St. Benedict Middle School Reading Website
by Mr. Konieczny
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St. Benedict Middle School Reading Website
Grade 6

The St. Benedict Middle School reading program uses the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Reading series (copyright © 2005 by Macmillan/McGraw-Hill).

Unit 1 Unit 2
S.O.R. Losers Last Summer with Maizon
The All-American Slurp Ta-Na-E-Ka
Viva New Jersey Number the Stars
Rain, Rain, Go Away Opera, Karate, and Bandits
A Viking Voyage Cleopatra's Lost Palace
Unit 3 Unit 4
A Boy of Unusual Vision Mummies, Tombs, and Treasure...
The School Play Over the Top of the World
The Singing Man The Panthom Tollbooth
Painters of the Caves Exploring the Titanic
Is This Ancient Bone... Back to the Moon!
Unit 5 Unit 6
Child of the Owl Mandela
Bellerophon and the Flying Horse My Friend Flicka
Adventure in Space Alexander the Great
Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter The Circuit
The History of Money A Great Wall?

Unit 1: Pathways
Reflecting on life's experiences can lead to new understandings.

S.O.R. Losers
Summary: A boy and his friends are forced to play soccer because of school rules. They resist peer pressure and, instead of feeling bad about being the school's first losing team, keep their confidence in themselves
Comprehension: Make Predictions
Vocabulary:

  1. attitude
  2. bribe
  3. cringing
  4. defect
  5. pep
  6. treason
Top

The All-American Slurp
Summary: An Asian family copes with learning American customs, especially American eating habits
Comprehension: Sequence of Events
Vocabulary:

  1. acquainted
  2. buffet
  3. inflections
  4. relish
  5. residence
  6. rummage
Top

Viva New Jersey
Summary: A girl, who moves from Cuba to New Jersey, solves the problems of being lonely in a new place by finding a home for a dog and making a new friend in the process
Comprehension: Story Elements
Vocabulary:

  1. destination
  2. majestic
  3. makeshift
  4. mongrel
  5. protruding
  6. silhouetted
Top

Rain, Rain, Go Away
Summary: The new neighbors are mysteriously obsessed with rain. While unraveling the mystery, students will learn about the weather.
Comprehension: Make Predictions
Vocabulary:

  1. contrast
  2. existence
  3. jubilantly
  4. pedestals
  5. psychology
  6. subdued
Top

Time for Kids: A Viking Voyage
Summary: Viking culture and navigation are the focus as students read about the adventures of a man and his crew as they recreate the voyage of Leif Ericson.
Comprehension: Sequence of Events
Vocabulary:

  1. rudder
  2. dreamer
  3. technology
  4. landmarks
  5. site
  6. precise
Top

Unit 2: A Common Thread
A look beneath the surface may uncover hidden connections.

Last Summer with Maizon
Summary: Maizon and Margaret are best friends. However, when Maizon leaves for boarding school, Margaret stays behind. Margaret faces her loneliness and deals with her new-found independence.
Comprehension: Compare and Contrast
Vocabulary:

  1. desolate
  2. essay
  3. exaggerated
  4. fidgeted
  5. somberly
  6. tokens
Top

Ta-Na-E-Ka
Summary: Ta-Na-E-Ka, the flowering of adulthood, is a tribal ritual that means nothing to Mary and everything to her grandfather. Mary finds a way to avoid the hardships of the Kaw ritual, yet proves her ability to survive in the modern, adult world.
Comprehension: Problen and Solution
Vocabulary:

  1. encounter
  2. grimaced
  3. ordeals
  4. participate
  5. spat
  6. victorious
Top

Number the Stars
Summary: The year is 1943, and the Nazis are relocating Danish Jews. The Rosens need help from their friends, the Johansens. The Johansens's courage can be senses as they pass Ellen Rosen off as their own daughter when the Germans knock at their door.
Comprehension: Compare and Contrast
Vocabulary:

  1. dramatics
  2. exasperated
  3. improvement
  4. pouted
  5. rationed
  6. sophisticated
Top

Opera, Karate, and Bandits
Summary: Vietnamese children in rural villages planted rice, encountered tigers and wild hogs, and enjoyed close family ties. Huynh Quang Hhuong's boyhood experiences are shared in these stories or rural Vietnamese childhood.
Comprehension: Main Idea
Vocabulary:

  1. cultivate
  2. devised
  3. diminished
  4. edible
  5. mythology
  6. retrieved
Top

Time for Kids: Cleopatra's Lost Palace
Summary: After sixteen centuries Cleopatra's palace is found at last- under water. Experts uncover the mysteries and treasures of the lost palace of Egypt's last pharaoh.
Comprehension: Draw Conclusions
Vocabulary:

  1. splendors
  2. surprisingly
  3. undersea
  4. deep-sea
  5. cobblestone
  6. romance
Top

Unit 3: With Flying Colors
Creative people help us see the world from different perspectives.

A Boy of Unusual Vision
Summary: Being blind doesn't limit Calvin Stanley's ability to enjoy life. He sees through the eyes of his parents and friends, and encounters all the joys of life by believing that blindness can't stop him
Comprehension: Author's Purpose, Point of View
Vocabulary:

  1. diagonal
  2. inquisitive
  3. painstakingly
  4. storage
  5. unconsciously
  6. visual
Top

The School Play
Summary: School plays bring out the jitters in every student, but this is doubly true for Robert. No matter how often he practices, he flubs his line. Students' nerves twitch as Robert survives his "nearly perfect" performance.
Comprehension: Steps in a Process
Vocabulary:

  1. cut-out
  2. dented
  3. flurries
  4. frothing
  5. narrative
  6. tattoo
Top

The Singing Man
Summary: "A people without a past have no future," Sholo tells Banzar. A man sings the history of his people gains the respect of his family
Comprehension: Cause and Effect
Vocabulary:

  1. abide
  2. acceptable
  3. boyhood
  4. famine
  5. trill
  6. wares
Top

Painters of the Caves
Summary: Three friends explore the hills of Avignon, France, and make a remarkable discovery- 300 preserved cave paintings in hand-made reds, yellows, and browns. Students uncover how prehistoric Picassos created these masterpieces.
Comprehension: Summarize
Vocabulary:

  1. badge
  2. engrave
  3. hibernate
  4. honeycombed
  5. scaffold
  6. sculpting
Top

Time for Kids: Is This Ancient Bone the World's First Flute
Summary: Paleontologists discover the leg bone of a bear cub with four holes pierced in it. This might be a flute made by Neanderthals, or it could be a done pierced by a wolf's teeth. Readers must decide if this bone really is the world's first flute.
Comprehension: Steps in a Process
Vocabulary:

  1. brute
  2. complex
  3. perceptions
  4. controversy
  5. researchers
  6. punctured
Top

Unit 4: Seek and Discover
To make new discoveries, we must observe and explore.

Mummies, Tombs, and Treasure: Secrets of Ancient Egypt
Summary: Readers visit the archaeological dig of Carter and Carnarvon as they uncover the riches of King Tut's tomb. Is there really a curse? How can the strange situations that accompanied the dig be explained?
Comprehension: Fact and Nonfact
Vocabulary:

  1. bazaars
  2. coffins
  3. dramatically
  4. looted
  5. pharaoh
  6. tomb
Top

Over the Top of the World
Summary: Students wish they had remembered their mittins as they mush beside Will Steger on his sled-dog trek across the Arctic. Experience the hardships and challenges of travelling through sub-zero temperatures day and night.
Comprehension: Important and Unimportant Information
Vocabulary:

  1. accumulating
  2. environmental
  3. formation
  4. industrial
  5. remote
  6. submerged
Top

The Phantom Tollbooth
Summary: Milo takes a trip through the land of Digitopolis to save the Princess Ryme and Reason. Milo's adventure is an unbelievable tale filled with magic, mischief, and a cast of bizarre but unforgettable characters.
Comprehension: Story Elements
Vocabulary:

  1. appreciation
  2. cellophane
  3. explosions
  4. hard-boiled
  5. tollbooth
  6. triangles
Top

Exploring the Titanic
Summary: Students join undersea explorer Robert Ballard as he seeks the wreck of the Titanic. The ship, sunk in 1912, lies 13000 feet down in the North Atlantic. Ballard's search is a scientific triumph, luring students on this voyage to the bottom of the sea.
Comprehension: Important and Unimportant Information
Vocabulary:

  1. capsule
  2. interior
  3. lifeboat
  4. maiden
  5. portholes
  6. severed
Top

Time for Kids: Back to the Moon!
Summary: In this Time for Kids, readers learn about the mission and its challenges and victories, as NASA returns to the moon after 26 years with the Lunar Prospector to map its surface.
Comprehension: Fact and Nonfact
Vocabulary:

  1. equipped
  2. lunar
  3. sensor
  4. hydrogen
  5. magnetic
  6. quantities
Top

Unit 5: Brainstorms
We can meet any challenge with determination and ingenuity.

Child of the Owl
Summary: Child of the Owl reveals how a young girl discovers her Asian heritage by living with her grandmother. As the story unfolds, students will identify the story elements that make this such an engaging work of fiction.
Comprehension: story elements
Vocabulary:

  1. banister
  2. grudged
  3. porcelain
  4. rhythmically
  5. troublemaking
  6. truce
Top

Bellerophon and the Flying Horse
Summary: Students will find out about mythological heroes and creatures as they read the ancient Grek myth of a boy who slays a monster and becomes a hero.
Comprehension: sequence of events
Vocabulary:

  1. ferocious
  2. lavishly
  3. rash
  4. reassure
  5. thunderous
  6. waving
Top

Adventure in Space
Summary: Adventure in Space tells the true story of a team of astronauts sent into space to repair the orbiting Hubble Telescope, and the inventiveness, keen judgments, and decisions that produced success.
Comprehension: judgments and decisions
Vocabulary:

  1. bloodstream
  2. compartment
  3. deliberately
  4. handshake
  5. maneuvering
  6. void
Top

Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter
Summary: In this spin-off of a favorite fairy tale, students will find out how a young girl takes a stand against a miserly king and teaches him the true meaning of riches.
Comprehension: story elements
Vocabulary:

  1. barley
  2. coincidences
  3. knickers
  4. mufflers
  5. sheepishly
  6. sweeten
Top

Time for Kids: The History of Money
Summary: Salt, shells, tea leaves, seeds, camels, and dried fish have all been used as money. Students will learn how these early forms of money gave way to precious metals as well as paper currency.
Comprehension: sequence of events
Vocabulary:

  1. automated
  2. currency
  3. loans
  4. bartending
  5. fee
  6. teller
Top

Unit 6: All Things Considered
Encountering new places and people can help us make decisions.

Mandela
Summary: Students will read about how standing firm with confidence enabled a young South African boy to finish law school, endure years in prison, and emerge to become the first president of a new government in which all South Africans could vote.
Comprehension: recognize techniques of persuasion
Vocabulary:

  1. capable
  2. counselor
  3. equator
  4. formost
  5. nimbly
  6. stubbornness
Top

My Friend Flicka
Summary: A young boy, growing up on a ranch, sets a goal to gentel a filly thought to be tameless. Boy and filly each face death, but survive to become friends.
Comprehension: problem and solution
Vocabulary:

  1. concealed
  2. darning
  3. poring
  4. rebellious
  5. sauntered
  6. wide-open
Top

Alexander the Great
Summary: Students will read about how clever and daring Alexander, young heir of Macedon, dedicated his life to conquering most of the world known the ancient Greeks.
Comprehension: evaluate evidence and sources
Vocabulary:

  1. botanists
  2. cavalry
  3. plundered
  4. surveryors
  5. tutor
  6. worthwhile
Top

The Circuit
Summary: Students will read this inspirational story of how a young migrant worker in California overcomes language barriers and other hardships to become a college professor and a famous writer.
Comprehension: problem and solution
Vocabulary:

  1. acquired
  2. drone
  3. enthusiastically
  4. hesitantly
  5. husky
  6. instinctively
Top

Time for Kids: A Great Wall?
Summary: Students will discover how river water moves wheels and magnets in generators to produce hydroelectric power. They will also read how 1.2 million Chinese must move from their homes due to the contruction of the world's most powerful dam.
Comprehension: recognize techniques of persuasion
Vocabulary:

  1. reservoir
  2. generators
  3. temporary
  4. ecological
  5. monitor
  6. habitats
Top

Last Update: July 30, 2005

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