Designed to help students build a foundation for critical reading, this text uses a metacognitive approach that integrates three reading instruction components - active reading skills, cognitive concepts understanding, and pattern recognition techniques.
Active reading is built into the structure of the text. Questioning techniques are integrated throughout - chapter heads include a question, chapter openers list questions that students can answer, and previewing techniques are integrated and expanded as higher order thinking skills are introduced.
The text also acquaints students with a core of cognitive concepts that underlie analytical reading so students can better understand their learning processes. In addition, students build cognitive frameworks (time lines, classifications) that are in common use in college courses to gain an understanding of the connections and relationships within them.
The organization of The Inquiring Reader progressively integrates these three concerns. Part 1, “Reading for Information,” uses a questioning approach to introduce the basics and develops each topic in separate chapters: topics, ideas, main ideas, implied main ideas. Part 2, “Reading for Understanding,” stresses understanding information through explaining and summarizing important concepts oneself. Part 3, “Reading for Patterns,” engages students in reading articles and longer textbook passages with graphics.
