applying a combination of skills.
4. Helpful supplements.
An Instructor's Edition is identical to the student text except that it also provides hints for instructors, answers to all the practices and tests, and helpful comments on the answers. A combined Instructor's Manual and Test Bank includes suggestions for teaching the course, a model syllabus, and readability levels for the reading selections. The test bank contains four additional mastery tests for each of the ten skills and four additional combined-skills tests--all on letter-sized sheets so they can be copied easily for use with students. Computer software (in IBM or Macintosh format) provides two additional mastery tests for each skill. These supplements are available at no charge to instructors adopting the text in quantities of 20 or more.
Additional tests are also available as online exercises on the Townsend Press website.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
If an entry is underlined, click on it to see sample pages from that chapter.
Preface to the Instructor
Introduction
- How to Become a Better Reader and Thinker
- Reading for Pleasure and Power
- Some Quick Study Tips
PART I: Ten Steps to Improving College Reading Skills
- Chapter 1: Vocabulary in Context
- End-of-chapter reading: "Night Watch" Roy Popkin
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 2: Main Ideas
- End-of-chapter reading: "Here's to Your Health" Joan Dunayer
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 3: Supporting Details
- End-of-chapter reading: "Child-Rearing Styles" Diane E. Papalia and Sally Wendkos Olds
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 4: Implied Main Ideas and the Central Point
- End-of-chapter reading: "Rowing the Bus" Paul Logan
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 5: Relationships I
- End-of-chapter reading: "Students in Shock" John Kellmayer
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 6: Relationships II
- End-of-chapter reading: "I Became Her Target" Roger Wilkins
- Six mastery tests and three combined-mastery tests
- Chapter 7: Fact and Opinion
- End-of-chapter reading: "New Respect for the Nap, A Pause That Refreshes" Jane E. Brody
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 8: Inferences
- End-of-chapter eading: "Gender Inequality in Health Care and in the Workplace" James M. Henslin
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 9: Purpose and Tone
- End-of-chapter reading: "The Scholarship Jacket" Marta Salinas
- Six mastery tests
- Chapter 10: Argument
- End-of-chapter reading: "In Praise of the F Word" Mary Sherry
- Six mastery tests
PART II: Ten Reading Selections
1 The Yellow Ribbon Pete Hamill 2 Urban Legends Beth Johnson
3 Shame Dick Gregory
4 The Bystander Effect Dorothy Barkin
5 The Real Story of Flight 93 Karen Breslau, Eleanor Clift, and Evan Thomas
6 Coping with Nervousness Rudolph F. Verderber
7 Compliance Techniques: Getting People to Say Yes Shelley E. Taylor, Letitia Anne Peplau, and David O. Sears
8 Lizzie Borden James Kirby Martin and others
9 Nonverbal Communication Anthony F. Grasha
10 Preindustrial Cities Rodney Stark
PART III: For Further Study
1 Combined-Skills Tests
2 Propaganda
Six mastery tests
3 More About Argument: Errors in Reasoning
4 Writing Assignments
CHANGES IN THE FOURTH EDITION:
Online Exercises.
At the end of each skill chapter, students are referred to online exercises that help teach as well as test the skill.
More Visuals.
Tables and graphs are now taught in the book. Photographs and cartoons add visual appeal and help teach key skills. Boxes, rules, and colored screens set off patterns of organization, chapter reviews, and important points. The book is more visually friendly without being visually cluttered.
New Introductory Materials.
The book now begins with an Introductory section made up of three chapters:
How to Become a Better Reader and Thinker
A carryover from the third edition, this chapter will give students a good sense of the goals and organization of the book.
Reading for Pleasure and Power
In this chapter, the author uses his own personal experience to encourage and motivate students to develop the reading habit.
Some Quick Study Tips
This new chapter presents four brief but essential hints for becoming a better student.
New Teaching Features.
Three new features in each chapter--Study Hints and Tips, "Check Your Understanding" exercises, and Chapter Reviews--make the book even easier to use. In addition, a new format for practice and test questions makes them even simpler to grade.
If you were happy before with the format of a book known for its clarity, you'll be even more pleased with the Fourth Edition.
Many New Practice Materials.
The model and practice passages and readings have been an acclaimed feature of Ten Steps to Improving College Reading Skills. The materials are always compelling, never boring; they engage students and teachers alike. In the Fourth Edition, many practice materials are new and will make the book a fresh experience for teachers who have used earlier editions.
There are also four new reading selections. One reading is particularly noteworthy: "The Real Story of Flight 93" celebrates the heroic passengers who thwarted the terrorist plan to fly a hijacked plane into a second Washington, D.C. government building.
Completely Revised Chapter on Main Ideas.
Understanding the main idea is the most essential reading comprehension skill, so changes here to an already successful book were not made lightly. Students are now given three specific strategies for finding the main idea:
Looking for general versus specific ideas
Looking for the topic
Using clue words
Reviewers have agreed that the changes in the chapter make it even more accessible for students.
Treatment of Figurative Language.
The book now explains, illustrates, and offers practice in the two most common figures of speech: similes and metaphors. Practice materials include excerpts from E.B. White's beloved classic, Charlotte's Web, and from George Orwell's famous literary essay, "A Hanging."