While the skills chapters are full of different types of exercises, the links between these skills and the readings presented in the alternate chapters is somewhat unclear. The teacher may see the rationale behind the format, but I fear that the student might not make the connection that easily. While the format is one of the books' weaknesses, the chapters on skills are their strengths. Using the example of an entertainment page from an American newspaper, the students practice these four skills through various types of exercises. Word study is another skill practiced in depth.
Students develop awareness of context clues and of stems and affixes.
Once again, the skills are reinforced with copious exercises. The sections on sentence study are especially effective. Students often cannot negotiate their way through lengthy, complex sentences. They may experience difficulty negotiating the meanings of words or phrases such as as a result of or because of, which act as markers to indicate various relationships between ideas in a sentence. The exercises in this section are very helpful in aiding the student towards increased comprehension of sentence structure.