This book is designed to help you improve your reading comprehension skills by studying 20 minutes a day for 20 days. You'll start with the basics and move into more complex reading comprehension and critical thinking strategies. Please note that although each chapter can be an effective skill builder on its own, it is important that you proceed through this book in order, from Lesson 1 through Lesson 20. Each lesson builds on skills and ideas discussed in the previous chapters. As you move through this book and your reading skills develop,the passages you read will increase both in length and in complexity.

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Introduction ·  How to Use This Book

Pretest

Building a Strong Foundation

Lesson 1   ·  Getting the Essential Information

       How to be an active reader, picking up clues in what you read

Lesson 2   ·  Finding the Main Idea

       Looking beyond the facts, considering the author's motive

Lesson 3   ·  Defining Vocabulary in Context

       Dealing with unfamiliar words without a dictionary

Lesson 4   ·  The Difference Between Fact and Opinion

       Distinguishing between what an author knows and

       what an author believes to be true

Lesson 5   ·  Putting It All Together

       Practice in combining the skills you've learned in Lessons 1-4

Structure

Lesson 6   ·  Start from the Beginning: Chronological Order

       Working through passages that start at the beginning and

       finish at the end of a sequence of events

Lesson 7   ·  Order of Importance

       Using the order in the writing to determine what is

       most important to the author

Lesson 8   ·  Similarities and Differences: Compare and Contrast

        Using comparisons to determine the author's attitude

Lesson 9   ·  Why Do Things Happen？ A Look at Cause and Effect

       The relationship between action and reaction

Lesson 10  ·  Being Structurally Sound: Putting It All Together

       Reviews Lessons 6-9, including identifying the structure used;

       practice with combined structures

Language and Style

Lesson 11  · A Matter of Perspective: Point of View

       Purposes of first, second, and third person writing

Lesson 12  · Diction: What's in a Word？

      Defining tone from the choice of words

Lesson 13  · Style: It's Not What They Say but How They Say It

      Sentence structure; degree of detail, description, and formali

Lesson 14  · How They Say It, Part Two: Tone

      How tone influences meaning

Lesson 15  · Word Power: Putting It All Together

      Reviews Lessons 11-14

Reading Between the Lines

Lesson 16  · Finding the Implied Main Idea

      Making inferences, determining an unstated purpose

Lesson 17  · Assuming Causes and Predicting Effects

      Reading between the lines, implied action and reaction

Lesson 18  · Emotional Versus Logical Appeals

      Being aware of strong and weak arguments

Lesson 19  · Finding Meaning in Literature

      Identifying themes, working with poetry

Lesson 20  · Drawing Conclusions: Putting It All Together

      Reviews Lessons 1-19

Post-Test

Appendix A  · Preparing for a Standardized Test

Appendix B  · Additional Resources