Comprehensive coverage of fundamental reading skills. From vocabulary and main idea to connections and inference, the 13 chapters in Putting It Together teach step by step the developmental skills and strategies that prepare students for successful reading in college and in life.
Unique "Putting It Together" approach builds skills into a whole reading experience. Like traditional reading textbooks, the chapters in Putting It Together break reading into its component skills - with plenty of opportunity for students to practice. Unlike other books, however, Putting It Together concludes each chapter with a unique set of readings and questions that give students a chance to put their skills together while reading whole essays.
The Reading the Parts essays and activities present an engaging reading, divided into manageable parts of two or three paragraphs. Each part is followed by several practice questions referring specifically back to those paragraphs. By reading the parts, students are able to work their way slowly through an essay, receiving constant reinforcement throughout.
The Reading the Whole essays reassemble the the essays in their entirety. Students then reread with a higher level of confidence and success and are able to answer the questions that follow, integrating skills into a whole reading experience.
A selection of essays that respect students' intelligence. Knowing that interesting essays on interesting topics motivate student reading, Putting It Together draws all its Reading the Parts and Reading the Whole essays from lively contemporary sources such as Time and Newsweek. Appropriate to students' ability (according to readability tests), these essays are nonetheless respectful of students' intelligence.
Textbook readings -- with thematic links -- broaden students' scope. Drawn from disciplines as diverse as psychology, sociology, biology, economics, and marketing, for example, these real textbook readings give students a chance in every chapter to practice their skills on the kinds of reading college requires. Explicit Thematic Connections provide a topical continuity with the chapter's other essays, and draw students into the textbook reading by linking it to subjects that interest them.
Hundreds of varied exercises offer constant practice. Punctuating the regular instruction in the beginning of every chapter are practice activities that isolate particular skills and give students a chance to succeed at smaller tasks before moving on to larger ones. These exercises, on perforated pages, can be used for self-study and practice or can be submitted to instructors as homework.
Critical thinking activities keep students involved. Every chapter begins with both a chapter introduction and Focusing Questions that ask students to reflect on how the chapter is relevant to them. Everyday Reading boxes follow, inviting students to tie their in-class experience to their out-of-class lives. Every chapter concludes with a summary and with Recall and Remember exercises that actively reinforce student learning.
The end-of-chapter practice simulates standardized tests. In addition to the exercises in the regular instruction, questions within the Reading the Parts essay at the end of each chapter closely resemble the questions asked on standardized tests, allowing students to practice for state-wide or school-wide exams.
Unequaled extras supplement text instruction. Understanding that learning college reading often requires more than just a book, Bedford/St. Martin's now makes available an impressive ancillary package with today's students and teachers in mind. See the list of supplements following the table of contents for more detail.