In elementary school, you learn the basics of reading and writing— recognizing and sounding out words while reading and composing sentences and short paragraphs while writing.

To succeed in middle and high school, however, you must be able to do much more than these literary basics. You must be a critical reader, examining texts closely and questioning authors’ opinions and ideas. Also, you must be able to develop, organize, compose and edit longer writing assignments than you faced in elementary school. Here are some strategies to build your reading and writing skills this school year.

READING CRITICALLY
We read to understand, or at least to begin to understand. If your reading ability is limited to sounding out words, you will learn some facts and gain some knowledge. Sounding out words generally means you can read, remember and repeat what you’ve read.

But if all you do is read for facts, you miss out on the opportunity to interpret information, develop your opinions and acquire a deeper understanding of what you’ve read. In other words, it’s time to improve your reading skills and become a critical reader.

A critical reader can “read” things that are not written on the page. Within the text, the critical reader finds and then comprehends the author’s ideas. This may sound like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, if you plan accordingly, critical reading can be a successful treasure hunt. These tips may help.

Give the material the once over.
Invest in the same kind of time in your reading that you do in making a new purchase. For example, when you’re planning to buy new music online, you likely sample it, check out the artist’s other work and see what other people have to say about the listening experience. Do the same for what you’re about to read.

•Sample the literary work in bits or even skim the whole text. Write down questions that come to mind or what you think the author’s point might be.

•Determine how long the reading is and figure out how long it is going to take you to truly read— not skim— the material.

•Research the author and learn what kind of expert he is. Uncover what critics and other readers have to say about the author and this particular title.

Open up.
Have an open mind when you read. Though you get to decide what to accept and believe in what you read, you have to give what you read a fair chance. Otherwise, you’ll get nothing from your reading. In critical reading, the “critical” isn’t about finding fault, it is about checking out other people’s ideas and why they might be good or bad. To be fair, you’re going to have to:

•Read slowly.

•Look up words or concepts that are unfamiliar to you.

•Re-read parts that are confusing or raise questions.

Chat.
You probably can’t have a conversation with the author. Yet, you can write down thoughts you have about what the author has to say.

If you are reading critically, you should have comments about what you are reading. The author’s ideas should entice you to have ideas of your own— and those ideas can be in agreement or disagreement with the author. Write your thoughts and questions on the pages you are reading or, if the book or text is not yours, keep a journal. You may also want to:

•Write down or talk with someone about the feelings you have about what you’ve read.

•Figure out how the author’s ideas are relevant to you and to others.

•Discuss with other readers anything you are confused about or question in the text.

TACKLING THE WRITING PROCESS
While highly important, learning to write well can be difficult. Writing well is hard because it requires many different skills: good attention and concentration; strong grammar, spelling, punctuation and vocabulary; the ability to review and analyze your work and spot weaknesses; and the patience to revise and edit your work.

Whether you’re writing a research report, a short story or even a letter, follow the steps below to create a well-organized, thoughtful piece of writing.

Pre-write or plan your works.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to start writing a final paper before you’ve thought about your assignment, gathered information, conducted research and organized your material. To tackle some of the essential components of pre-writing:

•Brainstorm your ideas. Think about what you’d like to write about and jot down your thoughts.

•Make an evaluation. Determine whether you need to gather more information or do research.

•Organize your thoughts. Cluster related ideas and put them in a logical order.

Start the paper by composing a draft.

Put your ideas and information down on paper, using complete sentences and paragraphs. Go back to the brainstorming and outlining that you did in the pre-writing step, and think about the best order to present your ideas and connect your information.

Don’t worry about grammar and spelling right now, this is your rough draft and you will make changes and corrections to this draft in the next two steps.

Revise your draft.
Take a look what you’ve written and try to put yourself in your readers’ shoes. Have you organized your material well? Will your readers understand what you’re trying to say? Have you given enough examples and information to support your statements? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you should go back to your rough draft and make changes.

During this revising step of the writing process, you may also want to ask someone else, such as a parent, teacher or friend, to read your work and give you feedback.

Proofread your work.
Once you’ve finished revising your draft and you’re happy with what you’ve written, you need to proofread your writing. You may be tired of looking at your work. However, you’ve spent a lot of time organizing, drafting and revising your paper; don’t let a few careless mistakes ruin all of your hard work. Carefully read your paper one more time, this time looking closely for any mistakes in spelling, grammar, capitalization, punctuation and word usage. Keep your dictionary and grammar guide handy during this step.

The more closely you observe what you read and what details you include in your writing, the more successful you become as a reader and writer.

Reading and writing also demand that you think up both questions and answers. As a strong reader, you judge whether the writer has made solid arguments and supported them with good examples and details. And remember, when you’re the writer, others will be reading your work critically. This means it’s important to plan before you write and review your work carefully.

Susannah Harris is the manager of AdLit.org, a Web site offering adolescent literacy articles, research, teaching strategies and book recommendations to the parents and educators of students in grades 4–12. Rachael Walker is the outreach consultant for several Web-based educational initiatives, including AdLit.org, Reading Rockets (for students in pre-k through grade 3), Colorín Colorado (for English language learners) and LD Online (for people with learning disabilities).