Course Match

Getting Ahead: Fundamentals of College Reading, 1/e

BASIC APPROACH

(Note: This textbook was published by our college division for use by students at post-secondary institutions whose reading skills are below the level needed to succeed in college. Please review this text carefully to ensure appropriateness of content for your students.)

Getting Ahead is the lower level (6th–9th grade) book in a new two-book reading series that focuses on critical reading skills, while covering the foundations of basic reading comprehension, including study skills, vocabulary, basic reading skills, and sentence building.

Getting Ahead builds students' motivation—about themselves, their life situation, and their academic situation—in order to excel ("get ahead") in both their academic and professional careers. Getting Ahead discusses the basic skills and strategies required for the simple comprehension of a written piece, coupled with an introduction to critical thinking and reading. Greater attention is given to building vocabulary skills and study strategies. Getting Ahead also includes brief visual literacy exercises and a large appendix on sentence building.

FEATURES

• Challenges students to think critically about what they're reading early on in order to build their self-confidence and faith in their academic abilities; once they believe they can think in complex terms, the basic skills of reading will come easily to them.
• "Getting Ahead" boxes provide scaffolded instruction to grammar and sentence structure, all in the effort to increase reading comprehension.
• "Visual Literacy" boxes provide scaffolded instruction to reading images, from the simplest charts to the more detailed graphs with various levels of data, all in the effort to increase reading comprehension.
• Cross-disciplinary readings offer scaffolded presentation of readings from all subjects and course levels that focus on the basic to most complex elements of reading, from understanding meaning within a single paragraph, to within the multiparagraph essay, to within the three-page reading.
• Chapter on learning and teaching styles enables students to recognize the type of student they are so that they may develop a studying style most appropriate for them in order to stay motivated and confident about their academic abilities (Ch. 1).
• Chapter on study skills offer tips on how to become a better student; covers time management, creating schedules, taking lecture notes, annotating class notes, annotating texts, creating self-exams from these notes (Ch. 2).
• Chapter on speed-reading emphasizes increased and more sophisticated comprehension of textual material, rather than on reading faster (Ch. 12).

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