8th Grade Reading Comprehension Success - GIFS

1 8TH Grade Reading Comprehension SUCCESS8TH Grade Reading COMPREHENSIONSUCCESSE lizabeth CheslaLEARNINGEXPRESSSKILLBUILDERSNew YorkCopyright 2001 LearningExpress, rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the UnitedStates by LearningExpress, LLC, New in the United States of America9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First EditionISBN 1-57685-391-8 For more information or to place an order, contact LearningExpress at:55 Broadway8th FloorNew York, NY 10006Or visit us Important Note to Our Library ReadersIf you have checked this book out from your school or public library, please do not write in thebook itself. Instead, use a separate notepad to write down your answers, so that other readersin your library can reuse this material. Thank you for your help and for your consideration to Use this BookixPretestxiSECTION 1: BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION1 lesson 1:Becoming an Active Reader3 lesson 2:Finding the Main Idea11 lesson 3:Defining Vocabulary in Context17 lesson 4:Distinguishing between Fact and Opinion23 lesson 5:Putting It All Together31 SECTION 2: STRUCTURE37 lesson 6:Chronological Order39 lesson 7:Order of Importance45 lesson 8:Similarities and Differences: Comparison and Contrast51 lesson 9:Cause and Effect59 lesson 10:Putting It All Together65 SECTION 3: LANGUAGE AND STYLE73 lesson 11:Point of View75 lesson 12:Wo r d C h o i c e8 3 lesson 13:Style89 lesson 14:To n e9 7 lesson 15:Putting It All Together105 CONTENTSSECTION 4: Reading BETWEEN THE LINES113 lesson 16:Finding an Implied Main Idea115 lesson 17:Assuming Causes and Predicting Effects121 lesson 18:Emotional versus Logical Appeals127 lesson 19:Uncovering Meaning in Literature133 lesson 20.

2 Putting It All Together141 Post-Test151 Appendix:Suggested Reading for 8th Graders165 8TH Grade Reading Comprehension Success LearningExpress Skill Buildersixighth Grade is an exciting year full of changes and challenges. It salso an important year academically. As an eighth grader, you llbe required to take tests that measure your Reading , writing, andmath skills. This year is also your last chance to brush up youracademic skills before high school. And because you ll need to read for almostall of your classes, Reading Comprehension is perhaps the most importantset of skills you ll need to eighth Grade and beyond, you ll be asked to read, understand, andinterpret a variety of texts, including stories and poems, reports, essays, andscientific and technical information. While a lot of your learning will stilltake place in the classroom, you ll be expected to read more and more infor-mation on your own, outside class. You ll need not only to understand whatyou read but also to respond to and assess what you read.

3 And as the textsyou read become more complex, you ll spend a lot more time readingbetween the lines and drawing your own conclusions from the you work through the lessons in this book you will build your crit-ical Reading and thinking skills. Each of the 20 short lessons should take abouta half hour to complete. You ll start with the basics and move into morecomplex Reading strategies. While each chapter can be an effective skill builderon its own, it is important that you proceed through this book in order, fromLesson 1 through lesson 20. Each lesson builds on skills and ideas discussedin the previous chapters, and as you move through this book and your read-ing Comprehension skills improve, the practice passages will become longerand more TO USE THIS BOOKEEL earningExpress Skill BuildersxThe lessons are divided into four sections. Each sec-tion focuses on a different group of related Reading com-prehension strategies. These strategies are outlined at thebeginning of each section and reviewed at the end of thesection in a special Putting It All Together lesson includes several exercises for you topractice the skills you have learned.

4 To be sure you re onthe right track, at the end of each lesson you ll findanswers and explanations for the practice ll also find a section called Skill Building until NextTime after each practice session. These are helpful sug-gestions for practicing your new book also includes a pretest and post-test. To helpyou measure your progress, do the Pretest before youbegin lesson 1. The Pretest will give you a sense of yourstrengths and weaknesses so you can focus on specific chap-ters. After you finish the lessons, take the Post-test. You llbe able to see how much your Reading Comprehension skillshave improved. You ll also be able to find out if there areareas in which you may still need practice. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK LearningExpress Skill Buildersxiefore you begin, find out how much you already know aboutreading Comprehension and how much you need to this pretest. These 40 multiple-choice questions cover allof the topics in this book.

5 If your score is high, you might movethrough this book more quickly than you expected. If your score is low, youmay need more than 30 minutes to get through each the following page there is an answer sheet, or you can just circlethe correct answers. If you don t own this book, write the numbers 1 40on a sheet of paper, and write your answers next to the numbers. Take asmuch time as you need for this test. Then use the answer key at the end ofthe test to check your answers. The key tells you which lesson covers thestrategy in that luck!PRETESTBBL earningExpress Skill Buildersxii 8TH Grade Reading Comprehension Success PRETEST ANSWER SHEET :Read each passage below carefully and actively. Answer the questions that follow each sentence best expresses the main idea ofthis passage? actions can have a great impact on have been badly managed in must clean up their interact with one of the following best sums up the activi-ties within an ecosystem?

6 Prey among all animal relationship with the ecosystem can most accurately be defined specific community of plants and group of animals working protected ecosystem is a group of animals and plants living in a specific region and interacting with one another and withtheir physical environment. Ecosystems include physical and chemical components, such as soils, water, and nutri-ents. These components support the organisms living in the can also be thought of as the interactions among all organisms in a given habitat. These organ-isms may range from large animals to microscopic bacteria and work together in various ways. For example, onespecies may serve as food for are part of the ecosystems where they live and work. Human activities, such as housing developmentsand trash disposal, can greatly harm or even destroy local ecosystems. Proper ecosystem management is crucialfor the overall health and diversity of our planet. We must find ways to protect local ecosystems without stiflingeconomic Skill Buildersxiii PRETEST LearningExpress Skill BuildersxivTHESTORY the night of April 14, 1865 five days after the Civil War ended President Abraham Lincoln was attendingthe theater in Washington, In the middle of the performance, an actor named John Wilkes Booth, seeking toavenge the defeat of the South, slipped into the presidential box and shot the escaped the theater but broke his leg when he leaped from the President s box seat to the stage.

7 Beforeanybody could stop him, he limped out the back door, mounted a waiting horse, and disappeared into the nightwith a fellow hours later, at four o clock in the morning, Booth and his companion knocked on the door of SamuelMudd, a doctor living in southern Maryland. Dr. Mudd knew nothing about the assassination of the President,and acting as any doctor would to a stranger in distress, set the leg and persuaded the two travelers to stay in hishouse for the rest of the night. The next morning, Booth and his friend, using false names, paid the bill and of this merciful act, Dr. Mudd was arrested, taken to Washington, and tried on the charge that hewas a friend of Booth s and therefore helped plan the Mudd insisted that he knew nothing of the plot. But the military courts, angry at the President s death,sentenced the unfortunate doctor to life Mudd was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson, an island fortressin the middle of the sea about 120 miles west of the southern tip of horrible and unjust as this punishment must have been, a greater plight lurked at Fort Jefferson.

8 The warm,humid climate was a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Again and again, these pests spread yellow fever germsto prisoners and guards the fever struck, Dr. Mudd volunteered his services, because he was the only doctor on the island. Hehad to fight the disease, even after he was infected himself. In spite of the fact that the guards and other inmatescalled him that Lincoln murderer, and treated him very badly, he worked hard to fight the , his wife was working heroically back in Washington for her husband s cause. After a four-yearstruggle, she secured a pardon for him for a crime he never Mudd returned to Maryland to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Soon after Dr. Mudd s release, FortJefferson was abandoned. Today, the one-time prison sits in ruins, inhabited only by birds and Mudd was convicted helped Booth assassinate helped Booth get military courts wanted someone to payfor Lincoln s lied to the military alternative title for this passage might s Doc Gone Prison Unfair Trial for a Fair Man.

9 8TH Grade Reading Comprehension Success sort of doctor was Dr. Mudd? , , , , Mudd fought the yellow fever outbreak atFort Jefferson was no one else to treat the sick thought it would help get him a didn t want to get sick was forced to by the prison this sentence from the horrible and unjust as this punishment musthave been, a greater plightlurked at Fort it is used in this passage,plightmost of the following statements from thepassage represents the author s opinion? school is easier for the parentswho work in businesses and don t have thesummer to be with their regular school schedule requires that stu-dents attend classes from September to year-round school and regular schoolschedules are found throughout the year-round school, students attendclasses for nine weeks, and then have threeweeks year-round school and regular school schedules are found throughout the United States. With year-roundschool schedules, students attend classes for nine weeks, and then have three weeks vacation.

10 This continues allyear long. The regular school schedule requires that students attend classes from September to June, with a three-month summer vacation at the end of the year. This schedule began because farmers needed their children at hometo help with crops during the summer. Today, most people work in businesses and offices. Year-round school iseasier for parents who work in businesses and don t have the summer to be with their children. The regular schoolschedule is great for kids who like to have a long summer vacation. While some educational systems have changedtheir schedules to keep up with their population, others still use the old agrarian calendar. Both systems have dis-advantages and advantages, which is why schools use different Skill Buildersxv PRETEST LearningExpress Skill author feels school should decide what schedule school is year-round and regular school scheduleshave different advantages and regular school schedule is main organizing principle of this passage of and and SIBLINGRIVALRYYou will need to know the following words as you read the story:tandem:working togethermaneuver:make a series of changes in directionThe man with the bullhorn encouraged the runners as they made their way up the hill.