Critical reading describes an active and thoughtful approach to what you read. The word critical indicates thinking carefully and evaluating what a writer says. Reading critically means thinking about and analyzing what you read.

Critical reading involves identifying an author’s purpose, distinguishing between facts and opinions, recognizing and making judgments, and understanding the writer’s perspective, or point of view, about a topic. Critical readers are able to detect an author’s bias, if there is one. They are also able to understand an author’s tone or attitude toward a subject.

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This video explains how to notice purpose, how to distinguish facts from opinions, and how to assess a writer’s point-of-view.

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CONTINUE THROUGH THE UNIT

The study pages include practice activities with short passages. As read you through the study pages and practice with LearningCurve before taking the post-test, focus on naming the purpose of the passage, on separating facts from opinions, and on understanding the writer’s perspective.

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