"Words You Should Know" - Reading Skills and Terms

This is the reason why the author wrote a text.  Authors can have more than one purpose (and usually do!).  Sometimes, a text can have more than one purpose at the same time.

For the 4 major types, think "PIEE"

Persuade - written to convince the reader to do something or think a certain way.

Inform - written to describe something, give information on a topic or event.  Not especially exciting or amusing.

Entertain - written to amuse the reader, to have fun

Express - written to show strong emotions or feelings.

This is how the author FEELS about the topic of the story.  Look for how the author describes settings, characters, or ideas.  This should help you figure out his or her opinion of the topic.

Biographies are true stories, written about a real person.  They can be about the person's entire life, or just one part of the person's life.

Biographies written by the topic person (usually written in 1st person) are called autobiographies.  (If you wrote a story about your own life, it would be an autobiography.)

Biographies are often written using research on the person.  The author can interview people, look up other books, use photographs, or get information from other places.

A person or animal in a story. We learn about them by what they DO, what they SAY or THINK, and what OTHERS do or say about them.  You can also learn about a character based on how they look, but this does not always work.  (Remember to not judge a book by its cover.)

Compare - Describe how two or more things are similar.

Contrast - Describe how two or more things are different.

Use a Venn diagram or other organizer to compare and contrast.  This is made with two overlapping circles.  One circle is one topic, the other circle is the second topic.  Where the circles overlap, write facts that are true for both topics.