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A Guide to High School ReadingHigh school is an exciting and critical time when it comes to your son or daughter’s development as a reader. Each year from 9th through 12th grade brings new academic challenges, as classes become more specialized and students face longer and more complex reading assignments across a broad range of subjects. As they become young adults, many students begin to plan for college, taking standardized tests and writing application essays in addition to their regular school work.
To meet these challenges successfully, your son or daughter will need to develop strong comprehension and study skills and learn to read and think more analytically. This guide will walk you through the key components of high school reading and explain what your student can expect during these critical years.
FICTIONIn high school, students read a wide variety of novels, short stories, and plays that increase in difficulty and sophistication from year to year. Through these works, they encounter complex
characters and meaningful themes that connect to their lives, often challenging them to think about what it means to be a human being.
Students are expected to examine these texts closely and think critically about what they’re reading. To be successful, they need solid comprehension, an extensive vocabulary, and the ability to read quickly and efficiently. Students with strong skills in these areas not only succeed in their schoolwork, they also develop a lifelong habit of reading for pleasure.
Each year of high school brings new academic challenges and more complex reading assignments across a broad range of subjects.
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COMPREHENSION
Readers with good comprehension in literature are able to follow the events of the plot, understand characters’ motivations, and identify the underlying themes of a book. High school students learn to closely engage with texts to discover and probe their deeper meanings, and they learn to make broad connections to other books they’ve read and to their own lives. Engaging with books at this level helps reading come alive for students, making it more enjoyable and instilling a habit of reading for pleasure during high school and beyond.
Students build comprehension the same way they build any skills: practice. The best way for students to develop strong comprehension skills is to do a substantial amount of reading in different types of literature. As they read, discuss and write about fiction, they learn to pay attention to and think critically about these literary elements:
• Plot: Understanding plot structure means more than simply knowing what happens in a story. High school students learn to think about the narrative arc of a story, tracking how events unfold and how they relate to each other. They learn to identify the central conflict the characters face, and they look for how that conflict is resolved.
• Characters: High school students encounter rich and complex characters in their reading. They learn to think about characters’ motivations and how a character grows and changes over the course of the entire story. They are asked to consider the perspectives of different characters within a story, compare characters from different stories, and connect characters’ experiences to their own lives.
• Setting: Setting is when and where a story takes place. Thinking about the setting helps readers create a more vivid picture of the story in their minds. It also helps them
understand the characters more deeply, since location and historical context reveal a lot about a character’s thoughts and actions.
• Theme: The literature high school students read explores themes that are meaningful for young people, such as maturing to adulthood, navigating friendships, dealing with moral dilemmas, and overcoming adversity. As students engage with these, they learn to connect them to their own lives. They consider a variety of perspectives
Developing strong reading
comprehension has a huge impact on students’ success
in all subjects.Read More
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Programs for Every Grade
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on a theme, form their own opinions, and learn to support their point of view using evidence from the text. This experience can be deeply rewarding for high school students, who are grappling with the same issues as many of the characters they’ll encounter.
VOCABULARY
Having an extensive vocabulary is critical for handling the challenges of high school reading assignments, especially as students encounter more complex books. Students who read a lot have a big advantage when it comes to learning vocabulary. They encounter more words, and they get a lot of practice using context to understand their meanings. This has a number of important payoffs. Having a broad knowledge of vocabulary helps students do well in school, helps them comprehend and enjoy what they read, and prepares them to read even more challenging texts in years to come.
READING RATE
Reading too slowly can interfere with both concentration and comprehension. It’s like watching a movie played in slow-motion – it’s hard to understand what’s going on, and it’s easy to become distracted. When students read at an appropriate rate, they find that they focus better,
and their comprehension improves. Students who read more quickly are able to complete assignments on time and stay on top of their reading load. What’s more, they can easily become absorbed in a story, which makes reading much more enjoyable and rewarding.
Doing a substantial amount of reading is critical for increasing reading rate. As with any skill, students improve with practice – the more your son or daughter reads, the more rapid and efficient his or her reading will become.
NONFICTIONA lot of the reading your son or daughter will do in high school will be nonfiction. Informational nonfiction like textbooks explains concepts about the natural and social world, with lots of detailed information. Persuasive nonfiction like essays presents an argument backed up with evidence. Some texts will be assigned by their teachers, while students will be expected to find other resources on their own as they do research for papers and projects.
Discover the academic and
personal benefits of being a
lifelong reader. Learn More
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Reading nonfiction is different from reading fiction. Nonfiction is often dense and complex, and it can be challenging for students to comprehend and retain what they read. It involves more abstract and analytical thinking. Readers must be able to understand the relationship between ideas, compare different points of view, and evaluate information. Successful high school students apply comprehension strategies that focus on these elements of reading nonfiction:
• Identifying key concepts and supporting information: Readers with good comprehension in nonfiction are able to locate the central idea of a text and identify the information provided that explains it. They can follow and analyze how an idea develops over the course of the entire text and effectively summarize what they read. In informational reading, like textbooks, students must be able to distinguish main ideas from supporting details. In persuasive texts, students need to identify an author’s thesis – the main argument – and track the evidence used to support it.
• Recognizing text structures: Nonfiction material can be organized in different ways. For example, a textbook section might describe an organism, lay out the sequence of events from a historical period, or explain the cause and effect of a natural phenomenon. A persuasive essay might analyze a problem and propose solutions. Learning to recognize different text structures helps students better understand and retain complex information.
• Strategic Reading: In addition to thinking about the content and structure of what they read, it’s important for high school students to pay attention to how they read. Active readers take control of their reading before they even begin by asking themselves questions about what they expect to learn. They monitor their comprehension while they read, and they assess their understanding of the information once they’re finished.
In textbooks, active readers apply strategies like previewing a section or chapter before reading. They know how to use graphic features such as chapter titles, section headings, and bold print to keep track of a text’s organization while reading, and they use the review tools provided in textbooks to check comprehension after reading. In essays and other nonfiction, active readers identify an author’s thesis, pay attention to how an argument develops, and often engage in a conversation with the author, exploring their own responses to what they are reading.
Learning to take well-organized notes is another important strategic reading skill for high school students to master. Taking notes helps students learn and remember new information, and having clear,
BiologyBiology
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Explore 5 key strategies every student needs
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other nonfiction successfully. Read More
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organized notes to refer to is a valuable tool when writing papers or studying for tests.
Developing these nonfiction skills has clear academic benefits. It can also have personal rewards, as it sets students up to be curious, lifelong learners. Reading nonfiction can be fun as well as informative, and students who feel successful and confident with this kind of reading will always have an exciting world of information and ideas at their fingertips.
STANDARDIZED TESTSMany high school students will begin looking ahead and planning for college. Developing strong reading and critical thinking skills early in high school will prepare your son or daughter to do well on the standardized tests that are often a requirement when applying to colleges.
Students who actively develop their reading skills have a great advantage on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. These tests rely heavily on reading comprehension in both fiction and nonfiction passages, and they draw on the same skills students need in their regular school work. In nonfiction, test takers are asked to identify an author’s argument and cite specific evidence from the passage to answer questions. The fiction portions of these tests ask students to identify and analyze characters and themes based on close readings of passages from novels and short stories.
UNLOCK YOUR HIGH SCHOOLER'S POTENTIAL WITH READINGThe Institute of Reading Development understands that building the right skills and a love of reading will have a lasting impact on your child’s confidence and motivation in school and beyond.
In our 8-week online Speed Reading, Writing & Study Skills Program, your high schooler will improve reading rate and comprehension in two outstanding novels, expand vocabulary, learn to read textbooks and nonfiction, and strengthen essential writing skills - all with the help of an expert teacher.
Enrolling in this program will give your child a big academic advantage. It will also inspire him or her to read more great books for enjoyment, even after the program is over. You’ll see a difference in your child’s outlook and attitude toward reading.
Learn More - 9th Grade Learn More 10th-11th Grade
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Programs for Every Grade
Contact Us www.readingprograms.org
[email protected]© 2021 Institute of Reading Development1-800-470-2891
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LET’S DISCUSS YOUR CHILD’S READING DEVELOPMENTCall today to speak with an Institute of Reading Development Advisor. We’ll help you determine the best way to get your child to the next stage of his or her reading development.
Call 1-800-470-2891
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