The reading department's mission is captured within the following quotation: "Reading is the sole means by which we slip involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." By: Joyce Carol Oates

STRATEGIC READING – 1/2 Unit of credit Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors Prerequisite: None This course is designed to help students achieve higher levels of comprehension of the increasingly complex texts they face during their high school career, primarily through focusing on comprehension strategies, vocabulary development and fluency building. Students receive direct instruction in strategies they can use during the reading process, including techniques such as activating prior knowledge, surveying features of a text, making inferences, visualizing and summarizing. As they apply these strategies to reading assignments in content area courses and for research projects, they receive individualized instruction and work toward mastery. Language enrichment involves deep processing of curriculum-wide vocabulary with an emphasis on contextual understanding. Fluency develops from ongoing reading experiences as well as from practice in the reading portions of standardized tests, primarily the ACT.

ENGLISH/READING — 1 Unit of credit Freshmen Prerequisite: Concurrent enrollment in English 1 This is a two-semester course taught in conjunction with English 1. This course focuses on improving literal and inferential reading comprehension, vocabulary development, application of skills for all reading based courses, and incorporates learning strategies such as paraphrasing, test taking and sentence writing. Students are assessed and evaluated throughout the year to determine progress made. The classroom format utilizes direct instruction, discussion, independent learning and group work.