Grades 9 - 12 Reading

Appropriate – correct or suitable for a particular time, situation, or purpose

Captions – words printed above or below a picture in a book or newspaper or on a television screen to explain what the picture is showing

Clarifying – to make a statement or situation less confused and more clearly comprehensible

Compare/Contrast – to identify the likenesses or differences

Comparison – the process of comparing two or more people or ideas

Complex Written Materials – reading materials that are challenging for many reasons: high level vocabulary words, meaning is unclear, the reader needs to make inferences to understand the text, the way it is organized is different from what children are used to, or relationships in the text are complicated

Compound Word – a word composed of two or more words; these two or more words may be joined together by a hyphen

Conclusion – something you decide after considering all the information you have available

Context Clues – words or phrases in a text that help a reader to figure out the meaning of an unknown word

Convince – to persuade someone to do something

Credible – accurate and reliable

Definitions – an exact statement or description of the nature, scope, or meaning of something

Determine – to find out the facts about something

Dialogue – a conversation in a book, play or film

Distinguish – to recognize or treat (someone or something) as different

Drawing conclusions – using what you know in your head and what you read in the story to make meaning of the text/story

Editing and revising – editing refers to proofreading a piece of writing to check for correct punctuation, capitalization, spelling and grammar usage; revising refers to proofreading a piece of writing to check for development, organization and style

Effortlessly – something that is effortless is done in a very skillful way that makes it seem easy

Emphasize – to give special importance to something

Engaging conversations – large and small group discussions where children actively share their knowledge and expertise about a subject

Evaluate – to judge how good, useful or successful something is

Evidence – facts or signs that show clearly that something exists or is true

Examine – to look at something carefully and thoroughly because you want to find out more about it

Experiences – something that happens to you or something you do, especially when this has an effect on what you feel or think

Figurative, Connotative, Technical word meaning – writers use words in different ways depending on their purpose. Authors might use words with a figurative meaning which is different from their literal, or usual, meaning (She is as slow as molasses). Authors might use words with a technical meaning, when writing about a specific subject area (use of the word “kindling” when referring to making a campfire). Sometimes writers choose words with a positive, negative or neutral connotative meaning to show how they feel about the topic (use of the word “plan” has neutral connotation; the word “scheme”  has a negative connotation). You can figure out the author’s intended meaning by thinking about the word’s context, or the text that comes before or after it.

Figures of speech – hyperbole: an exaggeration that is so dramatic that no one would believe it is true (“I’ve told you a million times.”). Paradox: a statement that seems contradictory or against common sense, yet is perhaps true (a wise fool).

Glossary – an alphabetical list of terms or words found in or relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief dictionary

Graphics – something such as a picture that you can see, as opposed to the parts that you hear or read

Graphic Organizers – visual templates/forms that help children organize information and make it easier to understand how ideas connect together 

Header (Headings) – bold or single words at the beginning of a section of text

Inference – a conclusion reached based on evidence and reasoning. For example: "The student wore mittens, a wool coat and a cap as he walked to school." You can infer that it was cold outside. 

Informational text – non-fiction information (biographies, autobiographies, personal essays, speeches, memoirs, historical documents, books about history, social studies, science, and the arts)

Informative – providing many useful facts or information

Intimidating – making you feel worried and not confident

Italics – a type of printed letters that lean to the right, often used to emphasize particular words

Literacy – skills that involve reading, writing, speaking and listening

Main idea – the big idea about a story

Media – all the organizations, such as television, radio and newspapers that provide news and information for the public; the people who do this work

Misleading – likely to make someone believe something that is not true

Multi-syllable word – a word that is made up of smaller parts and each part has a vowel sound (con/tes/tant = contestant)

Narrative – an account of connected events presented to a reader

Online resource – ability to use internet sources to assist learning or find information about a particular subject

Opinion – your ideas or beliefs about a particular subject

Participate – to take part in an activity or event

Persuasively – students convincingly and effectively share their ideas

Plot – the events that form the main story of a book, film or play

Prefix – a letter or a group of letters that comes at the beginning of a word and has a meaning of its own ("re" within the word "redo")

Pronunciation – the way in which a language or a particular word is pronounced

Publish – to make official information such as a report available for everyone to read

Quote – to repeat exactly what someone else has said or written

Recognizing – Identify (someone or something) from having encountered them before

Reinforce – to give support to an opinion, idea or feeling, and make it stronger

Revise – to change something because of new information or ideas

Rich vocabulary – vocabulary that enhances and creates a clear understanding of the text or conversation

Sequence – the order that something happens or exists in, or the order it is supposed to happen or exist in

Sequence of events – the order in which thing are connected, related or have occurred

Setting – the place or time where the events in a book or film happen

Sources – a thing, place or activity that you get something from

Specific evidence – exact facts taken from the text to support or negate a particular claim

Suffix – a letter or a group of letters that comes at the end of a word and has a meaning of its own ("ing" within the word "running")

Summary – a short statement that gives the main information about something without giving all the details

Suspense – a feeling of excitement or anxiety when you do not know what will happen next

Theme – the subject for a piece of fictional reading

Volume – the amount of sound produced