Do you know how a rocks are formed? Have you ever wondered why the food pictured on a menu looks so delicious? How do tell a moth from a butterfly? How do fossils form? Reading Skills 4B is a collection of nonfiction passages with interactive learning activities, written by children's author Marne Ventura, M.A. and developed by Fred Ventura, Ph.D., as part of the Reading Skills Series published by Ventura Educational Systems.

Understanding informational text is essential to literacy. To help young readers develop this skill, twelve fun, high-interest passages about a famous woman astronaut, the structure of atoms, antioxidants, fungus and much more, written at the fourth grade reading level, are presented:

Astronaut Sally Ride
What is an Atom
How Do Fossils Form?
Awesome Antioxidants
I Want to Share Your Blood
Food Stylists Tricks
What is a Cell?
Butterfly or Moth?
Fungus Among Us
Wonderful Water
What is Energy?
The Rock Cycle

Each passage is followed by three engaging activities based on the following Common Core Standards for Grade 4 Language Arts:

• comprehension
• vocabulary
• main idea and supporting details
• drawing conclusions
• making inferences
• summarizing
• synonyms and antonyms
• multiple meanings words
• fact vs. opinion
• genre
• author's purpose
• compare and contrast
• text features

The Reading Skills 4B follow-up activities for each of the 12 passages are described below:

Word Fun - a clue is given along with the scrambled letters of a vocabulary word from the passage. The challenge is to unscramble the letters to spell the word.

Fact Check - helps improve recall and comprehension. Students read a statement and tap either True or False based on the contents of the passage.

Skills Practice - Students practice reading comprehension skills by answering multiple choice questions.

A record-keeping component keeps track of the student’s scores on all of the activities.