Textbooks aren't Fun Anymore: Middle School

What You Need to Know 

Your middle schooler is now facing 300 pages of history text, full of dense, serious words and more complex content of a whole new style, on a much higher level than in elementary. For many, reading and understanding this material is a skill that must be learned and practiced.

How You Can Help

The next time your child faces a history reading assignment at home, employ this simple “Preview, Read, Review” technique:

• “Just sit down and read,” might work fine for a summer whodunit, but history texts require an internal boost from the reader. Your child must learn instead to, “Read with a purpose,” of delving into the text in pursuit of a factual story.
• Have your child start by previewing the assigned pages by taking five minutes or less to look over headings, pictures, maps, graphs, and captions. Previewing allows your child to take charge of the reading process. Without having gotten into the text itself, have your child try and predict what the text's main idea must be, and how it might relate to previous knowledge. Finish off the pre-reading by looking over any assigned comprehension questions, which your child should be able use part one to determine where answers should be found.
• Now your child may read the text carefully, checking in after each sub-section to assess how the latest information fits into the big picture.
• Your child's work isn't done when he reaches the end of an assigned section – you must also insist on a five minute review, which involves going back to the headings, pictures, maps, graphs and captions to ask, “What did I just learn?” and “What didn't I understand?” to guide which sections might need to be re-read a bit more closely.

For more on this topic, please see the full article:

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/When_Child_Hates_Textbook/