Middle School Reading

Description

From Florida to Alaska, there will be lots of things to see. In this course, you and your teammates will travel across the country to compete in local soccer tournaments. While not on the soccer field, you’ll have plenty of time to read and write about the exciting things you encountered. In this course, there will be stories to read, videos to watch, and activities to enjoy. There will be fiction, nonfiction and even some poetry. There will be new vocabulary to learn, and story maps to fill out. The goal is to enhance your skills as an active reader, and give you strategies for understanding what happens in the stories you read. With a good book, you can go anywhere. The better you can read, the farther you can go. Get on board the team bus and find out for yourself. 

Major Topics and Concepts

Semester 1

Prediction
Inference
Summarize
Clarify
Visualize
Questioning
Fluency
Comprehension
Sequencing
Story Elements
Compare and Contrast
Cause and Effect
Main Idea
Critical thinking
Facts and Details
Vocabulary study
Word choice
Prewriting
Narrative writing
Persuasive writing
Expository writing
Research skills
Genre exploration
Poetry
Fiction reading
Non-fiction reading
Biography study
Autobiography study
Note taking skills
Outlining
Context clues
Vocabulary mapping
Word semantics
Varied language exposure
Background knowledge
Text organization
Plot development
Point of view
Reader’s response
Shared reading
Scaffolding
Drawing conclusions
Text interpretation
Author’s Purpose
Active reading

Semester 2

Nonfiction reading
Main Idea and Details
Elements of Fiction – Setting
Vocabulary study
Persuasive essay
Gerunds
Poetry
Cause and Effect
Historical Fiction
Research
Critical thinking
Compare and Contrast
Antonyms, Synonyms, Homonyms
Letter writing
Prediction
Fiction reading
Nonfiction reading
Theme study
Similes and metaphors
Persuasive writing
Narrative writing
Expository writing
Fact and Opinion
Fluency
Prewriting
5 paragraph essay writing
Homophones
Active reading
Story Elements
Comprehension
Reference materials
Inference
Plot development
Point of view
Supporting details
Author’s purpose
Summarizing
Word semantics
Outlining